Health secretary Wes Streeting was at a Guardian Live event on Tuesday 25 March. Hosted by the liberal outlet’s stenographer-in-chief, Pippa Crerar, it sadly didn’t go quite according to either of their plans. This is because not only were there protesters outside over Streeting’s plans for more private involvement in the NHS – but inside, young disabled people took the health secretary to task over his government’s plans to cut Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and Universal Credit for chronically ill and disabled people.
Wes Streeting: don’t mess with the NHS
First, outside the event at Conway Hall in London campaign group Keep Our NHS Public were there to greet snivelling Streeting:
We're protesting Wes Streeting's NHS plans outside Conway Hall!
Privatisation no way, the NHS is here to stay!! pic.twitter.com/AblhsgPPbg
— Keep Our NHS Public (@keepnhspublic) March 25, 2025
Little wonder the group was out protesting, really. As the Canary previously reported, Streeting said last month he’s “very sympathetic to the argument that we should try and leverage in private finance.” This is on top of the hundreds of thousands of pounds he’s received in donations from companies with links to private health care. Plus, Streeting has been open about his plans to let private companies get even more NHS contracts.
And then, you have the appointment of Blairite Alan Milburn to Streeting’s team. This in itself is a cause for major concern:
🔴 SCOOP: Alan Milburn's lucrative private healthcare gigs
– Milburn is reportedly Starmer's pick for new role 'driving NHS reform', but his private consultancy paid out £8 million+ to the ex Labour health sec and family
– Cash came primarily from private healthcare interests…
— Peter Geoghegan @ democracyforsale.uk (@PeterKGeoghegan) July 16, 2024
So, Keep Our NHS Public was right to sound the alarm outside Conway Hall.
Then, inside young disabled people took Streeting to task:
🚨 BREAKING: Young PIP claimants challenge @wesstreeting for backing cruel disability cuts.
We’ve been denied care, stuck on waiting lists & left to fight for survival in a rigged system.#StopTheCuts – this is life or death. We won’t let them get away with it ⬇️ #GuardianLive pic.twitter.com/CaDl1EYZf8
— Just Treatment 💊 (@JustTreatment) March 25, 2025
DWP PIP cuts will kill
This was of course over Labour and DWP plans to kill chronically ill and disabled people – or if you’re reading from the party script, “reform the welfare state”.
The “reforms” include stricter tests for DWP PIP claimants resulting in reduced payments for many – with those under the age of 22 no longer being able to claim incapacity benefit top ups to Universal Credit. This austerity dressed up as reform has left millions of disabled people feeling deflated and fearful, as most DWP PIP claimants won’t ever be able to work due to their disabilities.
Overall, the DWP will be cutting around £5bn from people’s benefits. Of course, Labour is dressing this up as being done to ‘support’ chronically ill and disabled people into work. Yet it is the very opposite of that. – and as protesters pointed out, could end up killing some people.
Not that blood being on the DWP’s hands is new. As the Canary reported in 2021, thousands of people have died on the DWP’s watch. Among these are:
- Around 90 people a month between December 2011 and February 2014. The DWP said these people were fit for work.
- Roughly 10 people a day died between March 2014 and February 2017 – a period of almost three years. The DWP had put these people in the ESA Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). This meant it told them they were healthy enough to start moving towards work.
- Nearly 12 people died daily over a period of five years – between April 2013 and April 2018. The DWP was making them wait for their Personal Independence Payment (PIP) claims to be processed when they died.
That’s over 34,000 people. They died either waiting for the DWP to sort their claims or after it said they were well enough to work or start moving towards work. Moreover, in 2018 alone there could have been 750 (if not more) people who took their own lives while claiming from the DWP. But across five years, the department only reviewed 69 cases of people taking their own lives.
Streeting: expect more of this
So, the threat from Labour to chronically ill and disabled, and our NHS, is very real – as is the party’s refusal to take the climate crisis seriously, and Streeting’s willingness to destroy the lives of trans children.
Therefore, it was good to see him getting shouted down by the very people his government’s policies will be affecting. And, we can expect to see even more of this type of resistance over the next few months:
BREAKING: We've just disrupted Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care at his public event hosted by @guardianlive alongside @GNDRising , Mad Youth Organise, @JustTreatment & Trans Kids Deserve better pic.twitter.com/wCiJxrYiJj
— Climate Resistance (@climate_resist) March 25, 2025
Featured image via Climate Resistance
