Register to the International newsletter
What seems far away matters more than ever
Sign up
The initial reform of the universal aid system and personal independence payments sought more a savings of 6 billion euros on the social bill due to the need to find money to continue the armament career than a true modification of a system that, in general – and also the rebels believe – is considered to be not working.
The excuse of government to move it was to guarantee the future of the performance system and to prevent fraud. In short, to make those who can work and do not live on the charity, a poorly compassionate view of what physical deficiencies and mental illnesses are, according to critics with the government’s initiative.
The debate on the reform has been experienced in the Commons throughout the afternoon in a climate of great emotional tension, with a session in which dozens of Labor Members have stated that they would vote against the party because they were, in awareness, their constituents and the labor values of equality, respect and support for the welfare state. Liberaldemocrats have also voted against, and conservatives, for opposite reasons, have also rejected it.
All this delves into the feeling of bewilderment that the party, with a personality without personality, is servile with the powerful and weak with the most helpless, who has shown a surprising lack of political smell in the processing of a very sensitive legislative project not for the left of the party – practically annihilated by Starmer and his Praetorian guard – but for the labor infantry.
The concessions made by the Government shortly before the vote this Tuesday has been the culmination of a nonsense after another. In short, the Government has made a second backwards – it had done one last week – withdrawing the most controversial appearance of the law. This is clause five, which provided for imposing a minimum threshold of four points in each of the different areas that are evaluated in the disabled to grant or deny the right to aid. They are the ability to prepare and eat food, wash and bathe alone, dress and undress, control sphincters, learn and remember information, ability to talk and communicate, and mobility inside the home and outside.
Two routes of access to benefits
When the law was initially presented in April by the head of the Department of Labor and Pensions, Liz Kendall, the government calculations provided that 250,000 people would fall into poverty due to the tightening of the conditions and the removal of the benefits.
Last week the discontent of the deputies of seconds was already clear. But Starmer, with disdain and without calculating the repercussions, described criticism as “pure noise”. The truth is that one hundred and twenty-six Labor members signed an amendment that opposed the second reading of the bill. The amendment stated that they accepted “the need to reform the security system and social benefits”, but later listed a myriad of reasons why they refused to give the green light to the project. Many of these reasons were related to the aforementioned government evaluation of the impact of its reform.
The first of the concessions meant that the people who are now receiving the aid should not be subjected to the tightening of the controls to maintain them. Under the right, the rebels and 138 associations of disabilities, with the deputy Rachael Maskell at the helm, the same as he has accused Starmer of “Dickensian cuts”, have argued that the proposal implied, in the long run, the establishment of a discriminatory system of double or triple route, in which access to contributions did not depend on the health conditions of the applicants, but from the date of the applicants, but from which they had depended on the applicants. Asked for some essential payments to go ahead in the day -to -day life of your life. About 150,000 people remained with one hand in front and one behind, according to the 126 rebels.
Following its vote this evening, the reform, in theory, continues the parliamentary process, and now enters the discussion of the commissions. But the original spirit of the law has been killed. Because the Secretary of State for the Disabled, Stephen Timms, closed the debate by confirming the House that any change in the eligibility criteria for receiving aid will be conditioned by the results of the independent review of the system he himself will carry out – in the fall of 2026 -, in close collaboration with the organizations of people with disabilities, who have not been consulted now. Starmer won the vote, but suffered a humiliating political defeat at the hands of the Labor infantry. A toad has been swallowed as a birthday cake of the first year to power.
