The House of Commons Work and Pensions select committee is currently conducting an inquiry into the Labour Party government’s disability benefits Green Paper. Announced at the start of April, this will examine the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) planned changes to Universal Credit’s (UC) health-related element, Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and its move to abolish the Work Capability Assessment (WCA), among other details of the government’s controversial plans.
However, there’s already a glaring issue that’s likely setting the inquiry up to be little more than a colossal whitewash. Amid the membership of the committee, what could be worse than an MP from the notorious ‘Get Britain Working’ group actively backing the cuts? The answer to that would be: four MPs – including the very one heading the charge – David Pinto-Duschinsky.
Work and Pensions Committee: DWP Green Paper inquiry
As the Canary has previously reported, the Labour Party government has now laid down its plans for cuts DWP PIP and the health-based part of Universal Credit. DWP boss Liz Kendall launched its Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working green paper on 18 March.
The paper included a suite of regressive reforms to make it harder for people to claim disability benefits like PIP. As expected, the changes it’s proposing will target certain claimants in particular, namely young, neurodivergent, learning disabled, and those with mental health disorders.
Moreover, disabled people who need help with things like cutting up food, supervision, prompting, or assistance to wash, dress, or monitor their health condition, will no longer be eligible.
Specifically, it’s increasing the number of points a person will need to score in their DWP PIP assessment to access the daily living component of the benefit. This will now require people to score four points or more in a daily living category to claim it.
Alongside this, there’ll be cuts to out-of-work benefits like the LCWRA health-related component of Universal Credit. Once again, Labour additionally want to make this harder to claim, and all as it ramps up reassessments and conditionality requirements for doing so.
So now, the Work and Pensions Committee is hosting an inquiry into the government’s plans.
Work and Pensions Committee: stacked with Get Britain Working group MPs
In particular, the inquiry is intending to look at the impacts of these DWP policy changes on disabled people. Moreover, it aims to unpack the poverty and employment effects of the reforms.
In its announcement on 3 April, committee chair Debbie Abrahams said:
While the Chancellor undoubtedly must respond to financial challenges, there are legitimate concerns regarding the proposed changes to our social security system which would lead to a cut in support for more than three million sick and disabled people and their families, especially if these cuts happen before employment opportunities emerge. It is therefore vital that there is full examination of the evidence of the likely impacts this will have on poverty and employment, as well as the health of sick and disabled people. Our social security system is meant to provide a safety net to support people, so that they are protected from poverty. But we know that there are already 14.3 million people living in poverty, and half of them are sick or disabled people who are not properly supported by our benefits system. We must ensure that new social security policy addresses this.
Abrahams herself has long championed chronically ill and disabled people’s rights in parliament. Her presence on the committee as chair might in theory allay some concerns that it will fail to properly scrutinise the government’s paper.
However, her singular voice in chronically ill and disabled people’s corner comes as cold comfort when you look at the make-up of the rest of the committee. In reality, Abrahams is vastly outnumbered by those who support the cuts.
Significantly, Labour MPs on the committee just so happen to also be among the ‘Get Britain Working’ group. In March, this 36-strong (now 35) bloc of MPs popped up to back chancellor Rachel Reeves and DWP boss Liz Kendall’s plans to cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits. David Pinto-Duschinsky headed up the group, sending a letter to Kendall stating their support:
https://twitter.com/DavidPintoD/status/1899010174930616635/photo/1
A stacked DWP select committee
As the Canary’s Steve Topple highlighted at the time:
Pinto-Duschinsky even penned a column in City A.M. about the group. It was more-of-the-same nonsense: work is good for disabled people; we’ve got a worklessness crisis; people are left to rot on benefits, but the main problem is it’s costing us too much.
And, Topple also noted that Pinto-Duschinsky sits on the parliamentary Work and Pensions Select Committee. But, as it turns out – he isn’t the only one.
In fact, there are three more MPs besides Pinto-Duschinsky who also signed the letter to Kendall in March. These are MP for Bristol North East Damien Egan, North West Leicestershire MP Amanda Hack, and Coatbridge and Bellshill MP Frank McNally.
In short, four out of seven Labour MPs among the committee’s members are part of the ‘Get Britain Working’ group.
The committee formed in October – months before the ‘Get Britain Working’ group emerged. However, the point is that these four MPs are now the ones holding an inquiry. And it’s on just these very plans they publicly threw their weight behind.
This is what passes for scrutiny?
Obviously, parliamentary select committees are not exactly impartial. MPs will inevitably approach a topic with their own preconceived notions and perceptions. Cross-party membership doesn’t elude this fact.
Nonetheless, select committees are at least meant to have some degrees of separation from the government. This is particularly the case for those that shadow specific government departments – as the Work and Pensions Committee does. Backbench MPs will typically make-up the membership of the party in government to account for this.
In practice, this is of course the case with the current committee. However, the ‘Get Britain Working’ group MPs have publicly declared support for the government’s Green Paper. That is, four of seven MPs of the party in power on the committee have expressly backed the policies they are now meant to be scrutinising.
As members, they’ll input into decisions on who the committee calls for evidence. They will ask witnesses questions and shape the extent of the inquiry. Then, finally, they’ll help to prepare the inquiry report. Ultimately, they determine who gets heard, what gets heard, and get a say over what gets included – and what doesn’t – in the culminating report to the government.
A forgone conclusion
Already, Pinto-Duschinsky’s role on the committee is demonstrating this bias in action. The committee held its first oral evidence session on Tuesday 22 April. During the opening hour, it took evidence from a number of witnesses. This included: social sciences and health professor at King’s College London Ben Geiger, the New Economics Foundation’s (NEF) Tom Pollard, Policy Exchange’s Jean-André Prager, and the Resolution Foundation’s Ruth Curtice.
Pinto-Duschinsky didn’t miss an opportunity to push the enormously problematic rhetoric around overdiagnosis of mental health that both major parties and the right-wing media have been promoting. This is of course the framing Labour is now deploying as a pretext for many of its disgraceful cuts and reforms.
Specifically, Pinto-Duschinsky put to the panel of witnesses:
Picking up on that point about medicalisation and turning to mental health now, you mentioned medicalisation and Ben, you in particular have talked about a more nuanced conversation about it, but you’ve several times referenced the fact that you think there has been an increase in medicalisation. Can you talk a bit about that and place that in the context of what we think is driving, in particular, rising levels of mental health claims, particularly among younger people?
Overall, his questions smacked of soliciting evidence to undergird the government’s scapegoating narratives. Crucially, what it shows is how for the ‘Get Britain Working’ group, the inquiry outcome is likely a forgone conclusion, namely one which effectively justifies the cuts. Whatever the evidence may be, it’s easy enough for them to cherry-pick and manipulate.
In other words, it will be surprising if this inquiry comes out with anything remotely resembling scathing criticism of the government’s plans.
Labour Together driving the DWP cuts
The Canary also previously highlighted that most of the ‘Get Britain Working’ group had taken funding from Labour Together. Yes, Keir Starmer’s now chief of staff Morgan McSweeney’s brainchild: that Labour Together. This is the dodgy think tank that simultaneously orchestrated Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral downfall and propelled many of the neoliberal Labour MPs now calling the shots in Cabinet into power has reared its head here too.
The Work and Pensions Committee ‘Get Britain Working’ group MPs are no exception.
The think tank gave McNally £10,000 for his electoral campaign. Major Labour Together donor Trevor Chinn bunged Pinto-Duschinsky £3,500. On top of this, one of its other key donors, Martin Taylor, gave him a further £5,000. Meanwhile, Labour Together donor Gary Lubner gave Egan £5,000.
Interestingly, Hack actually isn’t one of the MPs Labour Together or individuals connected to it donated to.
On the other hand though, the two other MPs besides Abrahams not in the ‘Get Britain Working’ group, are.
Clwyd North MP Gill German took £10,000 from Labour Together directly. Paisley and Renfrewshire South MP Johanna Baxter meanwhile, accepted £11,250 from Lubner.
As far as the Canary can find, neither have come out against the benefit cuts. Instead, both have made comments that seem to indicate they’re wedded to the Labour as the party of work rhetoric.
For instance, in the debate after Kendall announced the plans, German opined how she was:
delighted to hear my right hon. Friend announce additional investment in high quality, tailored and personalised support to help people on a pathway to work
Similarly, Baxter “warmly” welcomed Kendall’s Get Britain Working White Paper in November. Notably, she stated the by now, well-worn and ridiculous line about work as the source of “dignity” – often implying of course that those who don’t or can’t work, don’t have it.
Another inquiry to tell the government DWP cuts kill? Nothing changes
Consequently, this is another danger of the neoliberal Labour landslide coming to fruition. The Labour right’s dominance in the party is eroding even the minimal, measly checks and balances that exist.
However, at the end of the day, the recommendations from committees like this have always been just that: recommendations. There’s nothing mandatory about whatever the committee calls on the government to do.
And, when you consider that it was the now-DWP minister Stephen Timms chairing this very committee before it dissolved ahead of the 2024 General Election, it shows how little sycophantic sell-out politicians like him take the lessons learned in committee inquiries with them when they get into power.
Plenty have pointed out his duplicitous double-standards in formerly lambasting Tory DWP benefit cuts, only to now defend them under Labour.
Ultimately then, that’s the rub. This inquiry isn’t – and never was – the petri dish for a radical fight back. And one that’s stacked with MPs who overtly back the cuts? It’s clear the Labour government certainly banked on never would be.
Featured image via the Canary
