Ignacia Pinto says the Spring Statement failed disabled women
Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ recent Spring Statement brought health and disability benefits into sharp focus, outlining significant reductions to social security spending. Reeves confirmed plans to cut £4.8 billion from social security by 2029/30. These cuts will come largely from reductions to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) daily living element, a freeze on the Universal Credit (UC) health component, and a cut for new claims. Government projections show that these changes will push around 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into poverty.
Disabled people, who have already borne the brunt of austerity since 2010, will be among the worst affected. Families where someone is Disabled are set to lose an average of £1,730 per year, with 96% of such families impacted. Women will carry the heaviest burden. According to the government’s equality analysis, 44% of those affected are single women, facing an average annual loss of £1,610. This stark imbalance is no accident—it reflects how austerity-driven policymaking has intensified gender inequality.
Research by the Women’s Budget Group reveals that since 2010, Disabled women have suffered an 11% decline in their standard of living due to sweeping cuts to public services and regressive changes to tax and social security. These policies compound structural inequalities, leaving Disabled women in particularly vulnerable positions. They are disproportionately likely to live in poverty and are often unpaid carers themselves. With crumbling public services and inadequate social support, many are being stretched to breaking point.
The direct harm from these cuts is substantial, but the ripple effects are just as alarming. PIP is a qualifying benefit for the receipt of carers’ allowance. Slashing it will result in 150,000 people losing access to Carer’s Allowance, which supports those providing full-time care to someone receiving disability benefits. Nearly three-quarters of Carer’s Allowance recipients are women. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that in a household where one person loses PIP and the UC health and carer elements, and the other therefore loses Carer’s Allowance, the combined annual loss could exceed £12,000.
Reducing disability support doesn’t eliminate the need—it just shifts the cost. Under new eligibility criteria, for instance, someone who needs assistance washing below the waist will no longer qualify for PIP’s daily living component. That person will either need to pay for support, likely putting them in financial distress, or rely on unpaid care. And in most cases, it is women who fill the gaps, stepping in where the state has stepped away. This fuels a vicious cycle: women lose vital financial assistance, are forced to devote more unpaid time to care, and may ultimately be pushed out of the labour market.
It’s hard to reconcile these cuts with the Chancellor’s aim of reducing economic inactivity. Driving women out of employment to provide care only worsens the problem the government claims it’s trying to fix. Women are not voluntarily leaving the workforce—they’re being forced out by policy decisions made in Westminster.
While ministers defend the cuts as fiscally necessary, this argument ignores the broader social costs, particularly for women. Over the last decade, austerity has steadily eroded the financial stability of Disabled women and unpaid carers. These latest measures risk deepening that insecurity, compounding the damage already done.
At the Women’s Budget Group, we support meaningful benefits system reform and welcome the modest increase to the UC standard allowance. But withdrawing vital support from those who need it most is not the answer. It seems that the government’s obsession with balancing the books at all costs has led to policies that disproportionately harm those already struggling.
There’s no doubt the Chancellor faces difficult economic circumstances—rising debt interest payments, weaker-than-expected tax receipts, and geopolitical uncertainty all pose real challenges. But Reeves has made her job harder by boxing herself in with rigid commitments: sticking to her own fiscal rules and refusing to consider tax rises. This was a political choice, not an unavoidable necessity, and it asks Disabled people and women to bear the cost of a changing economic landscape.
It doesn’t have to be this way. A 2% tax on assets over £10 million could raise up to £24 billion a year—far more than the savings these benefit cuts will generate. By closing tax loopholes and taxing wealth fairly, the government could fund vital public services and invest in the kind of social infrastructure that helps tackle gender inequality at its root.
And crucially, this approach has public backing. Polling by YouGov for Oxfam shows that 77% of people would prefer to see wealth taxed rather than public spending cuts. A wealth tax could fund the investment our social infrastructure desperately needs, reduce inequalities, and contribute to a social security system that protects people from poverty and supports those with additional needs.
This Autumn, the Chancellor has a critical opportunity when she delivers her annual budget. She must reconsider her fiscal approach and embrace a more progressive strategy—one grounded in fairness, long-term stability, and well-being for all.