The UK Government has recently moved to pursue a series of disability and incapacity benefit cuts as they have look to raise funds for the Exchequer without raising taxes. 

Last week, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, started by announcing plans to tighten the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and incapacity benefits linked to Universal Credit (UC). Specifically, tightening the eligibility criteria for PIP will see an additional eligibility requirement for the daily living element while freezing the payment rate for the health element of UC and cutting it for new recipients. The Government is also consulting on an age restriction for UC health top-ups – in effect, so that those aged 18 to 21 cannot claim the top up. Additionally, The Guardian initially noted that tightening the eligibility of PIP will have additional ramifications as PIP acts as a ‘passport’ and allows claimants to access a series of other benefits. These cuts were later confirmed by the Chancellor Rachel Reeves in the Spring Statement this week. 

The Government’s action has largely been met with criticism. The UK’s leading disability charity, Scope, coordinated an open letter before the announcement to pre-warn the Government about the impact of any cuts to disability benefits. Furthermore, Labour MP Marie Tidball, who is disabled herself, questioned the evidence base for the cuts as she noted ‘research shows that supportive, incentive-based approaches massively outperform cuts or sanctions in getting disabled people into sustainable employment’. Meanwhile, the architect of austerity, former Chancellor George Osborne, has even pointed out, perhaps opportunistically, that he would have not gone this far. 

Finally, this has been backed up by the numbers as an impact assessment published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) detailed the extent of the impact:

• More than 3m families will lose an average of £1,720 a year in real terms as a result of the cuts;
• An extra 250,000 people falling into relative poverty by 2029-30, including an extra 50,000 children;
• Therefore, the number of people living in relative poverty will rise to nearly 14.5m. 

Importantly, the Government’s Spring Statement came only a day before statistics published by the DWP confirmed that 4.5m children are living in relative poverty – an increase of 100,000 from last year and the highest since the Government started collecting comparative data (2002).

A symptom of a wider dilemma

Many of the responses to the welfare cuts largely focus on criticising the cuts on their own – and rightly so as the moral implausibility of the cuts is borne out by the statistics cited above. However, just focusing on the cuts on their own may mean that detractors miss the point.

The cuts instead are a symptom of a wider dilemma for the Government – their focus on ‘deliverism’ as their underlying philosophy. This is a point that we made back in January 2025 in our analysis of the Government’s Plan for Change and the Government’s moves to cut welfare are a symptom of this. 

When responding to the Government’s announcement, The New Economics Foundation and The Resolution Foundation both suggested that the Government are pursuing the disability benefit cuts to meet their ‘arbitrary’ fiscal rules. The fiscal rules currently stipulate that day-to-day spending has to be balanced against tax receipts and that public debt should fall by the end of the forecast period. And with the Government having backed themselves into a corner during the election by ruling out any significant tax raises, cuts to disability benefits therefore represent a ‘useful’ way to save money. 

Consequently, the benefit cuts encapsulate that the Government are allowing themselves to be ruled by a deliveristic focus to their fiscal rules, ‘economic growth’ by any means and the arbitrary targets in their Plan For Change. This means that any underlying moral and political philosophy is simply disregarded. Significantly, without this we have a Government without any moral red lines. As long as a policy meets the Government’s fiscal rules, improves growth and their Plan For Change, then it’s fair game – as seen in the welfare cuts.

This sentiment can also be seen in the plethora of Labour MPs who are noting that this ‘doesn’t feel’ like a Labour Government. While they be somewhat misguided in their belief about what a Labour Government should be, their point still speaks to a concern that the Government seemingly has no underlying vision and thereby, moral red lines – as long as policy ‘delivers’ the aforementioned goals then its completely reasonable, regardless of the moral implausibility. 

The problem at hand is also evident in the Government’s move to focus on airport expansion as a means to improving economic growth – disregarding the impact this may have on the prospects of a just transition to a net zero economy. Moreover, the same might be said for the rumours that the Government will either scrap or soften the plans to establish an Independent Football Regulator if it seen to inhibit economic growth. 

A Perennial Problem

As long as the Government continues to allow themselves to be governed by ‘deliverism’ rather than a coherent underlying moral and political philosophy, the Government will continue make these mistakes. With the Budget only just around the corner, unless the Government comes to terms with this issue and its implications, who knows what policy will next appear on the chopping block.