‘The hardest hit’
Hilary Davies explains what you can do to help
Friends in York and Cambridge have written of their concern about the impact of welfare cuts on the lives of people who are disabled and their families. I share this concern. There are many additional threats ahead for disabled people. The Welfare Reform Bill, currently going through the committee stage in parliament, could undermine the hard-won sense of being valued, and the independence of people in this vulnerable group, if it is implemented without significant changes.
Much public attention is rightly being paid to what are seen to be threats to the National Health Service and funding of higher education. But I hear little debate about the Welfare Reform Bill, which has, in my view, been rushed into print without sufficient attention to the details of its implementation and the costs to disabled people, who may already feel marginalised in Britain.
After many years working in the welfare sector and, more recently, as a disability activist, I am concerned that aspects of this legislation could turn back the clock by many years for disabled people struggling to live independent, contributing lives. The eventual knock-on costs to health and social care services could be considerable.
For example, the government is committed to cutting the current Disability Living Allowance (DLA) budget by twenty per cent. The DLA came into being in 1992 in recognition of the additional living costs that are borne by disabled people. It is to be replaced in 2013 by what is called Personal Independence Payments (PIP). Recipients are to be subjected to regular stressful reassessment by independent non-specialists, even though they may already have been diagnosed as having incurable and/or degenerative conditions.
In my view, the cumulative effects of such policies, along with ill thought through housing and unemployment benefit changes, could undermine the ability of many disabled people to plan for their own and their family’s future.
Along with many others, I agree that changes are needed to simplify and reduce the bureaucracy of our welfare benefits system, and to identify any abuse (though it is unclear how significant this is). I also support a ‘welfare to work’ programme but know that in the current economic climate it is even harder for disabled people to get jobs. For example, since the year 2000, various studies confirm that the UK has never succeeded in improving the statistic of approximately seventy-five per cent of registered blind and partially sighted people of working age being unemployed.
What are some of the actions Friends can take to challenge what may be unjust and to support vulnerable disabled people now?
1. Write to or meet with their MPs to discuss their concerns.
2. Be open to listening to individual disabled people who may need to share their fears about what is happening.
3. Offer to accompany and, if asked, to support disabled people who decide to appeal against what they regard as unjust decisions by the benefits system. In the past, appeals tribunals have often overturned previous decisions. Helping people to link with local welfare benefits advisors could also be essential in negotiating the maze of benefits entitlements.
4. Take part in ‘The Hardest Hit’ march, rally and lobby of parliament by disabled people and those who support them on 11 May in London. This will assemble on the Embankment at 11.30am. For more details contact one of the over forty organisations of and for disabled people involved, such as the Royal National Institute of the Blind.
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