LABOUR AUSTERITY WILL DRIVE POVERTY AND INEQUALITY
SNP MSP Clare Adamson has challenged Labour MP Pamela Nash to condemn the Labour Government’s appalling cuts to disability benefits.
The UK Labour Government has announced sweeping cuts to welfare, including tightening PIP eligibility in a move which will deny crucial financial support to over 1 million people with disabilities, including people who need help with daily tasks like washing, dressing, and eating.
Anti-poverty charities and even some Labour politicians have blasted the cuts. Meanwhile, many disabled people reliant on financial support have spoken of fear and uncertainty after the Labour announcement.
The Resolution Foundation said the plan would result in between 800,000 and 1.2 million people losing support of between £4,200 and £6,300 a year by 2029-30.
Ms Adamson warned that the cuts would drive poverty and inequality impacting some of the most vulnerable people in her Motherwell and Wishaw constituency.
The SNP MSP points out that Ms Nash had previously argued against the Tory Government cutting welfare for disabled people given the disproportionate impact such cuts would have in North Lanarkshire.
But now, when the Labour Government has announced £5 billion in welfare cuts for sick and disabled people, the Labour MP for Motherwell, Wishaw, and Carluke has stayed silent.
In a 2014 UK Parliament debate on ‘Fairness and Inequality’, Pamela Nash said:
“Partly owing to our industrial heritage, my constituency has relatively high levels of disability and chronic illness—as a result of old injuries from those days—and that has made my community particularly vulnerable to the welfare cuts. Many households have a member living with a disability or illness, as I see every day. I have been particularly perturbed by the scrapping of crisis loans, which is affecting the most vulnerable in our society, and although many of the changes have been mitigated by the Scottish welfare fund, many people are still being left in dire straits. Every day I see people whose benefits have been sanctioned and who are no longer entitled to a crisis loan.”
Ms Adamson said, SNP MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw, said:
“Labour promised change. Instead, we get the largest cut to disability benefits since George Osbourne and the Tories a decade ago.
“Saving money off the back of sick and disabled people is not change. It is austerity turbocharged and the kind of poisonous politics we became used to under the Tories.
“Anti-poverty charities have blasted these cuts. Disabled people have spoken of their fears for the future. Even some Labour backbenchers are up in arms.
“The Labour MP for Motherwell, Wishaw, and Carluke previously argued that cutting disability benefits would hit North Lanarkshire particularly hard and drive poverty and inequality.
“But that was when it was the Tories calling the shots. Now that Ms Nash’s Labour bosses in London are in charge, she is silent.
“It is exactly the same issue so why would her argument be different? I urge Ms Nash and all Labour politicians to condemn these appalling cuts, stand up for vulnerable constituents, and join the wave of voices in arguing for a compassionate social security system.
“Whether it is the WASPI women, the winter heating payment, the two child cap, Grangemouth, or this latest round of brutal cuts, Labour has shown its true colours;. They have gone back on promise after promise.
“These latest measures will hit vulnerable people in my community. We cannot stand by; we must stand up.
“The UK system is failing people and that is why Scotland must go our own way to be free of Westminster inequality.”
Background
11 February 2014 – Debate on Fairness and Inequality
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