This rhetoric is nothing new. Disabled people have faced an ongoing onslaught of negative headlines over the past few months.
The Prime Minister has previously spoken about ‘[squeezing] benefits to fund more tax cuts for workers’, pitting disabled people against the rest of society. Commentators, too, have taken to arguing that our benefits system ‘invites abuse’.
And this harmful attitude towards welfare is not partisan; Labour too have implied that there are too many people claiming disability benefits.
But disability benefits are not a problem that needs to be ‘controlled’. At its best, our welfare system enables disabled people to lead more independent and meaningful lives, offering them vital support to overcome the barriers they face. That is something people across the political spectrum should celebrate.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak giving his speech in central London on welfare reform, April 19, 2024
PM announces major plans to impose curbs on benefits
RISHI SUNAK was accused of launching a “full-on assault” on disabled people today after he announced major plans to impose fresh curbs on benefits.
The Prime Minister said an expected rise in benefits spending is “not sustainable” and vowed to “significantly reform” the system.
He announced a new consultation on personal independent payment (PIP), a non means-tested benefit that helps with extra costs caused by long-term disability or ill health.
Citing an increasing number of people are claiming PIP for anxiety and depression, Mr Sunak said a more “rigorous” approach will be introduced, and that “greater medical evidence” will be required to substantiate a claim.
…
He pledged to “tighten” the work capability assessment so that “hundreds of thousands of benefit recipients with less severe conditions will now be expected to engage in the world of work.”
James Taylor of disability charity Scope said the plan “feels like a full-on assault on disabled people.”
He said: “These proposals are dangerous and risk leaving disabled people destitute.
“In a cost-of-living crisis, looking to slash disabled people’s income by hitting PIP is a horrific proposal.”
Disability Rights UK’s head of policy Fazilet Hadi accused the government of “targeting disabled people for a failing economy.”
She said: “The Prime Minister’s approach to systemic inequalities caused by government policies and underfunding of public services, is to further penalise, punish and threaten disabled people living on inadequate benefits.”
Dr Sarah Hughes, CEO of Mind, said: “We are deeply disappointed that the Prime Minister’s speech today continues a trend in recent rhetoric which conjures up the image of a “mental health culture” that has “gone too far”.
“This is harmful, inaccurate and contrary to the reality for people up and down the country. The truth is that mental health services are at breaking point following years of under investment with many people getting increasingly unwell while they wait to receive support.”
She added: “To imply that it is easy both to be signed-off work and then to access benefits is deeply damaging. It is insulting to the 1.9 million people on a waiting list to get mental health support, and to the GPs whose expert judgement is being called into question.”
Labour MP John Trickett offered an alternative solution: “Sunak would stop doctors from issuing ‘sick notes’ in effort to force ill people back to work. I have a 3-part proposal: 1) fully finance the NHS & cut waiting lists 2) an all-out drive to end poverty which is at the root of so much ill health 3) force bosses to pay living wage”.
‘The Bill only targets the less well-off. There is no equivalent surveillance of legislators who accept payments to advance the interests of their corporate paymasters.’
Prem Sikka is an Emeritus Professor of Accounting at the University of Essex and the University of Sheffield, a Labour member of the House of Lords, and Contributing Editor at Left Foot Forward.
George Orwell’s iconic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, warns of a dystopian world where The Party or the government undermines people’s rights, independence and autonomy through fear and propaganda. Constant surveillance is a key weapon for disciplining people and shaping their minds.
That world has arrived in the UK, the self-proclaimed mother of parliaments. The new tyranny isn’t ushered in by some communist, socialist or military regime but by a right-wing elected government.
The Bill uses developments in electronic transactions and artificial intelligence to place the poor, disabled, sick, old and pregnant women under surveillance. It gives Ministers and government agencies powers to direct businesses, particularly banks, and financial institutions, to mass monitor individuals receiving welfare payments, even when there is no suspicion or any sign of fraudulent activity. No court order is needed and affected individuals will not be informed. The Bill enables Ministers to make any further regulations without a vote in parliament.
Image of the Green Party’s Carla Denyer on BBC Question Time.
Reacting to the Autumn Statement announcement, Green co-leader Carla Denyer said:
“The government has chosen headline-grabbing pre-election tax cut bribes over doing their job properly – providing good public services and protecting citizens from harm caused by the cost-of-living crisis and the climate crisis.
“Indeed, this was a particularly cruel statement for the long-term sick and some disabled people who will now be forced into work or lose their benefits.
“People won’t be fooled by a few extra quid in their pay packet when they can’t get a dentist, the wait to see the GP is getting ever longer, and the impacts of the climate crisis are becoming ever more obvious and close to home.
“The government is fishing for a day’s worth of General Election friendly headlines at high long-term costs to public services, people’s quality of life and the environment.
“The country cannot afford pre-election tax cut bribes from this failed Tory government. They mean postponing, yet again, the action we need to tackle the climate crisis – action that would create new, secure, well-paid green jobs.
“Living in a decent society means investing in public services that meet the needs of people and planet. We can afford better public services. We can protect the environment and the most vulnerable in society, keep people warm and lift people out of poverty.
“With more Green MPs in Parliament after the next General Election, we would rebalance the tax system so that the super-rich pay their fair share and use the money to mend the NHS, invest in preventative public health services, support those in greatest need, and boost the transition to a greener economy and all the benefits that will bring.”
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt has threatened to cut benefits for people with disabilities and long-term illnesses who do not get a remote job | Nathan Stirk/Getty Images
The long-term effects of a dangerously mismanaged pandemic and cuts to health and social care are kicking in, with a record 2.5 million working-age people in the UK having disabilities or long-term health conditions that prevent or restrict their ability to work.
This should be the time to reform our punitive welfare system, which fewer Britons than ever believe offers enough support to those who need it. Instead, chancellor Jeremy Hunt has used his autumn statement to inflict yet more pain.
Hunt announced plans to stop people who are unemployed but not actively looking for work due to long-term sickness or disability from claiming free prescriptions and discounted bus travel, as well as to tell people they must find remote jobs or risk losing their benefits.
The news is hardly surprising – the government has long tried to paint Disabled people as ‘scroungers’. Yesterday, Laura Trott, chief secretary to the Treasury, callously told interviewers that Disabled or ill people have “a duty” to work. And just last month, Hunt promised to review benefit sanctions, telling the Conservative Party conference that “around 100,000 people are leaving the labour market every year for a life on benefits”.
What Hunt omitted, though, is that the UK already has one of the least generous welfare systems in Western Europe. Disabled people have lost an average of £1,200 a year between 2008 and 2019 due to a series of cuts and reforms, including the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance, the Work Capability Assessment, Personal Independence Payment, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the two-child limit, and Universal Credit.
A reduction in financial support can be difficult for anyone. But for Disabled people, it’s devastating. A household with at least one Disabled adult or child needs an additional £975 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households, according to Scope disability rights charity.
The government is well aware of the mental anguish our threadbare welfare system causes. Just this week, a coroner warned work and pensions secretary Mel Stride that the system can worsen symptoms of mental illness, after a man whose “anxiety was exacerbated by his application for Universal Credit” died by suicide. The number of secret reviews into the deaths of benefit claimants carried out by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has also more than doubled over the past three years.
Emma, a freelance benefits adviser in Greater London who requested that their surname not be published, knows better than most how to navigate the welfare system – they spend their working life helping others to do so.
Yet even Emma was told last year that their Hypermobile-Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome didn’t classify them for an enhanced Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which is designed to help a person with an illness, disability or mental health condition with everyday life. This money would have been a lifeline for Emma, who, despite being in work, was struggling to cover the extra costs that many Disabled people face, including, in their case, the purchase of two wheelchairs and an E-bike to help them get around.
“As a benefits adviser myself, I was able to give examples of how I met the enhanced rate mobility descriptors,” she said, referring to the criteria that must be met to be eligible for the enhanced mobility element of PIP, which is worth £71 a week. “But the caseworker [at the DWP] still refused and eventually offered me the standard rate [of £26.90 a week].”
“The whole process was incredibly stressful… He told me I had to decide there and then whether to accept his offer and that there would be no point in taking the appeal further as it would be unsuccessful.”
Pushing Disabled people towards work with threats often results in them becoming more unwell and further from the labour marketTom Pollard, head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation
Emma eventually worked with Citizens Advice to lodge a new appeal, which was successful, but it took them months to eventually receive PIP, making dealing with the additional costs associated with disability very difficult.
Having witnessed firsthand the difficulties of the current welfare system, Emma branded “current conversations” about sanctions and “getting people back to work” as “scary”.
They said: “Sanctions are an easy way [for the government] to save some money, at a time when finances are under pressure and scrutiny and they don’t know of a better way. And because they don’t understand the ramifications that sanctions will have on Disabled people”.
Emma’s sentiment was echoed by Tom Pollard, head of social policy at the New Economics Foundation. He told openDemocracy that Hunt’s threats to sanction people who do not find work will backfire and fail to achieve their stated aims.
“Any attempt to push [Disabled people] towards work by applying pressure and threats often simply results in people becoming more unwell and further from the labour market,” Pollard explained.
Labour’s position, should it take power next year, is not much better than the Tories’. In January, the then shadow work and pensions secretary, Jonathan Ashworth, announced that there would be “conditionality” – which requires people to behave a certain way to access benefits – in any welfare system the party oversees. This line appears unchanged, despite claims on the fringes of the Labour conference that the party would “co-produce” its benefits system with Disabled people.
That both of the biggest parties are resorting to threats of further sanctions or more conditionality is indicative of a system in desperate need of repair, said Geoff Fimister, policy co-chair at the Disability Benefits Consortium. “Ministers have so little confidence in what is on offer,” he explained, “that they feel they need to resort to threats to promote uptake.”
Linda Burnip from Disabled People Against Cuts, agreed, saying: “[Politicians] aren’t interested in how a good system works.” She added: “Ideologically, their only interest is in removing state aid to those who need it.”
The social security system should be an essential public service – a piece of social infrastructure that ensures we all have access to the right support when we need it. But after years of dire cuts and reforms, it has been torn apart. Hunt’s crackdown will only serve to worsen it, with disastrous consequences for those who are reliant on it.
This should be our moment for creating a system built on respect, dignity and support, that enables us to live the lives we deserve – not imprison us. We should be introducing a Guaranteed Decent Income – based on 50% of the minimum wage – and doing away with punitive sanctions, benefit caps, bedroom tax, conditionality, five-week wait for the first payment, and the two-child limit.
These are must-haves to create a system where everyone has chances and is valued and treated as equal citizens. One that pushes through the barriers of this cross-party consensus on inflicting suffering, which is completely out of line with the general public’s views.
