13th March 2025
Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, ignoring UN warnings on poverty in Britain
In April 2024 the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCDRP) published a report into its findings regarding provision for disabled people in Britain, including the impact of welfare reform. The UN found that Britain has ‘failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.’
As signatories to the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People the British government agrees to periodic reviews of its provision for people with disabilities, the latest being initiated in 2023 and its report concluding in 2024 finding that ‘grave and systematic violations’ of disabled persons rights had taken place since 2010 and that welfare reform had “disproportionally and adversely” affected the rights of people with disabilities.
The report concludes that there has been no significant progress with independent living rights and active regression in relation to work and social security rights, recommending urgent measures be taken in relation to improvements in these areas.
Given that much of the period of the review was covering the 14 years of Tory government such harsh attacks upon the rights of people with disabilities comes as no surprise. The ‘skivers not strivers’ narrative is one that the Tories and their right wing media allies in the Mail, Express and Telegraph have been pursuing for some time, in order to deflect attention away from the obscene profits made by the super rich and the increased wealth of billionaires in Britain, which rose by £35 million a day last year.
This month the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) issued a series of recommendations to tackle poverty in the Britain. The report urged Keir Starmer to reverse the five-week wait for universal credit in a warning that the British government is infringing human rights with the ongoing poverty crisis.
The report highlighted fears over the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) welfare reforms that have resulted in severe economic hardship, increased reliance on food banks, homelessness, negative impacts on mental health and the stigmatisation of benefit claimants. It further urged government to up spending on benefits, remove the benefit cap and scrap the two-child limit, which prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for more than two children.
Labour’s Work and Pensions Secretary, Liz Kendall, does not seem too perturbed by the UN’s findings. With a Spring statement from Chancellor Rachel Reeves due on 26th March welfare reform, a euphemism for cuts to benefits, is clearly high on the agenda of both Kendall and Reeves.
Kendall’s stated position is that,
“I think the only way that you get the welfare bill on a more sustainable footing is to get people into work. And you know, we will be bringing forward big reforms that actually support people into work, that get them on a pathway to success.”
All of which may sound fine in a press conference but in the real world of de-industrialised, zero hour contract, low wage economy Britain it has a hollow ring.
Labour’s claim is that welfare reform is necessary to fill the fiscal black hole Reeves has discovered due to the economy not growing fast enough. Kendall has refused to deny that the Treasury is looking for £5 billion of cuts to her budget.
As ever, government economic decisions are about political choices, whatever issues may arise in relation to the world economy. The current Labour government has ditched the notion of ‘jobs not bombs’ and gone for bombs, £12.8 billion to Ukraine alone, before the cost of supporting Israeli genocide in Gaza is factored in, or weapons sales to dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia.
There is clearly a case for reform of the welfare system in Britain, as the UN has pointed out, but that is not the same as making a case for swingeing cuts which will plunge people into further poverty. There is certainly a case for reform of how the wealthy are taxed in Britain. As Nadia Whittome MP for Nottingham East has pointed out,
“If we implemented something very moderate, like a 2% tax, a threshold of assets over £10m a year, that would only impact an estimated 20,000 people in the UK but would raise £24bn.”
These are the real choices a Labour government faces, yet again. War or peace, rich or poor, capitalism or socialism? Currently Keir Starmer and the Labour leadership are getting it wrong on all three counts. There is clearly some pressure from progressive Labour MPs within Parliament but only mass extra parliamentary action will apply sufficient pressure to move the Labour leadership. Putting wealth tax reform ahead of welfare cuts would be a step in the right direction.
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