Majority of Tory and Reform voters do not back cuts to disability benefits, survey finds

The British Social Attitudes report found that just 7% of respondents backed cuts to disability benefits. Photograph: Andriy Popov/Alamy View image in fullscreen The British Social Attitudes report found that just 7% of respondents backed cuts to disability benefits. Photograph: Andriy Popov/Alamy Majority of Tory and Reform voters do not back cuts to disability benefits, survey finds Nearly half of respondents say spending on personal independence payments should be increased There is little appetite for cuts to disability benefits even among Conservative and Reform voters, and proposals to reduce spending could prove politically risky, according to an authoritative national survey. The British Social Attitudes (BSA) report found that while support for welfare spending as a whole had dipped sharply in recent years, just 7% of respondents backed cuts to disability benefits – and 49% said they should be increased. Two government-commissioned reviews – of the personal independence payment (Pip) benefit, and support for jobless youngsters – are expected imminently, amid speculation they will seek to restrict spending on disability benefits. The BSA report notes that any ministerial proposals to axe disability benefits would carry little support among Labour voters, of whom just 5% favoured reduced spending and 57% backed more generous spending. Support for spending on disabled people remained high among Tory and Reform UK voters of whom 40% supported more spending on claimants who could not work, and just 10% supported less spending. The report’s co-author Robert de Vries, a senior lecturer at the University of Kent, said: “Despite growing political divisions on welfare, support for disability benefits remains remarkably strong. “Very few people favour cuts, disabled people are seen as among the most deserving recipients of support, and proposals to reduce disability benefits appear politically risky across the political spectrum.” However, the report acknowledges it was difficult to be precise about public support for disability benefits, some of which depends on respondents’ subjective ideas of whether claimants were “deserving” or “genuinely” unable to work. It was possible that there was support for cuts to specific groups of disabled people, with some conditions such as depression and anxiety ranking relatively low in an informal public hierarchy of “deserving cases” compared with, say, people who use a wheelchair. Equally, the report added that initial public support for proposed cuts can change when it becomes clearer precisely who will be affected, and what the consequences are in terms of numbers of claimants pushed into hardship. “We … cannot say in advance whether a particular cut to disability benefits will be supported or opposed , but it is clear that this is very challenging terrain for a government to be confident of taking the public with them,” the report said.