Sioned Williams MS writes about how those who need the most support will pay the highest price
This article was published in the South Wales Evening Post on Thursday 17 April 2025.
The high cost to Wales of the UK Labour Government’s cuts to welfare
I want to explain why the UK Labour’s Government’s proposed changes to welfare matter so much in Wales.
If you already rely on disability benefits like PIP to help you carry out daily activities, then you will be all too painfully aware of what these cuts will mean. If you’re lucky enough not to need them now – and I say this because 80% of disabled people acquire disability later in life - there may come a time when you will need extra support – and so this is very important to us all.
Wales has the highest proportion of disabled people in the UK, at 26%. Wales also has higher rates of disabled people of working age than the UK average and five of the UK's 10 local authorities with the highest rates of people not in work because of long-term illness. So these cuts are going to hit people in Wales the hardest.
The UK Labour Government say the reason for their proposed cuts to disability benefits is to help get disabled people into work. However, I was part of a Senedd Committee inquiry that looked into what’s stopping disabled people who are able and want to work from getting a job, and I can tell you that it’s not because they need less financial support like PIP.
Rather, it’s because there are barriers to the world of work which should be tackled by Employers and by Government. Some of these barriers are to do with the environment, like suitable equipment, or lack of access for wheelchair users for example. Some of these barriers are also to do with negative attitudes of employers towards disabled people.
So, if disabled people who want to, and are able to work, have real barriers to entering work, then taking away financial support will only cause them to be poorer, and less able to gain a job. That’s certainly been the overwhelming conclusion from inequality and poverty experts and disability rights campaigners, and, most importantly, disabled people themselves.
The proposals from the UK Government are short-sighted, immoral and unethical. And although Wales will be hit harder by these cuts than England, the UK Labour Government haven’t even considered what impact this will have on the 275,000 people in Wales who rely on these payments to help them cope with the higher day to day costs that being disabled brings.
So yet again in Wales, we’re going to be left picking up the pieces, trying to shield the people of Wales from Westminster, because we know that thousands more people will be pushed into poverty by these cuts.
We know that Labour isn't honouring long-held promises to Wales, as we've seen with their refusal to reform the unfair Barnett formula which means Wales gets less funding than it deserves from Westminster, and their failure to provide Wales with a single penny of the money it’s owed from the billions of pound spent on HS2.
But we've now reached the stage where Labour is not only ignoring Welsh interests but actively working against them. And it’s those in Wales who most need support who are paying the highest price.