Behind The Curve

Throughout Tony Blair's decade as First Lord of the Treasury, the top rate of income tax was 50 per cent, with no suggestion that that was so high as to constitute a disincentive to work, as Blair would now have it. Could Blair, or Arthur Laffer, explain at what precise point people stopped having to be punished to incentivise them to work, and started, assuming that it was the same point, to have to be rewarded instead? 

Nothing in economics is politically neutral, and the Laffer curve is only ever used to justify cuts. But PIP is an in-work benefit. You do not get it for having a specific condition, but for how your conditions affect your life. You most certainly cannot self-certify onto it. It puts money in the hands of the people who spend it and thus stimulates our consumer economy, as sickness and disability benefits in general do, as the triple lock does, and as the lifting of the two-child benefit cap would, all while declaring the social and cultural value of the direct beneficiaries.

You may have ADHD, or anxiety, or a food intolerance, or whatever, while also on Motability, but those cannot be grounds for being so. The cost of leasing your vehicle is deducted from your PIP. Without Motability, far fewer physically disabled people would be able to work. Motability buys, and then owns, one in five new cars purchased in this country, which also translates into a lot of people's jobs. And so on.