Personal Independence Payment: Disabled People

Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi Excerpts

Wednesday 7th May 2025 Westminster Hall

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Personal Independence Payment and disabled people.

I am proud to have secured this debate today, and to be able to stand up for the disabled in the light of the catastrophic effects that the proposed cut to personal independence payments will have on them. This is the week after the council elections and the Runcorn and Helsby by-election proved disastrous for at least two major parties. The issue on everyone’s lips, and the cause of much of the disaffection, was welfare cuts, and specifically cuts to personal independence payments.

I begin by thanking in advance all those who will take part in this debate, all those watching, all those in the outside world who are campaigning against the cuts and, above all, the disabled community itself, which, day by day, shows exemplary resilience and courage.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, in her spring statement, raised the curtain on a series of welfare cuts: the health element of universal credit will be cut by 50% and frozen for new claimants, and the Office for Budget Responsibility has outlined that the planned cuts to disability benefits will reduce PIP for at least 800,000 claimants and cut health-related universal credit payments for 3 million families. And that is just the beginning.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

On that point, I thank my right hon. Friend because many of my Slough constituents are extremely concerned about the proposed welfare cuts, especially to personal independence payments and other disability benefits. Unlike the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition that embarked on austerity, and unlike Conservative Governments of recent years that became characterised as “the nasty party,” does my right hon. Friend agree that it is the job, indeed the moral duty, of this Government to protect the most vulnerable so that they can lead a dignified and independent life?

[Ms Abbott]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. The Government insist that the rising disability benefits bill means that something must be done, but in a recent report, the New Economics Foundation revealed that the disability benefits bill has risen because there has been a rise in the number of disabled people and a rise in deprivation. But, as we learned from David Cameron’s round of austerity, cuts have consequences that severely limit, or even eliminate, their supposed savings.