The government is in denial over the impact of cuts on disabled people

The government claims disability organisations support its welfare reform agenda and say disabled people are protected from cuts. These 2 myths need debunking.

Neil Coyle is the director of policy and campaigns at Disability Rights UK and a Labour councillor and Deputy Cabinet Member for Welfare in Southwark

The prime minister has claimed disability organisations support his government’s welfare reform agenda – and the DWP Minister for Disabled People has suggested disabled people are protected from cuts.

These two myths need debunking.

Firstly, many disability organisations do support welfare reform which delivers improvements in the way benefits are delivered or which cut the bureaucracy involved. Some aspects of current reforms deserve support – for example the taper in Universal Credit which allows people to keep more of their earned income when starting work.

But there is no disability organisation supporting the total package of government reform because the combined effect is catastrophic.

Just a quick recap on some headline figures:

100,000 disabled children to lose under Universal Credit;

600,000 disabled people 16-64 years of age to lose Disability Living Allowance (DLA); and

300,000 disabled people to be cut off from all out of work support after just 365 days despite 75% receiving regular NHS treatment.

So it’s no surprise the most representative group – the Disability Benefits Consortium (almost 60 national disability, advice and welfare-focused organisations) – doesn’t support the government agenda. Nor is it a surprise the prime minister can’t name any relevant, representative organisation which does. If there was such an organisation ministers would name it.

Secondly, DWP minister Esther McVey suggests disabled people are protected from the cuts. Saying this may make the minister feel better about making drastic reductions in support but it is somewhat undermined by the statistics above.

Usually, ministers suggest disabled people ‘with the highest needs’ are protected but here’s two points showing how even this is inaccurate:

• The government has confirmed that the Independent Living Fund (ILF) will close in 2015 – the ILF supports 19,000 disabled people with the highest care needs to live independently; and

• Under the abolition of DLA and introduction of the restrictive Personal Independence Payment, 430,000 disabled people with the highest mobility support needs lose out.

Ministers must come clean about the lack of support for the cuts it is imposing on disabled people. Sadly, we are about to witness a vast rise in poverty and social exclusion for disabled people, and, with an NHS and councils also facing a significant squeeze, the ability of the state to proffer alternative assistance is reduced. With charities also facing a tough financial climate and unable to fill the gap, the future is far from bright for disabled people in the UK.

But the government is refusing to assess the impact fully – as requested by Disability Rights UK, carers’ organisations, the Joint Committee on Human Rights, Labour and an e-petition. The reason appears to be ministers are in denial.

60 Responses to “The government is in denial over the impact of cuts on disabled people”

  1. Thomas Toscani

    They’re not in denial. They just don’t care.

  2. LB

    http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/dcp171766_263808.pdf

    You might be in denial, or you’ve been kept ignorant.

    4,700,000,000,000 pounds and rising faster than inflation. Hidden off the books.

    How’s that going to be paid.

    Lets look at last month.

    Spending. How much did spending change by from November last year? Strips out cyclical changes.

    Answer, up 7.6% year on year.

    Taxes. What happened to taxes?

    Answer Income tax receipts dropped by 12.3% or by £1.3 billion.

    It’s screwed. That’s about the only definition.

    You can’t spend your way out of the mess. Here’s why.

    Lets say there is a magic wand that gets a million people back to work. For some reason it also prevents migrants coming in. It costs nothing. What effect does that have?

    Well, we stop paying benefits. First effect. If we’re lucky. Lets say 5K for unemployment benefits. Another 5K for housing benefits. Plus anything else such as free council tax, …

    Then lets assume they get min wage jobs. A reasonable assumption for lots of the long term unemployed. They get taxed (moral repugnant to me). What are we going to say here? 3K a year in total taxes.

    So the finances of the state are 13K a year better off, per person. For a million back to work, that’s 13 bn.

    The deficit last year was 150 bn.

    That, with the pantomime assumption you can get a million back with no costs, without dragging in migrants on benefits, gets you less than 10% of the way, just to dealing with the overspend.

    Meanwhile, the borrowing escalates, the off balance sheet debts which are even more massive, carry on rising above inflation.

    The truth is that all governments have spent people’s retirement money, and hidden that off the books. Now those debts are falling due (I presume you expect something for your contributions), its screwed.

    So that’s why you’ve got cuts. Quite why spending is galloping away, with unemployment coming down needs a bit of explanation. Someone in the state sectors is doing well.

  3. Thomas Toscani

    LB-

    I’m afraid you have a poor grasp of the economics. What we’re experiencing is, in reality, a revenue crisis, caused by the financial crisis.

    The financial crisis caused a recession, which, in turn, made tens of thousands of people unemployed. This resulted in an increase in welfare spending and a lowering of income tax receipts.

    Furthermore, people have no money to spend. Well, even if they’re lucky enough to have a job, real term wages for the vast majority of people has stagnated since 1980. People took on debt to maintain their standard of living, while they were worked harder and longer for less (in real terms) money.

    People spend less, so business makes less money and tax receipts from businesses plummet.

    The recession is the real cause of the deficit – not public spending.

    You will note:

    a) Most Western Capitalist economies simultaneously went in to recession as a result of the financial crisis

    b) The deficit in the UK was roughly 3% prior to the economic crisis, jumping to 11% immediately after the crisis (see post 2007):

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/oct/18/deficit-debt-government-borrowing-data#zoomed-picture

    c) Public spending in the UK is about in the middle of slightly above for the OECD countries, and not especially high:

    Total public spending in an international context

    In 2008 UK total government outlays as measured by the OECD were 48.1 per cent of national income. As shown in Figure 2.3, this gave the UK the tenth highest level of public sector spending as a proportion of national income out of the 28 countries for which the OECD has consistent data, and the third highest out of the G7 countries.

    Institute of Fiscal Studies link:

    http://www.ifs.org.uk/bns/bn43.pdf

    Borrowing (the deficit) and the debt *are* increasing, but that’s because, despite (in fact, BECAUSE of) making cuts in spending, we are spiraling down in to a deeper and deeper recession. Therefore, more people have become unemployed, and tax receipts continue to drop.

    Thanks to Osborne, we may even be heading for an unprecedented triple-dip recession. We’ve already had the longest double-dip recession during peacetime in the 20th and 21st centuries.

    The answer is not more spending cuts, but more investment in jobs and infrastructure, and to put real money in to the hands of consumers so that they can start spending again.

  4. Newsbot9

    His grasp of economics is irrelevant, he’s shilling.

    He refuses to admit the fact that known bets are not “off the books”, etc.

  5. Newsbot9

    His grasp of economics is irrelevant, he’s shilling.

    He refuses to admit the fact that known bets are not “off the books”, etc.

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