Sir Keir Starmer’s proposed benefit cuts have sparked a heated debate among Independent readers, with opinions deeply divided over the government’s approach to welfare reform.

A recent poll revealed that 68 per cent of readers do not support the proposed changes, fearing they will disproportionately harm disabled and chronically ill individuals.

When we asked for your views, readers feared the reforms ignore the realities of long-term illness, with fluctuating conditions making rigid assessments unfair.

A minority of readers supported the reforms, agreeing that the welfare system needs change and that too many people are claiming benefits unnecessarily.

While some welcomed the “Right to Try” scheme, they stressed the need for long-term support. Others agreed with the government’s position that work provides purpose and identity and that more should be done to support people in returning to employment.

Here’s what you had to say:

Right to Try scheme a very welcome addition

I have been supported by both ESA and PIP for the last five years due to multiple long-term physical, mental, and neurodivergent conditions that affect everything from my joints, immune system, executive function, and social interaction.

These benefits have allowed me to keep living independently – something that, being in my 40s, has been essential to my well-being – and has also meant I’ve not needed to access social housing or other support services.

I would love to be able to do something constructive with the little energy and ability I have left after doing essential life chores, but I would need assurances that I would be able to access suitable long-term support to do so — and that, I think, is my number one concern with any change in the benefit process.

The Right to Try scheme is a very welcome addition, and I think it will encourage more people to re-enter the workforce. Many long-term health conditions can fluctuate in their symptoms and can also be affected by stress and anxiety, which can bring on “flare-ups” — a worsening of these symptoms. Where you’re unlucky enough to have multiple conditions, these flare-ups can cause a domino effect, each one affecting the other, leaving you unable to even fulfil self-care needs. The process of claiming benefits is arduous and stressful, sometimes taking up to six months, and I can speak from experience that the prospect of going through it all again if it turns out that the role you choose is causing you harm is so distressing that it makes you avoid thinking about it.

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I also think JSA and ESA should be merged to allow for cross-channel support and function, with the added benefit of likely cutting a lot of unnecessary red tape on all sides.

immiscibility

Reassessment stress

I have real concerns about the changes that may be coming. I know from experience of helping and supporting a family member who has been sick since childhood with physical disabilities. The stress and fear every time reassessment takes place is overwhelming. Physical abilities decrease, but we have to fight all the time.

Assessments should be videoed. No account is taken of good and bad days and extra costs, e.g. buying pre-grated cheese because you can’t grate it, or ready-chopped veg because you can’t cut. Again, it seems to be demonising and punitive to everyone.

Gillywicks

Cancer treatment

I watched Streeting on Sunday tell a story of a friend with cancer who was offered sick leave, but felt well enough to work, and did. Streeting concluded that many should be working instead of going on leave. I too have cancer and currently have radiation treatment, and I am working. But I would never suggest others do so.

For a start, it is job dependent, as in many jobs it is not acceptable to be sleepy or fatigued. For others, psychological factors will come into play. Streeting should rely on doctors to decide and busy himself with developing plans, which he will need more than ever after deleting NHS England.

Mp

Work gives purpose and identity

The government is right in that work gives us purpose, identity, and often somewhere to make social connections. Children and young people are our future, so while reform is needed it should not be about cost-cutting but about those investments that are required for people to have jobs that will give them a rich and fulfilling life.

Ithinkweknowtheanswertothat

Not a lifestyle choice

I am in disbelief that I am reading these headlines under a Labour government.

I worked from the age of 13, I worked through college and university, I worked whilst pregnant and returned to work when both babies were 10 months old. I am now 40. My eldest son has ASD and ADHD; he has an ECP (Education, Health and Care Plan) which I fought tooth and nail for. He requires medication and a different type of support and parenting than a neurotypical child of the same age. He is doing well, but it has taken a lot of work, balance, and proactive advocacy from me to safeguard his care and well-being. A tip in that balance means a spiral into crisis, non-verbalism, school refusal, self-harm, and food rejection. I get CA and DLA for him.

A few years before he was diagnosed, I too was diagnosed with an inherited cancer called Lynch Syndrome, which led to me having a total hysterectomy at 32. Within seven months, I was in excruciating muscular and joint pain, I was regularly falling, I was forgetting information and struggling to recall simple details like my own name, I was fatigued to the point of collapse, I started experiencing tremors, spasms, and intense migraines. I became hypersensitive to sound and smell and my mental health plummeted.

I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, a much-maligned and misunderstood illness. My life completely changed. At work, I was unreliable, making mistakes; I couldn’t concentrate, and I was often too weak to move. When I could work, I would be getting calls from the school.

I lost my job. I fought for PIP. My husband works over 50 hours a week. I am not lazy, I am not a scrounger; I am a woman with an illness trying to keep my head above water and keep my son healthy at the same time. I feel sick with nerves. I’d be £25k better off in work. This isn’t a lifestyle choice.

Sarahintheshire

Cutting the number of claimants

There is a need to cut the cost of the welfare budget. That can be achieved in two ways: either by cutting the individual benefits or by cutting the number of claimants.

I favour the latter; far too many claimants are fiddles and need to be weeded out.

MORDEY

Failure to understand cause and effect

There seems to be a real failure to understand cause and effect, both from Starmer’s Labour and the Conservatives before them. If they are genuinely concerned about increasing numbers of people needing to claim disability benefits, they ought to be looking at the reasons why — Long COVID, mental ill health exacerbated by current affairs, lack of access to physical and mental health care, and the general inaccessibility of workplaces of all kinds for disabled people.

If they’re concerned about financial deficits, they ought to be ensuring that major corporations like Google and Amazon contribute their fair share in tax to pay for the public infrastructure they depend on to operate in the UK. Treating disabled people as costs to be managed is callous. Expecting disabled people to work themselves into an early grave just to be less of an economic “burden” is reprehensible. “Evil begins when you begin to treat people as things.”

Juno

Tax the wealthiest properly

Why on earth can’t this government tax the wealthiest properly so that they spend the same amount in GDP terms as the poorest do?

I understand that the benefits bill is ballooning out of control and, yes, target benefit fraud, but I think it’s an utter disgrace that they’re planning on targeting the most vulnerable in society under the guise of “extra support.”

The Treasury would earn far more if they also targeted the tax evaders and avoiders.

A crying shame that just when we need this Labour government to succeed, they’re alienating the very people who voted for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I would NEVER vote Reform or Tory within my lifetime, but Labour really need to become the socialist government that we elected them to be and stop pandering to the RW media.

Amy

Substantive questions on disability benefits

Where in the debate about disability benefits are the substantive questions?

Questions like: why is being disabled more expensive than being able-bodied, and on average by how much?

How is cutting a non-out-of-work benefit — PIP — going to increase the number of people employed when it will most likely lead to disabled employees losing their jobs?

Why are workplaces so significantly stressful, and why aren’t more employers doing more to create less stressful and healthier workplaces?

Given that the very richest have seen their already immense wealth soar over the past several years, why are they allowed to escape paying their fair share towards repairing the nation’s economy and public finances?

What kind of moral arguments can legitimately be claimed by privileged, often well-off or very well-off politicians who decide to implement policies that attack the most vulnerable and poorest in society?

DisgustedOfMiddleEngland

It’s a cut, not reform

It’s not “reform” if you start from a pre-decided amount of money you want to save. It’s a cut.

More sympathetic assistance to help those who can and want to get back into work is fine (and should, of course, have been happening already), but that needs to be in place and bedded in before any “reform” to payments is even considered.

Otherwise, it’s a cut.

Maxcastle

No balancing the books

There’s no “balancing the books” as, despite what Thatcher claimed, managing an economy is nothing like managing a household budget. All Starmer, Reeves, and Kendall are doing is implementing unfinished Tory policy on welfare. And these red Tories are reigniting the tradition of demonising the disabled.

So many people with disabilities want to work. You’d be hard-pressed to know this the way Starmer et al. are talking. Apparently, it’s moral to cut benefits for the disabled, but not moral to fail to follow through with the promise while in opposition to impose a wealth tax. And Labour are pretty much denying the existence of disability. That’s going too far.

Benitas

Who is going to employ these people?

People who have gone through the most invasive work capability tests, and who are found totally unfit for any work, are really ill people. Now, all of a sudden, they are to have monies taken from them and be forced to look for work — just who is going to employ these ill people?

Many people are on prescription drugs that don’t allow them to operate mechanical things or drive; they leave people feeling drowsy, i.e., painkillers — again, who is going to employ these people?

Ramned

Make work pay

What’s the truth? Just how much do the sick and disabled get paid? What sanctions, tests, and exams do they have to face? I think most of those on the sick are in, or are very close to, poverty — but give me facts! And maybe, with the soaring cost of living, the government should have a good look at making work pay again — that might help get people back to work!

Headsgone

Cost of living and workers’ wages

Average workers do not get a decent wage; food, fuel, goods prices, and energy prices are gigantically high. These are the factors that the government should be looking at to tackle and balance the scale, so people can afford to spend more.

Worker

Labour has turned its back

Looks to me that the Labour Party has turned its back on those who support them. I already rescinded my party membership when Corbyn was kicked out. They are going to be clobbered in the next GE. Perhaps for the first time ever I will vote Green.

AlexBR

Some of the comments have been edited for this article for brevity and clarity. You can read the full discussion in the comments section of the original article here.

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