Autumn Statement Resolutions

Claudia Webbe Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Claudia Webbe (Leicester East) (Ind)]

The Chancellor’s autumn statement is yet another assault on the poor, long-term sick and disabled—one that is both deadly and economically illiterate. Thirteen years of Conservative policies have caused untold misery for the poor, and especially for disabled people, and have been linked to hundreds of thousands of excess deaths. A University of Glasgow study last year found that more than 330,000 excess deaths were the result of austerity, and that austerity had not just halted the decades-long increase in UK life expectancy, but thrown it into complete reverse, especially among poor people. Rather than respond to the appalling effects of those policies by changing course, the Government are now intensifying their attack on the poor, sick and disabled, scapegoating and demonising them for the Government’s failure to grow the economy.

This country already has by far the worst out-of-work benefits of any comparable European nation and one of the harshest conditionality regimes, yet the Chancellor will now punish claimants for not engaging with state-sanctioned coercive therapy while the Government usurp the role of medical experts in deciding who is fit for work. Capitalism and oppression rely on the exploitation of human labour, and it seems that not even the exploitation of disabled people’s labour is off the table in the competitive drive to accumulate even more wealth for the rich. People’s wellbeing is a secondary concern for capitalism, and oppression through vicious sanction is the necessary corollary.

The escalation of the already punitive sanctions regime will see the working class, including the long-term sick, cut off even from support with healthcare. The awful consequences of those moves are not hard to predict, especially for those with long-term complex health conditions or disabilities, or those suffering poor mental health.

As long ago as 2014, NHS data showed that more than four in 10 people claiming out-of-work disability benefits—more than double the figure from the previous survey—had attempted suicide because of the punishing and attritional fit-for-work regime. Under successive Conservative Governments, the treatment of disabled people has been so horrific that the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities condemned the UK for creating “a human catastrophe”. To the shame of this Government, the UK has 14 million people in poverty, well over 4 million of them children. Children from families with a disabled or long-term sick member are more than twice as likely to live in poverty. That figure was measured before the impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis.

The Government claim that the sanctions they intend to apply in cutting off universal credit to the poor will not be applied to those with children or to people with disabilities, but medical professionals and disability campaigners point out that, based on the Government’s track record, the new regime will clearly be used to legitimise discrimination against people with chronic illnesses or disabilities. That is unequivocally against the European convention on human rights, but also fundamentally counterproductive.

As economists have pointed out, it is overwhelmingly clear that if we want to grow the economy, we need to redistribute wealth, invest in communities and put more money into the pockets of the poor, the working classes and the worst-off, because they will spend it locally and increase economic activity. Instead, the Chancellor has announced tax cuts for the wealthy and for corporations—money that will end up in offshore bank accounts, where it does nothing for our economy. This latest assault on the poor and disabled will do the opposite of what the Chancellor claims to be trying to achieve.

Our country desperately needs politicians who put physical, emotional and economic health above an ideological commitment to helping the rich and hitting the poor, the sick and the disabled. Tragically for the millions of struggling poor people in this country, the Chancellor and the Prime Minister are again doing the opposite of what they need. The Government’s proposals are part of an ideological attack on the working class. The Chancellor’s statement betrays those who most need help. It is simply unfit for purpose.