The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is being taken to court over its latest attacks on benefits claimants. These include changes to how chronically ill and disabled people claim support. It comes against a backdrop of the DWP and government ramping up propaganda against people on benefits – and as the UN accused the government of not taking action over its human rights abuses against chronically ill and disabled people.
DWP: once again attacking benefits claimants
Disability justice activist Ellen Clifford has been granted permission to take the DWP to court over a consultation on controversial welfare reforms which she says was unlawful and disingenuous.
As the Canary previously reported, in last autumn’s budget chancellor Jeremy Hunt already announced a further clampdown on chronically ill and disabled people. Specifically:
- Changing the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) to force more chronically ill and disabled people to work from home. This could lead to the DWP stopping hundreds of thousands of people’s benefits.
- More people the DWP says are fit for work but who it doesn’t think are doing enough to find work will face tougher sanctions and lose things like free prescriptions.
- The DWP will eventually scrap the WCA altogether, and make the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) health assessment the only judge of people’s illness and impairments. this could lead to over 600,000 people losing their benefits.
Specifically on the WCA, as the Canary previously reported the DWP is planning on taking out or changing the following features:
- Factoring in people’s mobility.
- Bladder or bowel incontinence.
- The inability to cope in social situations.
- People’s ability to leave their homes.
- Work being a risk to claimants or others – a clause which means that an individual is “treated as having limited capability for work and work related activity “
That is, the DWP thinks anyone who would currently be exempt due to those descriptors should instead have to work from home. The department has been quite clear on its reasoning, too. It says it wants to remove these aspects:
so that assessments reflect greater flexibility and availability of reasonable adjustments in work, particularly home working.
Reading between the lines, the DWP is trying to reduce the benefits bill by forcing more chronically ill and disabled people into work.
So, Clifford is taking action.
Hitting disabled people under the guise of support
Her lawyers are arguing that the primary motivation in fact appears to be reducing welfare spending.
Some Disabled people would lose up to £390 a month under these new reforms. Many would also face sanctions and risk losing some or all of their benefit payments.
According to Clifford, this was not made clear during the consultation. It ran for just under eight weeks between 5 September and 30 October last year.
Specifically, her lawyers are arguing that:
- The government gave insufficient time for consultation on changes to the WCA.
- The DWP did not explain the reforms properly.
- These reforms do not help more disabled people into work.
- People could not respond to the consultation properly.
“Disingenuous” from the DWP. So, see you in court.
Clifford said:
The Government urgently needs to listen to Deaf and Disabled people before imposing reforms that would change the lives of so many people for the worse.
This disingenuous and unlawful consultation seems to have been a smokescreen for the Government to save money by cutting benefits. It completely skated over the fact that a lot of people will lose £390 a month – that will be devastating for people who already struggle to cover their basic needs.
In light of other recent proposals to reform Personal Independence Payment and the fit note system, it’s vital that the DWP carries out meaningful and proper consultations. Deaf and Disabled voices should be heard. Instead, our income is being cut and we are told the change is about ‘realising our potential.’ This is patronising and insulting.
As we’ve been granted permission to take the DWP to court, we hope that the Secretary of State abandons any plans to implement the Work Capability Assessment reforms until this legal challenge has concluded and Deaf and Disabled people have been given a proper opportunity to provide their views on the proposals.
Deaf and Disabled Peoples’ Organisations are completely opposed to these proposed changes.
Featured image via the Canary
