An array of high-profile celebrities together with Sir Stephen Fry, Brian Cox and Stanley Tucci have criticised the federal government’s £5bn cuts to incapacity advantages, calling the plans “shameful” and “a stain on this nation”.
They joined the UK’s greatest meals financial institution community, Trussell, in urging ministers to rethink the planned changes, warning they risked pushing much more disabled folks into poverty and reliance on charity meals handouts.
Labour’s plans to overtake the incapacity profit system, introduced earlier this week, will see more than 1 million people lose support value between £4,200 and £6,300 a 12 months. Some households are very prone to be as much as £10,000 a year out of pocket.
The plans, which symbolize incapacity profit spending cuts on an unprecedented scale, have led to widespread anger on the Labour backbenches, and provoked a near-unanimous condemnation from incapacity and poverty campaigners.
Fry stated the cuts burden ought to fall on the best-off in society, somewhat than hitting susceptible disabled folks: “The social safety system ought to be rooted in justice and compassion, equity and wish. It’s not too late to rethink this.”
The actor Brian Cox stated it was a “stain on this nation” that so many individuals needed to flip to meals banks to outlive. He stated the cuts made “no sense and can have an enduring impression on the lives of so many individuals already discovering it troublesome to afford life’s necessities”.
The comic Rosie Jones, who has cerebral palsy, stated: “Disabled individuals are fearful of what the longer term holds if there’s cuts to incapacity funds, as they’re already not sufficient to cowl life’s necessities.”
The entrepreneur and superstar chef Levi Roots stated: “We’d like compassionate options that make meals banks out of date. Cuts to incapacity funds will merely maintain meals banks in enterprise for longer.”
Trussell, which oversees a community of greater than 1,400 meals banks throughout the UK, stated households containing somebody who’s disabled have been already disproportionately prone to be pressured into meals financial institution use. It referred to as the cuts “merciless and irresponsible”.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, has defended the plans, revealed on Tuesday, saying massive will increase in incapacity advantages spending in recent times have been unsustainable, whereas the “damaged” social safety system was letting disabled folks down by trapping them on advantages after they wished to work.
The choreographer and former Strictly Come Dancing decide Dame Arlene Phillips stated the social safety system needed to be there when folks wanted it most. She added: “Reducing incapacity advantages is shameful.”
The actor Stanley Tucci stated: “Via my work with Trussell, I do know the truth of those cuts can be mother and father in disabled households having to skip meals in order that they will feed their kids. Issues don’t should be this manner. We should shout as loud as we are able to to let the UK authorities know this plan is mistaken.”
A Division for Work and Pensions spokesperson stated: “Our reforms will construct a social safety system that’s fairer, extra sustainable and match for the longer term – so it will probably at all times be there for these with the best must reside with the dignity and help they deserve.
“Serving to folks into good work is on the coronary heart of our method to tackling poverty and inequality, however the damaged social safety system we inherited is failing individuals who can and have the potential to work, in addition to the folks it’s meant to be there for.”
