Ministers are yet to publish the specifics of their plans. But they have not denied reports that proposals to impose more stringent terms for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) — designed to help people with extra costs incurred by disability — are on the table.
One reported option, not denied, is to freeze PIP rather than raising it with inflation. But officials believe primary legislation would almost certainly be needed to enact this — meaning MPs, and members of the House of Lords including bishops, would have a vote on the plan
It comes amid a tricky backdrop for Labour MPs. Britain’s foreign aid pot is being diverted amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s demands for increased defense spending. And it follows a decision last year to cut winter fuel payments for most pensioners — and maintain a Conservative-era two-child cap on benefits, which prevents British parents from claiming welfare benefits for more than two children.
Some MPs in the ruling Labour Party are already feeling mutinous — although how far they will go to show their anger towards a government with a thumping House of Commons majority is another matter entirely.
“I’m absolutely appalled at the prospect of what is going to be coming,” Brian Leishman, the new Labour MP for Alloa and Grangemouth said. “It is completely not Labour Party values, it’s not why I joined the party, it’s not why I was a Labour councillor, and it’s certainly not the sort of thing that I want to be doing as a Labour MP.”
Further cuts to welfare will prove “self-defeating” when it comes to the next election, a second Labour MP — granted anonymity like others in this article to speak candidly — said.