Needed to know who was to blame if another citizen wanted to prosecute them for putting forward an illegal law/decree

Table showing JRF’s indicative estimate of the amount needed to afford essentials for a single adult and couple in 2026/27. In total (rounded) this is at least £120 a week for a single adult and £205 for a couple. It also shows how this breaks down into different categories. For example, the total for a single adult includes weekly amounts of £42 for food, £24 for electricity and gas, £7 for water, £7 for clothes and shoes, £8 for communications (including phones, internet and postage), £21 for travel and £13 for sundries (such as toiletries, haircuts, cleaning materials, bank charges).

MPs will soon debate the annual benefits ‘Uprating Order' on how much benefits rise this year. But shockingly, support has never been set according to any logical calculation, like ensuring Universal Credit covers life's essentials - which @jrf-uk.bsky.social estimates cost £120 a week🧵1/4

Jesus. This poor family. Yet PIV manufacturers go on pushing it - and ofc blaming installers when people are harmed.

Unfortunately Awaab's Law as it stands drives dangerous quick fixes like PIV and chemical washes/mists over actually tackling the causes. Which, as here, can just make things worse.

Disabled people driving luxury cars on your dime? Just the latest rightwing lie peddled by Labour | Frances Ryan Starmer’s ailing government is happy to pursue ideas like cutting Motability, but all ministers will do is damage lives and themselves, says Guardian columnist Frances Ryan

Over the last year, myths about the Motability scheme have spread online and in the right wing media. Now, some of it is government policy. 

In today’s Guardian, I set about finding the facts and why the idea of “free cars for the disabled” has taken hold. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

They changed something. At one point UC claims did used to close as soon as your earnings rose to zero the entitlement, but they changed it (I think during the pandemic) and have since left it at six months of zero before the claim closes

However, unless the Government also removes the benefit cap, some of the poorest households will see little or no gain, as any newly available support would be likely clawed back through the benefit cap.

Don't want to be too on-brand when there really is something to celebrate, but there's nothing about the benefit cap in Budget or EFO so assume it's not changing, which will undermine the policy intent of abolishing the two child limit. Expect we'll see estimates of the effect in the next few days.

Scrapping the two-child limit will be transformational for children.

This is a much-needed fresh start in our country’s efforts to eradicate child poverty and while there is more to do it gives us strong foundations to build on.

1/2

Don’t want to be too moralistic about this, but it is an active disgrace what people are doing to a profoundly liberational scheme that costs relatively piddling amounts on the basis of a couple of right wing shitposters misrepresenting it on Twitter.

Much to agree with here, notably on Labour's bewildering lack of interest in what 2010-24 governments actually did in policy terms. But this - something we have known for well over a century! - just cannot be repeated too often.

Chart showing percentage gap between LHA rates and the estimated 30th percentile rent level since April 2012: Great Britain In April 2011, LHA was lowered to the 30th percentile (meaning that 30 per cent of privately rented properties in the BRMA are charged rent at or below the LHA rate) and a year later, the process of automatically linking LHA to market rents ended. Since then, LHA rates have been frozen in eight of the last 13 years and current Government policy, reflected in the official forecasts, is for them to remain frozen for another four years

Local Housing Allowance rates have been realigned to market rents in just two of the last 13 years, and current Government policy is for these to remain frozen.

But this ongoing freeze means that the 'affordability gap' between LHA rates and local rents is set to reach record levels next year.

Chart showing change in real after housing cost income from 2024-25 of a working wingle parent in receipt of UC, in different LHA uprating scenarios (2025-26 prices): Gloucester The figure shows the real-terms change in after housing costs income of a working single parent with one child living in Gloucester between 2024-25 and 2029-30 if LHA remains frozen as assumed in the Government’s spending forecast. During this period, their earnings and income from the ‘standard allowance’ component of UC will increase in real terms.6 But these income boosts cannot compensate for the loss experienced from LHA failing to keep up with rents. By 2029-30, we estimate the family’s net monthly income will have fallen by £129 in today’s money.

Freezing Local Housing Allowance ultimately lowers living standards for low-income private renters.

Other income boosts cannot compensate for the loss experienced from LHA failing to keep up with rents.

Read the latest Housing Outlook➡️https://buff.ly/iZ80qbA

Next year the basic rate of benefits will be £98pw for a single person.

Logically you'd expect this rate to be linked to the cost of a basket of essentials. It is not.

It's why we need an independent process to advise on a rate that enables people to cover life’s essentials

The welfare bill has passed but it’s barely the same bill. It is government by cut and paste and with such chaotic speed, many ministers will barely know what’s in it. An utter shambles for Labour - and horrific unnecessary stress and suffering for disabled and sick people watching on.

Section 2 of the Bill still halves the LCWRA (‘health’) element of universal credit

The government's welfare legislation is falling apart in real time. Now the four-point rule is being axed from the legislation. The one remaining big cut in the Bill is the slashing of Universal Credit health payments by 40% for new claimants

If the UCPIP Bill becomes law it will cut PIP for over 400k disabled people & UC for over 700k people who are disabled or have a long-term health condition by 2030. Government’s own impact assessment says the cuts will plunge 150k people into poverty by the end of this Parliament

Many of problems of the previous proposals exist in the new ones, but with an additional element of unfairness. Disabled people applying after November 2026 will get a level of support that has rightly been deemed unacceptable for those applying today. MPs should reject the bill.

Image of the Houses of Parliament

A long thread on why the concessions in and around the UCPIP Bill (ie the disability benefits cuts) are illusory, disingenuous and potentially makes things worse 🧵

There are 5 big myths to bust -fifth is the most difficult to untangle, but the most significant in my view, so please do bear with 🙂

...This would be a generational change to the health-related benefits system, and the problems it throws up are not ones that can be patched over by making exceptions for a small group of claimants, and it deserves greater attention.

Welfare cuts ‘could leave thousands of disabled women trapped with abusers’ Exclusive: The prime minister’s controversial welfare cuts would deepen economic insecurity for disabled women and make them more vulnerable to abuse, a new report has warned

Starmer’s welfare cuts could leave thousands of disabled women trapped with abusers.

Why no gender impact assessment?

Women lose disproportionately more in public sector wage cuts, benefit cuts, state pension age hike.

Despite equality laws gender pay/pension gap persists.

These are big changes from Govt to protect existing disabled claimants from cuts - Govt has been listening. But new claimants from April 2026 still face deep hardship from cuts, which should be opposed. Over 400,000 new PIP & 700,000 new UC-health claimants will be £'000s worse off in 2029 1/2

Already 8 in 10 low income families receiving disability benefits go without essentials. This will deteriorate: the Government impact assessment shows by 2029/30:

🛑430,000 new PIP claimants losing average of £4,500 per year
🛑700,000 new UC Health claimants losing average of £3,000 per year

Concessions for those already on disability & health benefits are welcome, and a testament to all the work that has gone into campaigning against these cuts

But people who need support in future will face a much harsher and meaner system if the amended proposals are implemented

Just spoke to @timesradio with a bit of myth busting on PIP and response to rebel deal.

Yes, big concessions from govt for current claimants but this is a political fix that creates unequal policy.

All it takes is illness or life event for any of us to need PIP. People will have less.

Text of tweet posted at 9.33am on 26th June (i.e. this morning) by Diane Abbott: The fight over the welfare bill is not about Morgan McSweeney or Keir Starmer. It is not even about the Labour party, even though it could be strongly affected. It is about the hundreds of thousands of people who will be pushed (deeper) into poverty.

I'd say roughly 75% of mainstream news reporting about the disability benefit cuts has been from a Westminster angle rather than the actual impact the cuts will have

It’s great to see investment in the NHS, social housing, and free school meals. But it makes no sense to cut disability benefits at the same time. Making disabled people sicker and poorer will only increase pressure on the NHS, push them out of independent homes, and deprive their children.

I'd add this doesn't change the need to scrap the two child limit which largely affects a different group of kids who are already FSM eligible and whose households are right at the bottom of the income distribution

Keir Starmer can find billions for weapons factories, drones and a submarine but not for disability benefits or the two child limit. One more time for those at the back: Poverty Is A Political Choice.

👇Government policy on employment is essentially operating in three different universes.

1) Universe one: higher minimum wage, day one SSP, essentially a bunch of disincentives to hire people with gaps in the CV
2) the active reform agenda of the DWP
3) random cuts fed into the OBR’s maw