Gideon Amos slams government on Welfare Bill

ideon Amos, MP for Taunton and Wellington, says the government “got it completely wrong” as its Welfare Reform Bill was narrowly voted through yesterday (Wednesday 2nd July).

Mr Amos was among those voting against the Bill which was passed by 335 votes to 260 after ministers made last-minute concessions to avoid a possible defeat

He said afterwards: “The proposal is to narrow the eligibility for Personal Independence Payments for disabled people and to freeze Universal Credit.

“The government got it completely wrong by proposing a £5 billion arbitrary number of the amount of money they're going to cut from disability benefits and then said they're going to work out afterwards how to cut that money.

“What they should have done was focus more on getting people back to health and back to work, and then see what savings could be drawn from that.

“The government got the bill through with its majority cut in half to only 75.

“It’s not the right thing to do, and that’s why I voted against it.”