𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Liz Kendall’s newly announced welfare crackdown has sparked an all-out Labour civil war, with the party’s own backbenchers and union backers condemning the plans. In the Commons on Tuesday, the Work and Pensions Secretary unveiled a £5billion crackdown to slash the country’s unaffordable welfare bill and get people back to work.

Downing Street has insisted there is a “moral and an economic case” for the overhaul, which will involve tightening the eligibility for Personal Independence Payments (PIP). Ms Kendall also announced she would scrap work capability assessments, freeze the health element rates of Universal Credit, and ramp up health work assessments to force those claiming benefits to prove they cannot work.

A number of prominent names publicly blasted the plans in the Commons, including Debbie Abrahams, Ms Kendall’s predecessor as Labour’s Department for Work and Pensions spokesman.

Ms Abrahams begged the Government not to “balance the books on the backs of the sick and disabled”.

She branded the new policy the biggest cut to welfare since former chancellor George Osborne’s days of Tory austerity, and called on Ms Kendall to let other elements of reforms “bed in” before making cuts to funding.

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis questioned whether Ms Kendall’s DWP understood the impact of the changes.

He blasted: “When she made the decision to go down this route, did they understand the pain and difficulty that this will cause millions of people, millions of our constituents who are using food banks, who are using social supermarkets, people who are on the brink?

“This £5billion cut is going to impact them more than I think her department is giving credit for, and I would like her department to be able to look my constituents in the eye when I go back to them to tell them that this is going to work for them.

“Because as things stand, my constituents, my friends, my family are very angry about this and they do not think this is the kind of action that a Labour government takes.”

Vauxhall MP Florence Eshalomi said that while she agrees that many disabled and sick people want to work, “the reality is cutting PIP will not address the reasons why they don’t”.

She questioned: “How hard is it going to be for disabled people in the workplace to try to get those employers to make those adjustments?”

Jeremy Corbyn’s former shadow chancellor John McDonnell warned that Labour’s cuts will cause “immense suffering”.

He ominously warned the Government: “There are decisions made in this House that stay with you for the rest of your life – this is one of them.

“The reality is trying to find up to £5billion worth of cuts by manipulating, by changing the PIP rules and criteria will result in immense suffering, and we’ve seen it in the past – loss of life.”

Unite, the UK’s biggest union, has also intervened to warn the Government off pitting “the poorest against the poorest”.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “The Government is in danger of making the wrong choices. We must be protecting the most vulnerable in society and not pitting the poorest against the poorest.

“Before cutting benefits, the Government should be introducing a wealth tax, so that the very wealthiest in society begin paying their fair share.”