If I’m honest, I’ve struggled to write a column this week. While our deepest fears were confirmed with Labour’s planned cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefits leaked, I felt like I didn’t have anything new to add to the conversation. After all it’s what I’ve been writing about for weeks and months. Whilst other journalists “waited to see” what would happen I wrote about Labour feeding the media clickbait, mine and other disabled people’s fears of being made to feel more like a burden, and was derided when I wrote that life under labour was already far worse than it was with the Tories.
So now while (most of) the rest of the media have stopped pushing constant clickbait about scroungers, I’m out of words. I’m exhausted. But I’m not giving up. This week’s column is something a little different. As so many disabled people are emailing their MPs I wanted to share what I wrote to my MP Lewis Atkinson. If you would like to write to your own MP you can use this as a template.
DWP cuts: the cruelest so far
Dear Lewis,
I am writing to you to share my deep concern about the reported DWP cuts to disability benefits that are coming.
As a disability rights journalist, I am appalled that Labour are (reportedly) planning further cuts to disabled people’s vital benefits. I’m saddened that after years in opposition holding the Tories to account on disability benefits-related deaths, the Labour Party now want to push disabled people further into poverty, which could result in god knows how many more deaths.
These DWP cuts are supposed to help disabled people into work, but in reality, they will do the opposite. DWP PIP is a vital benefit for many who do work already, it has nothing to do with unemployment. In fact many, including myself, rely on PIP so that we can work only the hours we need instead of making ourselves more ill.
PIP is not ‘easy’ to get
Despite what is often claimed by politicians and the media, DWP PIP is also not an easy to claim benefit, so it’s preposterous that the government seemingly want to make it harder to claim. The PIP form is 40 pages long, and requires the claimant to provide an extensive amount of evidence from medical professionals. You can’t just say you have mental health issues of ADHD like many pundits claim.
Just 51% of all claims are successful and the DWP has spent a horrendous amount of taxpayer money fighting claimants – Big Issue reports that the government spent around £50 million last year alone on this.
Whilst raising Universal Credit for those searching for work or in work is a good thing, balancing that by cutting benefits for those who can’t work is just cruel. How is that supposed to incentivise people in to work when they’ve already been deemed unfit for work by a system that is already inhumane to navigate?
Stark figures
What is equally worrying to me is the claim that the DWP plans to freeze the rate of PIP so that it doesn’t rise with inflation, this is despite disabled people already being in deep poverty. There are many, many stats around disability and poverty but here are just a few:
- Disabled people have on average 44% less disposable income annually than non-disabled people.
- 34% of disabled people are in the lowest category for household income, compared to 13% of non-disabled people.
- 55% of disabled adults said they were struggling to afford energy bills.
- 41% of disabled people couldn’t afford to heat their homes.
- 31% of disabled people said they had less money to spend on food.
- 36% of disabled people are struggling with their rent of mortgage.
- Trussell Trust estimated in 2023 that 75% of people accessing their food banks had at least one disabled person in their household.
As you well know, our area the North East is a hugely deprived area, with 25% living in poverty, but you may not know that the North East also has the highest rate of disabled people in the whole country. 21.2% of people in the North East are disabled, while 7.8% of households in the North East have two or more disabled people in them. I surely don’t need to impress on you how much further this would plunge our region into poverty and make it even harder for our people to live.
Dodgy stats
A key statistic that the DWP use to support all of this cruelty is that 200,000 people in the Low Capability for Work Related Activity Universal Credit group said that they would like to work. However, this isn’t the whole picture.
That figure was taken from just 5% answering that they would like to work tomorrow if given the right support. The second half of that sentence is crucial, as at the moment, disabled people do not have enough support. Pumping money into work coaches wont stand for anything when the waiting list for Access to Work grows and grows.
There’s also another part to that stat that is ignored. If 5% said they could work with the right support, then 95% said no, they couldn’t. The 200,000 figure has been scaled up to be representative of the number of claimants. So if we do that for how many said no, we’re looking at around 3.8 million who the government know couldn’t work and are still planning on cutting the benefits for.
DWP cuts must not go ahead
I also know that you are on the Assisted Dying Bill Committee, whilst the committee maintains that disabled people are not in danger of being subjected to assisted dying, many disabled people are still concerned – especially due to the amendments that are being denied. Whilst there has still not been an expansion for incurable conditions, people will be allowed if they feel like a burden. I honestly do not see how disabled people would not feel like burdens when this government consistently makes us out to be them.
I would finally like to invite you to a meeting held by the Coalition Against Benefit Cuts in Parliament next week. The meeting is on 17 March 4-6pm, at the Thatcher Room in Portcullis House.
I urge you to stand against these reported changes, for the good of all disabled people – but especially for those in your constituency who would struggle to live if these DWP cuts came in.
Rachel Charlton-Dailey
Featured image via the Canary
