Welfare system will be here ‘for years to come’ amid backlash over impending cuts
The welfare state will be there for those who need it “now and for years to come”, the work and pensions secretary has said – as the government faces pressure from its own MPs over benefit changes.
Liz Kendall acknowledged there has been “lots of speculation” about the government’s plans to reform welfare, which are due to be announced on Tuesday following a delay because of concerns from Labour backbenchers.
Politics latest: Welfare reforms ‘imminent’
Speaking in the House of Commons, Ms Kendall said she wanted to assure the public the announcements will “ensure there is trust and fairness in the social security system” – and that it will remain in place for those who need it.
Earlier on Monday, Sky News revealed the government has chosen not to freeze the personal independence payment (PIP) next year following pressure from Labour MPs over the past week.
Ministers had wanted to stop PIP (a payment of up to £9,000 a year for people with long-term physical and mental health conditions, and disabilities) rising with inflation as part of a drive to cut the welfare budget.
The proposal had been set to save about £5bn, as Chancellor Rachel Reeves searches for savings.
She has lost £9.9bn of fiscal headroom (the amount she could increase spending or cut taxes without breaking her fiscal rules) since the October budget due to a poor economy and geopolitical events.
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The government is expected to make qualifying for PIP more difficult when Ms Kendall reveals her plans on Tuesday.
Sky News’ deputy political editor Sam Coates, on the Politics At Sam And Anne’s podcast, said the Treasury is also expected to abolish the Work Capability Assessment, which determines whether someone is fit or not to work and to then receive disability payments.
The government has described the system as “dysfunctional”, as those “not fit for work” do not receive employment support or further engagement after the assessment, which could lock them out of future work altogether.
Sir Keir Starmer has made cutting the welfare budget a key project, as spending on sickness benefits soared to £65bn last year – a 25% increase since the year before the pandemic – and is expected to rise to £100bn before the next general election in 2029.
The number of people in England and Wales claiming either sickness or disability benefit has gone from 2.8 million to about four million since 2019.
Ms Kendall also revealed in the Commons the number of young people not working because of mental health conditions has risen by more than 25% in the last year, with the number considered “economically inactive” now reaching 270,000.
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‘1,000 people every day signing on to PIP benefits’
Unhappy Labour MPs
Ms Kendall had been expected to announce welfare cut plans last week.
But due to the scale of the backlash, the government took the unusual step of asking all 404 Labour MPs to attend “welfare roundtables” in Downing Street last week.
Sky News’ political correspondent Amanda Akass said Ms Kendall’s Commons appearance offered no real answers to the “serious concerns” raised by MPs, though social security minister Stephen Timms insisted they would “welcome” many of the changes when they are announced.
Treasury minister Emma Reynolds earlier played down the level of discontent over plans to freeze PIP, telling Sky News the roundtables were nothing more than “everyday business”.
She pointed out Labour created the welfare state in 1945, but said it needs to be “more sustainable”.
Politics
Red Wall MPs should focus on two-child benefit cap rather than winter fuel, Harriet Harman says
Red Wall MPs should push for the two-child benefit cap to be lifted rather than a reversal of the winter fuel payment policy, Baroness Harriet Harman has said.
Baroness Harman, the former Labour Party chair, told Sky’s Electoral Dysfunction podcast that this would hand the group a “progressive win” rather than simply “protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer” over winter fuel.
Earlier this week, a number of MPs in the Red Wall – Labour’s traditional heartlands in the north of England – reposted a statement on social media in which they said the leadership’s response to the local elections had “fallen on deaf ears”.
They singled out the cut to the winter fuel allowance as an issue that was raised on the doorstep and urged the government to rethink the policy, arguing doing so “isn’t weak, it takes us to a position of strength”.
Labour’s decision to means test the policy has snatched the benefit away from millions of pensioners.
But Baroness Harman said a better target for the group could be an overhaul of George Osborne’s two-child benefit cap.
The cap, announced in 2015 as part of Lord David Cameron’s austerity measures, means while parents can claim child tax credit or Universal Credit payments for their first and second child, they can’t make claims for any further children they have.
Labour faced pressure to remove the cap in the early months of government, with ministers suggesting in February that they were considering relaxing the limit.
Baroness Harman told Beth Rigby that this could be a sensible pressure point for Red Wall MPs to target.
She said: “It could be that they have a kind of progressive win, and it might not be a bad thing to do in the context of an overall strategy on child poverty.
“Let’s see whether instead of just protesting and annoying Sir Keir Starmer, they can build a bridge to a new progressive set of policies.”
Jo White, the Labour MP for Bassetlaw and a member of the Red Wall group, suggested that her party’s “connection” to a core group of voters “died” with the decision to means test the winter fuel payment for pensioners.
“We need to reset the government,” she told Electoral Dysfunction. “The biggest way to do that is by tackling issues such as winter fuel payments.
“I think we should raise the thresholds so that people perhaps who are paying a higher level of tax are the only people who are exempt from getting it.”
Pic: AP
A group of MPs in the Red Wall, thought to number about 40, met on Tuesday night following the fallout of local election results in England, which saw Labour lose the Runcorn by-election and control of Doncaster Council to Reform UK.
Following the results, Sir Keir said “we must deliver that change even more quickly – we must go even further”.
Some Labour MPs believe it amounted to ignoring voters’ concerns.
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One of the MPs who was present at the meeting told Sky News there was “lots of anger at the government’s response to the results”.
“People acknowledged the winter fuel allowance was the main issue for us on the doorstep,” they said.
“There is a lack of vision from this government.”
Another added: “Everyone was furious.”
Downing Street has ruled out a U-turn on means testing the winter fuel payment, following newspaper reports earlier this week that one might be on the cards.
A man from the US state of Virginia will spend over three decades behind bars after being convicted of sending crypto to the terrorist organization commonly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria.
Federal Judge David Novak sentenced Mohammed Azharuddin Chhipa to 30 years and four months in prison on May 7 for sending over $185,000 to the Islamic State, the Department of Justice said on May 8.
Prosecutors said that from around October 2019 until October 2022, the 35-year-old Chhipa collected and sent money to female Islamic State members in Syria, which helped them escape prison camps and funded fighting.
The Justice Department said Chhipa would raise funds for the United Nations-designated terror organization through social media — receiving money online, or traveling hundreds of miles to accept donations in person.
He’d convert the money into crypto and send it to Turkey for it to be smuggled to Islamic State members across the border in Syria, prosecutors said.
A federal jury convicted Chhipa in December, finding him guilty on a charge of conspiracy to provide support to a terrorist organization and four charges of providing and attempting to provide support to a terrorist organization.
“This defendant directly financed ISIS in its efforts to commit vile terrorist atrocities against innocent citizens in America and abroad,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This severe sentence illustrates that if you fund terrorism, we will prosecute you and put you behind bars for decades.”
Chhipa tried to flee US during FBI probe
Prosecutors said that during the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s investigation into Chhipa, he tried to flee the country to escape prosecution and tried to hide his tracks through a series of actions seemingly aimed at confusing authorities.
According to a motion for detention filed in August, FBI agents searched Chhipa’s house on Aug. 2, 2019, and that night Chhipa drove to a bank, withdrew $1,800 from an ATM, and then went to a Taco Bell, where he paid a stranger for a ride to a relative’s house. The relative then drove him to a grocery store.
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Three days later, prosecutors said Chhipa “purchased a series of bus tickets using variations and/or misspelling of his name and recently created email accounts.”
He then travelled from Virginia to Mexico and onto Guatemala. He then bought tickets to fly from Guatemala to Panama, then onto Germany, and then to Egypt, but an Interpol Blue Notice was issued, and he was returned to the US.
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