Disability benefit cuts: Is it time for a PIP talk?

The sound of a town preacher with a cheap microphone is drowned out by a circle of chants that grow increasingly louder. In the middle of Godiva Square, Coventry, people look on to see what the source of the noise is. In towns and cities across the country, disabled people, led by the grassroots campaign group ‘Crips Against Cuts’ are protesting against the recent announcement by the Labour government to roll back Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

In a speech on the 18th of March, Liz Kendall, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, announced a review of these benefits, increasing the threshold for people to qualify. This added stringency around access to PIP, as well as the proposed Right to Work scheme to help those with disabilities to get back into employment, is done not only to “tackle the perverse financial incentives which actively encourage people into welfare dependency” and save an estimated £5 billion but also to “fix the broken benefits system, creating a more proactive, pro-work system for those who can work”.

Kendall assured her parliamentary colleagues that the current system was “failing the very people it is supposed to help and holding our country back”, with one in ten working-age people now claiming sickness or disability benefits. Despite her claims that the proposed changes would be for the betterment of the country and the disabled community, the protester’s perspective was distinctly different.

To access PIP, people have expressed they must meet an ever-evolving idea of ‘disabled’

In between chants of “Keir Starmer, shame shame, all the deaths are in your name” and how the protestors will “stand up, (and) fight back” against these cuts, several speakers detail their own experiences living with disabilities, attempts to secure PIP or similar benefits for themselves, and the process of caring for loved ones as they try and navigate this benefit system. Kim Taylor, a local activist and current recipient of PIP, detailed how in many ways these benefits are not a luxury but a lifeline, a form of income that allows disabled people to access resources such as carers, medication, or equipment that allows them to enter the workplace.

Several other attendees detailed the strict criteria already in place that restrict PIP access, expressing how criteria can border on invasive. To access PIP, people have expressed they must meet an ever-evolving idea of ‘disabled’ and describe how undergoing the process of attaining PIP, through initial assessments and tribunals, actually puts a strain on them and their condition.

In actuality, less than 0.5% of claimants were fraudulent, creating a disconnect between the Labour Party and those who had voted for them

Among the acknowledgements of the pain that changes will cause, there was resilience among attendees. Protests like this, as well as ones all over the country, will push against the government and show “that we are not easy targets for them to discriminate against and ignore and we will not go down without a fight” as Lavender, one of the speakers, tells me.

Following 14 years of austerity, a 2024 paper from The London School of Economics found there to have been 190,000 excess deaths as a consequence of these political decisions, marking an increase in the bitterness with which protesters responded to the cuts.

When I spoke to Emma Round, a disabled activist and drag king, the day before the protest, they discussed how the impact of these cuts is the latest in a line of damaging cuts to disabled people as “the 2017 UN ruling of the CRPD (Convention on the Rights of Disabled People) slammed the UK assessment system as cruel and not fit for purpose and the Tories ignored it and the same thing happened in 2022. Labour are just expanding it and aren’t properly risk assessing it”.

Round also emphasised their discomfort with the fact that Labour was focusing a lot of attention on people who were using PIP, or health benefits, fraudulently. In actuality, less than 0.5% of claimants were fraudulent, creating a disconnect between the Labour Party and those who had voted for them. Round anecdotally mentioned that “when I talk to disabled people now, all of them are either not voting or they vote for the Green Party. Traditionally, it was ‘vote for Labour because Labour was slightly better’, so disabled people have been holding their nose and voting for them, and now they’ve done worse than the Tories.”

Rhetoric emphasises the idea that necessary tough decisions are being made not only to preserve the austerity measures put in place by the previous Conservative government but also to ensure that people who have been left behind are able to thrive

Of course, the Labour government would push back against the sentiment that they are worse than their Conservative predecessors, that their reforms to PIP exist in tandem with an expansion in a Right to Work scheme that would allow disabled people to begin to find a way back into work.

When Health Secretary Wes Streeting was on Laura Kuenssberg on 16 March, he stated that the changes would be a “springboard” for people to get back into work. Streeting claimed the changes would combat over-diagnosis, particularly with mental health problems and people self-diagnosing themselves with conditions, leading to ‘overdiagnosis’, with people being “written off”.

This sentiment is echoed by many cabinet members. Liz Kendall stated that as she brought in these changes, the government inherited “a broken benefit system that’s failing the people who depend on it…it is not inevitable”. Rhetoric emphasises the idea that necessary tough decisions are being made not only to preserve the austerity measures put in place by the previous Conservative government but also to ensure that people who have been left behind are able to thrive.

Whether or not these PIP cuts are voted in or not, there is a sense among disabled people that there must be a change

The effort seemed to make minimal impact on protesters. Former Labour MP and trade unionist, Dave Nellist, stated that “Labour isn’t Labour anymore…the current party is far more interested with keeping things as they are instead of changing it for the benefit of the ordinary person”. Throughout the protest, there were speakers who were trade union activists and local councillors who showed increasing opposition to the current government.

It was not just speakers, people walking past would stop and ask about the protest before sharing the protesters’ sentiment, whether they were in favour of other political parties or simply an observer, intrigued by the events going on. Even those who were in favour of more right-wing parties were in support of the protest. One Reform voter with a close family member on disability benefits stated, “I don’t care who you support, as long as you’re against Keir Starmer”, highlighting unity across the political spectrum against the new changes.

There is a possibility that these changes to PIP and the wider benefit system may not come into effect. When these announcements are voted on in parliament to be passed into legislation, they could be rejected if enough Labour MPs vote against it.

Whether or not these PIP cuts are voted in or not, there is a sense among disabled people that there must be a change. Many state that the current system, that led to these cuts being proposed in the first place, must be overhauled and reformed to benefit those who need it most. As one of the organisers of the protest stated “As disabled people, we have been ignored, dehumanised, and killed by hostile government policies and ableist rhetoric for decades. We’ve been told not to take up space, to be grateful for scraps and pity, to be silent but this can and must change. Those who can, must come together to fight for our right to live decently and with dignity.”