Starmer to drive through welfare cuts that could affect UK’s most severely disabled

PM faces backlash over plans to tighten eligibility, potentially leaving more than 600,000 claimants 675 a month worse off

Keir Starmer is to defy growing anger by driving through welfare cuts for some of the UK's most severely disabled people, with an overhaul that could see more than 600,000 benefit claimants lose out on an average of 675 a month.

Ministers are set to ditch plans to freeze personal independent payments (Pip) amid a backlash. But they will still tighten eligibility criteria for the benefit under big changes to be set out by the work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, on Tuesday.