Not much honour in IDS choice to go over welfare

DID Iain Duncan Smith behave “dishonourably” in resigning over welfare reform, as David Cameron is alleged to have said in an angry phone call between the two?

His departure has quickly got bogged down in questions of whether or not the former Work and Pensions Minister had had a hidden agenda – to thwart George Osborne’s leadership plans, or to further the “leave” campaign for the EU referendum.

Politics aside, there is also an almost certain U-turn in the post for the policy of cutting expenditure on the disability benefit PIP by making it harder to claim.

Mr Duncan Smith is said to have felt the latest cut was politically driven, designed to help Mr Osborne meet his benefit cap target, but too harsh on the poorest in society, given the tax cuts for the well-off in the Budget.

But he is an unlikely champion for disabled people. He has been implacable in defending a series of austerity policies which have been punishing for disabled people, even to the point where evidence seemed to suggest a link between cuts and claimant deaths.

The latest cuts would have seen benefits cut or denied to someone who can walk to the toilet with the aid of a stick, or dress themselves. The argument is such a person does not incur additional costs due to their disability and therefore shouldn’t need a payment.

Yet the cut, £4.2 billion over the next four years, was the single biggest income item in the Budget. More than 640,000 disabled people would lose out. Cuts are cuts, even if the overall sum being spent goes up.

Mr Osborne’s claim the “disability” budget is rising doesn’t refer to the cumulative impact of cuts since austerity, and it ignores other cuts falling under other budgets such as housing, which disproportionately affect disabled people.

The Centre for Welfare Reform, says disabled people (eight per cent of the population) bear 29 per cent of cuts and those with the severest disabilities (two per cent of the population) bear 15 per cent.

Mr Duncan Smith has overseen cuts with implacable zeal. It is that record which will make his resignation appear utterly dishonourable to many, even most disabled people.