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Conservative plans to ban all non-Brits from claiming disability benefits would be unworkable and could push children into poverty, according to campaigners and academics.
Over the weekend, Shadow Chancellor Mel Stride said Personal Independence Payments (PIP) and disability payments under Universal Credit should be limited to UK citizens because his party believes “British citizenship should mean something.”
He struggled to answer questions as to why his party didn’t make that change during its 14 years in power, as Politico noted.
But while pushing the policy over the weekend, shadow policing minister Matt Vickers conflated asylum seekers – who cannot claim the benefit – with foreign nationals who arrived via regular routes and have legal status. Many of them will have worked and paid taxes in the UK for years.
Vickers told Sky News: “This is about getting rid of some of those pull factors, about making, you know, why are all those people fleeing from France to come to the UK? Because they think life here is paid for.”
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He suggested that PIP and Universal Credit disability payments only go to those out of work – saying their plans would hit those who “ended up not working, [who] have ended up not contributing.” PIP is available to those in work (and out), as a way of supporting people who face extra costs due to their disabilities.
Vickers added: “People who live here who are contributing need to be put first.” Again, non-Brits who had lived here and worked here for decades would also be excluded under the Conservative plans.
And he claimed: “We are paying out a billion pounds a month in sickness benefits to households with foreign nationals. That’s not acceptable.”
However, the figure covers any household with a foreign national in it, which means it may be a British citizen claiming the benefit. In other words, the true figure may be nearer to £0.
Specifically, the policy – added as a Conservative amendment to Labour’s stripped-back Universal Credit Bill – would significantly restrict PIP and Universal Credit payments for disabled people who have a Limited Capability for Work (LCW) or the more severe Limited Capability for Work- and Work-Related Activity (LCWRA) status. Those with LCW status are expected to be able to work in future with support, while those on LCWRA status are not. PIP recipients are often in work.
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Most migrants are already blocked from accessing public funds until they get permanent residence – they are on a ‘No Recourse to Public Funds’ condition from the Home Office. This has also applied to almost all EU nationals in the UK from 2021 (and longer for non-EU migrants).
Potential disability benefit claimants are subject to a residency check (known as ‘past presence test’) – where they must prove they have lived in the UK for the last two out of three years.
Byline Times has spoken to experts and campaigners about the Conservative proposals, which have been little-analysed so far.
Misleading Voters?
Cary Mitchell, a director at the internationalist campaign group Best for Britain, argues much of the rise in welfare spend in recent years was attributable to the last Conservative Government’s “shambolic handling” of the pandemic and its aftermath.
“The Conservatives are cynically and deliberately misrepresenting this general trend of their making to increase division,” Mitchell states.
“Studies show immigrants pay more into the public purse than they take out and vital public services like the NHS rely on people who come here from all over the world to work and who now call the UK home.”
Rob Ford, professor of politics at the University of Manchester, told Byline Times he doesn’t think the policy is “workable” or “thought through”.
“But I don’t think they will care too much. This is opposition politics – the point is getting attention.”
But should they succeed or return to Government, limiting disability benefits even further “risks pushing migrants with serious disabilities and health conditions into poverty, including those who have permanent residence and have lived in the UK for many years,” Marley Morris, associate director for migration at the progressive IPPR think tank said.
“We already have limits on access to benefits for most migrants before they get permanent residence; extending this further would be entirely out of line with the views of the public, the majority of whom think migrants who are working and paying taxes in the UK should be able to access benefits after at most three years,” Morris told Byline Times.
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Professor Kim Hoque, Professor of Human Resource Management at King’s College London, says no one appears to have done any modelling of the Conservative proposals – “not least the people making this proposal, given [that] the £1bn figure relates to payments to households with a foreign national rather than payments to foreign nationals themselves.“
“I’d assume that many of these payments will likely be going to British citizens living with foreign nationals, hence won’t be affected by the policy proposal.”
Prof Hoque notes that reducing support for foreign nationals who are, or who become, disabled, would cause the same problems as would emerge for cuts to support for disabled people more generally. “We’d likely see greater pressure on the healthcare system and social care,” as health conditions worsen.
Ending support now for those who could return to work in future could lower their chances of re-joining the workforce and contributing economically, he says.
Professor Ben Baumberg Geiger, Professor in Social Science and Health and King’s College London, notes that spending trends for Universal Credit are rising partly because more and more people are moving over to UC from legacy benefits – “which makes interpreting any trends pretty sketchy.”
“So if there’s a UK national claiming benefits, and their partner is not a UK (or Irish) national, then this is counted as ‘benefits to foreign households’.
“But the bigger issue is about the rights of migrants, and the consequences of taking some of these away.”
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Punishing the Kids
Sophie Howes, Head of Policy at Child Poverty Action Group, told Byline Times children were already being punished for their parents’ legal status due to current restrictions on welfare affecting millions of migrants.
“For families with children, they shouldn’t be subject to No Recourse to Public Funds [statuses]. We know that causes poverty…
“We would be very opposed to any policy moves [further] in that direction, primarily because children should be entitled to support regardless of their nationality or their family circumstances.”
She added: “Each and every child that lives in the UK should be entitled to sufficient support to protect them from poverty.”
Howes noted that it was a Conservative policy to calculate Universal Credit awards for households, rather than individuals – making their own reform plan largely unworkable.
“Because of the way that Universal Credit works, households make a joint claim. It’s quite difficult to disentangle [people’s] entitlement, because the Government has made an active decision under the Conservatives that Universal Credit, their flagship policy, assesses households on a household basis.
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“It’s tricky to think of people in their individual right to entitlement because Universal Credit blurs those lines and puts households together.”
And she reiterated that the existing residency test is designed to stop people being able to claim benefits immediately on arrival in the UK.
“The idea that people are just coming into the UK and immediately taking benefits just isn’t accurate,” Howes said.
More fundamentally, she branded the Conservative policy a “really worrying direction of travel”.
“If you’re a family with three children, you’re on a low income, and you live in the UK, then you should be entitled to some support through those hard times, through a job loss, or whatever it is.
“That support we would always argue should be unconditional on the fact that there are children in the household, and children deserve support. So any move towards restricting support to certain groups or certain communities is something we’d be very strongly opposed to.”
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Cary Mitchell of Best for Britain summed up the Conservative plan as “depressing”: “After years of failed Brexit policy and anti-immigrant rhetoric, which saw thousands of skilled people leave the UK and the Conservatives hit electoral rock bottom…the Tories have still not learned that they cannot outdo Nigel Farage and Reform UK on this fact-free demagoguery which has only delivered disaster for Britain.”
The Conservative welfare amendment – NC21
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Helen Whately MP, has put forward the amendment for the Conservatives: “The condition [of the amendment]…is that the Secretary of State [will lay] before the House of Commons a document containing proposals for the reform of— (a) the standard allowance, the LCWRA element and the LCW element of Universal Credit; (b) personal independence payment eligibility and its assessment.”
The proposals would be to:
“(a) reduce entitlement to personal independence payment and the LCWRA element and the LCW element of Universal Credit for those whose qualification for these benefits is incapacity or disability deriving from less severe mental health conditions; and
“(b) limit eligibility for the personal independence payment and the LCRWA [sic] element and the LCW element of Universal Credit to British citizens, excluding all foreign nationals unless already entitled under international treaty obligations in force on the day on which this Act was passed.”
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