Around nine out of every ten people in Dudley borough receiving Personal Independence Payments (PIP) could be worse off after government rule changes.

Statistics published by the council’s Liberal Democrats reveal the number of people who would not qualify for the daily living component of the benefit.

The data was released in an answer to a Lib Dem question in Parliament and shows at least 90 percent of claimants would score less than four points in an assessment of all daily living activities.

Under new government rules the required amount for all daily living activities will be eight points with a minimum of four points for one category.

Lib Dem Cllr Andrew Tromans, who in March tabled a motion in full council calling for the council to oppose disability cuts, said: “As councillors, we see first hand the impact of these cuts and I want us to do what we can as a local authority to support our residents who are in the firing line.

“The Labour government has made its intention clear to ‘balance the books’ on the backs of the most vulnerable in our society.”

The figures show in three parliamentary constituencies in Dudley borough, Halesowen, Stourbridge and Kingswinford and South Staffordshire, the number of claimants getting less than four points was 90 percent while in the Dudley constituency the figure was 91 percent.

Lib Dem Cllr Luke Hamblett said: “Thousands of people across Dudley could see vital support stripped away, risking untold misery for many people that are barely getting by.”

The government says since the pandemic the number of working-age people receiving PIP had doubled and in five years the bill for the benefit in Britain could be £34.1billion.

Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, said: “We inherited a fundamentally broken welfare system from the previous government. 

“It does not work for the people it is supposed to support, businesses who need workers or taxpayers who foot the bill.

“This government will always protect the most severely disabled people to live with dignity.

“But we’re not prepared to stand back and do nothing while millions of people – especially young people – who have potential to work and live independent lives, instead become trapped out of work and abandoned by the system.”

Cllr Tromans is set to ask the council to approve recommending all group leaders sign a joint letter to the Work and Pensions Secretary urging for a change of course on welfare reform.

The proposal is part of another Notice of Motion Cllr Tomans is putting before full council.

He will also be asking for the authority to note the findings of a 2019 report which says twenty-two neighbourhoods in Dudley are amongst the ten percent most deprived in England with 52 local areas ranking amongst the 20 percent most deprived.

Among other resolutions in the motion, Cllr Tromans wants Dudley’s chief executive to commission a report on the impact of changes to the council’s Welfare Rights Team approved in the budget for the current financial year.

He says the report should take into account the ‘unforeseen and significant changes to the national welfare system by the Labour government’.