‘There are other ways of making savings’ – welfare cuts rebel

We speak to Debbie Abrahams, the chair of the Work and Pensions committee, who was originally one of those organising the opposition to the welfare cuts, and who negotiated with the government last week.

Jackie Long: Rachael Maskell’s amendment was called a wrecking amendment, but there was very little left to wreck. So many concessions wrung out of the government. You must be delighted.

Debbie Abrahams: I’m pleased that the government has added to the concessions they made last year, last week rather, which were really good, but it wasn’t quite far enough and I think they recognised that as they’ve been engaging over the last few days.

Jackie Long: The problem is, you all said very clearly that you support the principle of reform. There’s virtually no reform left in this bill now. The Resolution Foundation say there will be zero savings because of all the concessions.

Debbie Abrahams: There’s also… That’s a fair point, if you just look at it in that way. But there’s going to be an increase in the UC (Universal Credit) standard allowance which is really important. We believe that in terms of the increase in capacity of the NHS, you’re going to get more people that can go off-flow from both PIP (Personal Independence Payment) and UC, which will enable more people to be able to take up work. So there are other ways of making the savings, and I think that’s the point that so many of us have been making.

Jackie Long: But the problem is your government has been really clear about the black hole. Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, was really depending on £5 billion worth of savings. Now maybe not.

Debbie Abrahams: So again, Jackie, what I’d say is, that’s working it out in one way. What we’re saying is, if you increase NHS capacity, which the NHS will do in terms of the spending review, if you increase the number of people who are able to work in different jobs and so on, disability employment gap of 30%… That, in itself, is going to make savings by helping people to get off-flow, so fewer people actually having to claim PIP and UC.

Jackie Long: Very briefly on the concession that was wrung out of the government very late on today about eligibility criteria, you know it will now be up to many of the disability groups to be working with the government on this review. That will probably never happen now, will it?

Debbie Abrahams: So what we hope is that we’re going to get a better, more reformed assessment process. Disabled people, having gone through the system, know where there are savings to make, so that’s another positive, another way that savings can be made.

“What we hope is that we’re going to get a better, more reformed assessment process.”

– Debbie Abrahams

Jackie Long: Can I ask you, how do you think your government, a Labour government, got into this mess? Because there is no other way to describe this, is there?

Debbie Abrahams: It wasn’t ideal at all.

Jackie Long: That’s being very polite.

Debbie Abrahams: And I think people have learned lessons. It’s again very late in the day for the final concessions to be made, I agree, but I’m positive that, Jackie, we’ve got to take the positives.

Jackie Long: These are positives…

Debbie Abrahams: Absolutely.

Jackie Long: But the negative is, does the government understand disabled people, was it listening to disabled people? Does it understand its own MPs? Was it listening to its own MPs? Or is it just really bad at government?

Debbie Abrahams: So I think the government is listening, and that’s the important thing. You’ve seen that people have…. They have made concessions, even late in the day, concessions have been made. So they have been listening. And I know that it is the intention for this to continue. Yes it is a shame that we got to this position, but we are there now and I know that there is commitment to make sure that we never end up in this situation again.

Jackie Long: I mean, who takes the blame for this? This has led to a number of backbenchers questioning all sorts of things about the way Keir Starmer is running his government. Backbenchers who say they have never spoken to him, who say that he is remote from this issue, who say he was talking about people’s concerns, MP’s concerns, as noises off. That is not very respectful. Does there need to be a change at the top of Downing Street, in the operation?

Debbie Abrahams: So I think most people have learned the lesson. It is not the way to govern ideally. We need to have greater listening and make sure that policy is developed in a way that can be coherent but also capitalise… We’ve got a fantastic group of backbenchers, huge experience, and who can make policy work.

Watch more here:

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