For all his talk of being the son of a toolmaker (just in case you didn’t already know), Keir Starmer and his government have proven to be completely indifferent to the struggles of ordinary people.
‘Change’ may have been at the heart of Labour’s sloganeering last year, but this latest raft of measures signals anything but a departure from a long continuum of anti-welfare discourse that has become entrenched in UK politics and media.
For Thatcher, it was the ‘scrounger’; for Farage, it is the ‘migrant’; for Starmer, we can take the latest attacks on the welfare system as a strong hint that those claiming benefits will be the scapegoat for more managed decline to come.
The impact assessment of the UK Government’s latest cuts to welfare spending estimates that an additional 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, will be pushed into relative poverty by 2029-30.
Silvia Galandini of Oxfam said it best: “morally repugnant”.
For Wales, the impact of these cuts will be severe. With 275,000 people receiving the Personal Independence Payment and 110,000 people receiving Universal Credit due to limited work capability, Wales is particularly exposed. The higher proportion of disabled people in Wales – 11% compared to 7% in England – means that Westminster’s decision will push more of our family, our friends and our neighbours into poverty.
In her speech announcing the cuts, Liz Kendall laundered cruelty as compassion, wrapping austerity up in the language of care.
Claims are up to four times higher in the midlands, the north of England and Wales she acknowledges, “places that were decimated in the 80s and 90s, written off for years by successive Tory governments, and never given the chances they deserve.”
“Millions of people who could work, trapped on benefits, denied the income, hope, dignity, and self-respect that we know good work brings,” she continued.
I wonder if Liz Kendall has heard of Port Talbot. I wonder if she’s aware that her government stood idly by as 2,800 workers were directly laid off by Tata Steel, with thousands more in the supply chain suffering as a consequence. All the while, Plaid Cymru continuously called for the site to be brought into public ownership to protect those jobs and to protect domestic steel production in the UK.
While Kendall plays at political theatre, saying loudly and proudly that worklessness is an issue, the Labour government presides over the wholesale destruction of the UK’s remaining industrial capacity, only to then attack people out of work.
The sheer hypocrisy at play is staggering.
The rigid adherence to self-imposed fiscal rules means they are sacrificing the most vulnerable in a desperate attempt to maintain credibility with financial markets. But when growth that would benefit the majority of people fails to materialise, will they admit their failure? Or will they come back with yet more cuts, plunging even more people into destitution?
Meanwhile, Labour in Wales have no backbone. During a session of the Senedd’s Committee for the Scrutiny of the First Minister on Friday 28th March, the First Minister stated that she was “reserving judgment” on changes to welfare spending. This came despite the Secretary of State for Wales, Jo Stevens, asserting that the First Minister had written to the UK Government in support of the cuts.
Additionally, the First Minister wrote to the UK Government, requesting an assessment of the impact of welfare reforms on Wales prior to the publication of any plans. Yesterday, the response was finally published and it confirms what we suspected: there is no impact assessment for Wales. There has been no consideration of how Labour’s cuts will hit our communities, and we have no understanding as to how these cuts will add further pressure to already strained public services.
The Labour Party is playing a dangerous game, not just with people’s lives, but with their own political future. The consequences of these decisions will undoubtedly bleed into the 2026 Senedd elections. If Labour’s cuts push more Welsh families into hardship, it is Labour in Cardiff that will answer for it in just over a year.
Plaid Cymru has always stood for a different vision – one where Wales is not at the mercy of Westminster’s failed economic experiments. We refuse to accept that cuts to the sick and disabled are an inevitability, and we demand full control over our own welfare system so that we can protect the people of Wales from these cruel policies.
Labour has abandoned the very people they claim to represent. Wales must not be collateral damage in their pursuit of austerity-driven economic dogma. If the slogan of this Spring Statement is “the world has changed,” then Wales must change too – we have an historic opportunity in the 2026 Senedd elections to do just that.
