“unless clauses 2 and 3 go, the Bill is withdrawn or the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights exposes the truth … there will be tragedy”
By Rachael Maskell MP
Last week’s chaos and climbdown has been overshadowed by events of the last 48 hours. The impact assessment published last night shows that £2 billion is still to be stripped from up to three quarters of a million sick and disabled people by 2029-30 through the slashing of the health element of universal credit in two. By the end of this Parliament, some people will lose around £3,000 a year because of these reforms, including those with fluctuating conditions.
If that was not bad enough, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has waded in to protect disabled people where this Labour Government have not. I believe that international laws and conventions must be upheld, but this Government are now under investigation for breaches. No matter what the spin is, passing the Bill tonight will leave such a stain on our great party, which was founded on values of equality and justice. The only way out is to withdraw clauses 2 and 3 so that breaches of the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities are not upheld.
The UN’s contention is my contention; sick and disabled people have not been consulted. If someone with a fluctuating physical or mental health condition such as multiple sclerosis, schizophrenia, cystic fibrosis or a recurring musculoskeletal condition had a period of remission and worked but then relapsed and returned to universal credit, unless unequivocally stated otherwise in the Bill, they would return on to the pittance of £50 a week for their health element.
That pittance of £50 a week will hit the budgets of individuals who have so little given that we have rising energy and food prices and housing costs. This is the difference between struggling and surviving. All they could expect is poverty to bite harder, stress to spread wider and hope to fade faster. For many with fluctuating conditions, stress exacerbates symptoms. What a way to live.
There cannot be an assumption that all of those people are on low wages. Many of them have worked all their lives as their condition has developed and are therefore in the later stages of their career, so their salary perhaps does exceed the thresholds. With many of the conditions I have listed and many more, someone could have a period of remission for eight or nine months, or even more, and they would therefore not be able to continue with the six months of support. They will exceed that and would be seen, according to our previous discussions, as a new claimant, and would drop to £50 a week rather than remaining on £97 a week.
My amendment will protect those people. It will also protect people with cancer, who could recover, go back to work and then receive the news that the cancer has returned or metastasised. If they then lose their job, do they go back to £97 a week or £50 a week? Can they eat or not eat? As if life was not hard enough for them, they may then receive that shattering news. My amendment would be a remedy for those people and for the many who need this support.
I worry that without such a guarantee—and with the single assessment, to be co-produced by the Timms review, according to “Pathways to Work”—we do not know either whether the eligibility criteria for qualifying for the UC health element, because of its association with PIP, will be more or less stringent than they are now; the Bill does not say.
Again, the Bill’s sequencing is wrong: it is the cart before the horse; the vote before the review. This omnishambles of a Bill leaves people with fluctuating conditions not knowing where they stand—or where any of us stand—by the end of today. It is wrong to leave sick and disabled people with such uncertainty. Amendment 38 would make life just a little bit more certain.
But in reality, unless clauses 2 and 3 go, the Bill is withdrawn or the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights exposes the truth, sick and disabled people will be further stressed and, as the charities and deaf and ggle showing locationdisabled people’s organisations warned last night, there will be tragedy. That is why I cannot support the Government.
So here we are again: no agency, no co-production and no idea how this tragic tale will end. I just ask that it ends tonight on the right side of history, through acceptance of my amendment, at least for those with fluctuating conditions.
- Rachael Maskell is the MP for York Central. You can follow Rachael on Twitter/X, Bluesky and Facebook.
- The above text was from her speech to the House of Commons during the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill Committee Stage debate.
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