Minister refuses to rule out extra profit cuts amid backlash over Liz Kendall transfer to slash incapacity funds – UK politics dwell

Final night time, to again up its evaluation of the incapacity cuts, the Institute for Fiscal Research printed two charts illustrating elements of the adjustments.

This one exhibits how the £5bn cuts introduced yesterday evaluate in scale to earlier profit cuts, listed right here so as of how large they had been, in present costs.

And this one exhibits how incapacity profit, or the utmost well being top-up for common credit score, as it’s now, has steadily turn out to be price considerably greater than the usual price. The adjustments introduced yesterday are supposed to reverse this pattern.

Matt Hancock, the previous Tory well being secretary, has simply began giving proof to the Covid inquiry as a part of its inquiry into PPE procurement.

There’s a dwell feed right here.

I gained’t be protecting it minute by minute, however I’ll submit any highlights.

Neil Findlay, a former Labour MSP, has resigned from the celebration over the incapacity profit cuts.

In an open letter to Keir Starmer posted on social media, he says authorities claims that the cuts are motivated by the will to get extra sick and disabled individuals again into work are “lies”. He goes on:

In fact individuals who can work ought to work – nobody is questioning that – however for my family members, pals and neighbours, and your constituents who’ve the misfortune to undergo from a continual, debilitating, long-term situation that leaves them bed-bound, unable to depart their residence or crushed by psychological sickness, these cuts is not going to inspire them to get again to work, it is going to as an alternative scare and humiliate them and strip them of their dignity and self respect and for some it is going to ship them to an early grave. The blame for this can lie squarely with you and the sycophants inside your celebration who passively help these dreadful cuts.

Severin Carrell is the Guardian’s Scotland editor.

Reform UK has recorded its highest polling determine for a Scottish election, with a ballot by Survation placing its help at 17% within the constituency vote – comfortably forward of the Scottish Conservatives and 6 factors behind Labour.

The ballot for the general public relations agency Quantum Communications additionally discovered that Reform UK was three factors forward of the Tories within the regional checklist vote on 16%, with Scottish Labour on 20%.

Due to Holyrood’s proportional voting system, that means Reform UK may win 14 Scottish parliament seats in Could 2026.

These would most probably come through the regional lists, the place any vote greater than 5% places a celebration in competition for seats, however at 17% within the constituency vote, some first previous the submit seats would additionally come into play.

Survation discovered the Scottish Nationwide celebration will comfortably win, with 34% of the constituency vote and 29% of the checklist vote. The Diffley Partnership estimates that will give the SNP 55 seats towards 19 for Labour and 17 for the Tories total.

These knowledge affirm proof from the Scottish Election Survey that Reform UK is splitting the non-nationalist vote, regardless of having no Scottish chief and solely a handful of council seats – all gained by sitting councillors defecting.

It has but to win any elections in Scotland but seems to be taking vital votes from the Tories but additionally some from Labour, and some within the margins from the Liberal Democrats and SNP.

Prof Nicola McEwen, director of the Centre for Public Coverage on the College of Glasgow, mentioned that till now Scotland appeared to have bucked the Reform UK pattern in England and Wales.

Though small numbers within the pattern level to the necessity for warning, 16 to 24-year-olds symbolize Reform’s strongest voter group by age.

This isn’t distinctive to Scotland. Throughout the UK and Europe, far proper events as we speak seem in a position to seize help from younger individuals to ranges usually related to the far left.

Survation has posted particulars of the ballot on social media.

The impartial peer Lord Darzi, a senior adviser to the federal government on the NHS, didn’t formally declare shareholdings in healthcare corporations price lots of of hundreds of kilos, David Conn stories.

The federal government is contemplating extending incapacity residing allowance for youngsters in order that, if a dad or mum has given up work to take care of the kid and she or he dies, the profit retains being paid for a interval.

In an interview with Sky Information, Stephen Timms, the social safety and incapacity minister, mentioned:

One factor we’re is, and we’re taking authorized recommendation about this in the mean time, the potential of extending incapacity residing allowance for youngsters, the profit that’s paid when kids are very unwell, for a interval after the kid’s loss of life.

Simply to help dad and mom throughout what in any other case [is] clearly a very, terribly tough time, but additionally a financially tough time for them. That’s a risk that we’re in the mean time.

In his interview on Instances Radio this morning, Stephen Timms, the social safety and incapacity minister, mentioned that the federal government’s determination to tighten the eligibility requirments for Pip wouldn’t exclude all individuals claiming because of extreme anxiousness.

Requested if individuals with anxiousness would now not by in a position to declare Pip below the brand new guidelines, Timms replied:

No, it relies upon what the impact of the situation is on individuals’s wellbeing, and the indications are all printed and set out.

So when you have difficulties doing sure issues, then you definitely get factors on the Pip evaluation. And the variety of factors you get decide how a lot Pip you get.

The Guardian has as we speak printed this text by Brian, a single father with psychological well being points who receives Pip, who explains why he’s alarmed concerning the incapacity profit cuts introduced yesterday.

In his article within the Instances concerning the incapacity profit cuts, Keir Starmer makes a daring declare – that no person with a situation that means they will by no means work will lose out. He says:

Our reforms are guided by three ideas. First, in case you can work, you need to. Second, if you wish to work, the federal government ought to help you to make {that a} actuality. Third, if you’ll by no means have the ability to work due to your sickness or incapacity, the state ought to allow you to to get by with safety, dignity and respect.

So, no person with a situation which means they are going to by no means have the ability to work will lose out from our adjustments. Nor will they need to endure the indignity and worry of countless reassessment – that requirement will probably be scrapped.

If Starmer can persuade disabled people who that is true, then a lot of the opposition to what the federal government is doing would diminish. However, from the response we noticed yesterday, it’s clear that disabled individuals, and the charities that symbolize them, don’t consider that that is appropriate.

Many of the financial savings are going to return from the federal government tightening eligibility for Pip (the private independence cost), a incapacity profit that covers the additional prices individuals incur as a result of they’re disabled and that’s paid to individuals each in work and out of labor. Yesterday the Decision Basis thinktank mentioned these adjustments would value as much as 1.2 million individuals between £4,200 and £6,300.

Talking on the At present programme this morning, Ruth Curtice, the muse’s chief govt, mentioned:

The federal government haven’t given us a quantity for what number of will probably be affected, and since they’ve made fairly an in depth change to the system, we are able to’t inform precisely who will probably be affected.

I believe it could have been good if the federal government had advised us yesterday, however given what they’ve advised us about how a lot they’re planning, the Decision Basis estimate it’s round one million people who find themselves dropping their entitlement to Pip utterly ..

You may consider £5bn as small or giant, relying in your perspective – getting these from one million people implies that for these people, it’s actually vital revenue loss.

Good morning. Keir Starmer and his staff obtained by the announcement yesterday of incapacity profit cuts price £5bn with out whole Labour meltdown – nobody has resigned from the federal government but – however backbenchers had been broadly sullen and unpersuaded, and the battle to implement these adjustments is just simply beginning.

Right here is our in a single day story, by Kiran Stacey, Pippa Crerar and Jessica Elgot.

Patrick Butler, the Guardian’s social coverage editor, has an evaluation right here.

And Archie Bland has a very good total upsum of the place we’re in his First Version briefing.

Starmer has written an article for the Instances defending the cuts (extra on that quickly), and Stephen Timms, the social safety and incapacity minister, has been giving interviews this morning. His first was on Instances Radio, the place Kate McCann shortly highlighted one of many the explanation why that is perilous territory for Labour. Timms mentioned that, even with these cuts, the welfare invoice was nonetheless going up; however these measures made the rising value “sustainable”, he argued. So McCann requested if the federal government was ruling out additional profit cuts in future. Timms replied:

The proposals had been set out in full yesterday. We’re going to be tabling laws to implement plenty of these adjustments. We’re going to be consulting over a full 12-week interval on a number of the proposals that we made yesterday. And we’re decided to get this positively proper.

McCann tried once more:

Can we simply be very clear, although – are you ruling out coming again for extra from the welfare invoice?

And Timms replied:

Who is aware of what is going to occur within the subsequent 5 years?

Certainly. And we’re not going to search out out as we speak. However we are going to hear what Starmer has to say in subsequent three hours, when Starmer takes PMQs.

Right here is the agenda for the day.

Morning: Matt Hancock, the previous Tory well being secretary, provides proof to the Covid inquiry as a part of its module PPE procurement.

Midday: Keir Starmer faces Kemi Badenoch at PMQs.

After 12.30pm: MPs debate Lords amendments to the invoice placing up employer nationwide insurance coverage.

3pm: Martin Lewis, the patron champion and founding father of MoneySavingExpert.com, provides proof to the Commons vitality committee.

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