An array of high-profile celebrities including Sir Stephen Fry, Brian Cox and Stanley Tucci have criticised the government’s £5bn cuts to disability benefits, calling the plans “shameful” and “a stain on this country”.
They joined the UK’s biggest food bank network, Trussell, in urging ministers to rethink the planned changes, warning they risked pushing even more disabled people into poverty and reliance on charity food handouts.
Labour’s plans to overhaul the disability benefit system, announced earlier this week, will see more than 1 million people lose support worth between £4,200 and £6,300 a year. Some households are very likely to be as much as £10,000 a year out of pocket.
The plans, which represent disability benefit spending cuts on an unprecedented scale, have led to widespread anger on the Labour backbenches, and provoked a near-unanimous condemnation from disability and poverty campaigners.
Fry said the cuts burden should fall on the best-off in society, rather than hitting vulnerable disabled people: “The social security system should be rooted in justice and compassion, fairness and need. It’s not too late to rethink this.”
The actor Brian Cox said it was a “stain on this country” that so many people had to turn to food banks to survive. He said the cuts made “no sense and will have a lasting impact on the lives of so many people already finding it difficult to afford life’s essentials”.
The comedian Rosie Jones, who has cerebral palsy, said: “Disabled people are scared of what the future holds if there’s cuts to disability payments, as they are already not enough to cover life’s essentials.”
The entrepreneur and celebrity chef Levi Roots said: “We need compassionate solutions that make food banks obsolete. Cuts to disability payments will simply keep food banks in business for longer.”
Trussell, which oversees a network of more than 1,400 food banks across the UK, said households containing someone who is disabled were already disproportionately likely to be forced into food bank use. It called the cuts “cruel and irresponsible”.
The prime minister, Keir Starmer, has defended the plans, published on Tuesday, saying big increases in disability benefits spending in recent years were unsustainable, while the “broken” social security system was letting disabled people down by trapping them on benefits when they wanted to work.
The choreographer and former Strictly Come Dancing judge Dame Arlene Phillips said the social security system had to be there when people needed it most. She added: “Cutting disability benefits is shameful.”
The actor Stanley Tucci said: “Through my work with Trussell, I know the reality of these cuts will be parents in disabled families having to skip meals so that they can feed their children. Things don’t have to be this way. We must shout as loud as we can to let the UK government know this plan is wrong.”
A Department for Work and Pensions spokesperson said: “Our reforms will build a social security system that’s fairer, more sustainable and fit for the future – so it can always be there for those with the greatest needs to live with the dignity and support they deserve.
“Helping people into good work is at the heart of our approach to tackling poverty and inequality, but the broken social security system we inherited is failing people who can and have the potential to work, as well as the people it’s meant to be there for.”
