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.
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60 Responses to “The government is in denial over the impact of cuts on disabled people”
LB
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/dec/20/foie-gras-house-of-lords
If you want to see what’s going on with the money.
Foie gras for the public sector, shit for the rest of us.
LB
So lets start.
150 bn deficit – a year.
2.5 billion saved from getting rid of nuclear weapons, per year.
Loss of taxes? Lets assume they don’t end up on the dole from those cuts.
Where’s the 147.5 billion going to come from?
Once we’ve done with the deficit, we can start on the 4,700 bn, rising above inflation pension’s debts. The perhaps PFI.
You’ve still got to decomission all those nuclear power stations. 100 bn there, linked to inflation.
LB
No decent society attacks the weak
However, we don’t live in a decent society.
The state has taken lots of money from the poor, and promised a pension.
After taking that money, its spent it on foie gras and other things, and handed it out to others. It’s redistrubuted the cash, and spent it on itself. It did this in the knowledge that by the time it came to pay out on its side of the deal, those involved have sailed away into the sunset.
Well, now those promises are falling due, and it can’t pay.
Compare that with the alternative. Median wage earner, 26K a year. 40 years ago that would have been 700. If they had put their NI into the FTSE, they would have 550,000 pounds. If.
The state pension, if you bought it from one of those ‘nasty’ profiteering insurance companies would cost 130,000 pounds. No doubt if you asked the left they would be making obscene profits, so the true cost is far less.
Nothing like taking 420,000 plus from someone earning 26K a year is there. Nothing like pushing them into poverty of the sort you and I both despise.
Clive Arnold
Hang on, under “carers organisations” you link to carerwatch? WTF are you linking to them for? Online carers avoid them thanks to their links to a couple of idiots who stalk people that they take a dislike to with one of them even pestering and harassing a dying man! If you think linking to a group where one of their members signs people up to the BNP is a reliable organisation (it’s a website not an organisation BTW) then LFF is a disgrace. Hell, next you will start linking to a national charity who have an employee that has been served with a restraining order!
As a carer I’d now avoid ‘left foot forward’ like the plague as they do not speak for me as a carer and nor do they speak for many who won’t touch them.
Newsbot9
No. YOU have gambled with your money, then forced the state to pay your losses. Then refused to even admit what you’ve done.