Welfare reforms will be ‘devastating’ for disabled, Shirley-Anne Somerville says

The UK Government has come under fire for changes to the welfare system with Scotland’s Social Justice Secretary warning of the “devastating affect on disabled people”.

Shirley-Anne Somerville hit out after Work and Pension Secretary Liz Kendall announced plans to cut £5 billion from the UK welfare bill.

With some benefits devolved to the Scottish Government, not all the changes announced will apply north of the border, although Ms Somerville now fears the impact on Holyrood’s budget will be “really quite severe”.

As part of the reforms, some elements of universal credit will only be paid to those in receipt of the personal independence payment (Pip), a benefit the Scottish Government has replaced with the adult disability payment.

The UK Government said there would be no change to the Scottish Government’s block grant in 2025-26, adding that after that the two administrations will have to try to resolve the issue.

However, with reforms also being made to the Pip assessment, Ms Somerville said: “We do not know what the implications for the Scottish Government will be.

“I do fear that they will be really, really quite severe.”

Her comments came after Ms Kendall insisted reform is needed because the current social security system is “failing the very people it is supposed to help and holding our country back”.

But with the proposed changes already being criticised by disability charities and others, Ms Somerville: “What we’ve seen so far is the UK Government taking a conscious decision to take money away from some of the most vulnerable in our society.”

The Holyrood minister added: “This is a choice that they have made, and it is how we’re going to have a devastating, devastating affect on  disabled people.”

She continued: “I see thousands upon thousands of disabled people who are fearing how they are actually going to feed themselves, look after themselves and afford what they need to do.

“That’s what I see as the impact on disabled people.”

However, Scottish Secretary Ian Murray said what was needed was action from Holyrood to deal with issues such as the higher number young people not in education, employment or training north of the border, and the higher number of people on long term sickness and disability benefits.

“It is a total waste of potential for people to be trapped in the benefits system,” Mr Murray said.

The Scottish Secretary added that 300,000 Scots “are out of work because they are either temporary or long term sick”, and that 15% of young people were not in education, employment or training.

Adding that Scotland’s economic inactivity rate is the highest in the UK, he said: “That is not acceptable to me, I don’t think it should be acceptable to the Scottish public.

“We should be backing this and making sure we can work together as governments to make sure this whole package of measures is delivered in Scotland to unleash the potential of people being in work and benefiting from that.”

Meanwhile, Labour social security minister Stephen Timms said the changes would help “repair our broken benefits system” and would be a “major contribution to renewing growth in the UK”.

The reforms should also “remove the current disincentive to work in the benefits system”, he said, while also making sure that disability benefits are “sustainable financially in the long term”.

Mr Timms said: “We want to make sure it is affordable in the future and the scale of increase in demand for benefits, particularly since the pandemic, has put that at risk.”

He also told how the changes would also see the “first ever real-terms increase in the standard allowance of universal credit” with Mr Timms saying this would “help a lot of people who have been turning to foodbanks in the past”.

But John Dickie, the director of the Child Poverty Action Group in Scotland said that the reforms “pose a real challenge to Scottish and UK government child poverty commitments”.

He stated: “Children in a household where someone has a disability already have a higher risk of poverty and further cuts would only make life harder for many of these families.”

Citizens Advice Scotland head of social justice Emma Jackson said they too were “very concerned about the implications” of the UK Government’s plans.

“While much of the detail of how it will affect Scotland is still not clear, the UK Government’s aims to cut the welfare budget by £5 billion by 2030 will certainly put pressure on the system here,” Ms Jackson said.

“We fear it would lead to reduced incomes for those experiencing some of the most severe poverty in our society.

“This is unacceptable.”

Billy Watson, chief executive of Scottish Action for Mental Health (SAMH), said: “By explicitly choosing to make the personal independence payment available to fewer disabled people for budgetary reasons, the UK Government is choosing to make the lives of people with mental health problems harder.”

Inclusion Scotland chief executive, Heather Fisken meanwhile blasted: “These cuts are an ideological and political choice that will cause grave harm for Scotland’s disabled people.

“We are opposed to the UK Government’s choice to slash the welfare budget by pushing disabled people further into poverty.”