It’s time the Government gives disabled jobseekers and employees the support they need – rather than demonising people who can’t work.

On Friday, Rishi Sunak pledged to tackle Britain’s so-called ‘sick note culture’. Saying that the ‘spiralling’ benefits bill was unsustainable, he promised to ‘control welfare’ if re-elected.

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.

Instead, it seems that some politicians, rather than taking action to make our economy more inclusive, are blaming disabled people for the very inequalities they face.

It’s not just the rhetoric that we’re worried about though – it’s the policies the Government are proposing too.

Making disability benefits ‘more rigorous’

Not everything the Prime Minister announced was new. Nor would all his plans affect people on benefits. His plans to reform ‘sick notes’, for example, would only apply to people in work who have been signed off sick.

And despite the emphasis on tackling ‘sick note culture’, the most significant proposals he set out had nothing to do with employment at all.

Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are designed to help disabled people pay for extra costs related to their condition or impairment. Depending on the rate someone is awarded, PIP is worth between £28.70 and £184.30 a week.

Worryingly, the Prime Minister claimed the benefit is being ‘misused’, focusing particularly on the rise in claims on mental health grounds. 

As it is not an unemployment benefit, anyone who is eligible can receive PIP, whether they are in work or not.

Until the Government publishes its proposals in full, we don’t know exactly what Sunak’s commitment to making PIP ‘more rigorous’ will mean in practice.

But we do know the system doesn’t need to be made any tougher. Ask anyone on PIP, and they will tell you that the application process is already challenging enough.

Whether it’s forms that are too long and too complicated, or assessors who don’t understand someone’s condition or impairment, there are too many barriers facing disabled people who just want the support they’re entitled to.

Disability benefits are not too generous

The Prime Minister went even further than talking about changes to the application process, questioning whether it was always right to offer ongoing financial support through PIP.

Sunak claimed that much of the support and equipment they need are either one-off costs or available for free on the NHS.

But this is simply not the case. Sense research has found that 46% of people with complex disabilities find it difficult to afford their extra costs.

This has been particularly clear during the cost-of-living crisis, with rising energy bills having a catastrophic impact on disabled people.

Some disabled people, for example, may need to run powered medical equipment at home. While the NHS in England offers a rebate for the cost of running oxygen concentrators at home, disabled people who use other medical machines like ventilators and feeding machines get no financial help for this at all, nor for the costs of charging electric wheelchairs or other equipment that helps them to live more independent lives.

If anything, disabled people don’t get nearly enough support to cover the extra unavoidable costs they face.

How the Government should support disabled people

As these proposals are still in a very early stage of development, PIP won’t be undergoing reform any time soon. The proposals certainly won’t be introduced before the next election. But the negative rhetoric around disability benefits is having an impact now.

Not every disabled person can work. As Rishi Sunak himself said on Friday, it is vital that the welfare system is always there to support disabled people who cannot work.

That acknowledgement is undermined by his own Government’s language on benefits, which is demonising disabled people who can’t enter paid employment.

Announcements like this also distracts the Government from doing the things that would really help disabled employees and jobseekers.

In speaking of a ‘sick note culture’, the Prime Minister gave the impression that disabled people are failing to look for support they need to enter or stay in work. But often it is either employers or the Government who are failing to provide that support.

Sense research has found that almost half of employees with complex disabilities have been bullied or harassed at work. 1 in 10 said their employer hadn’t been willing to make reasonable adjustments to enable them to do their job – despite it being a legal requirement under the Equality Act.

Over half of jobseekers with complex disabilities, meanwhile, told us they did not have the support and equipment they needed to enter work. That is sadly unsurprising, given that no jobcentre in Britain has the assistive technology many disabled people need to be able to use a computer and look for jobs online.

Clearly, there’s no shortage of reforms that could make it easier for disabled people to enter and stay in employment. None of these, however, made it into the Prime Minister’s speech.

It’s time the Government gives disabled jobseekers and employees the support they need – rather than demonising people who can’t work.

Evan John is a Policy and Public Affairs Advisor at Sense

Image credit: Simon Walker / Number 10 Downing Street – Creative Commons

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