A key coalition of disability rights groups have written to the new Labour Party government. In a letter addressed to prime minister Keir Starmer, the Disability Poverty Campaign Group (DPCG) has detailed a number of critical concerns the new government needs to tackle now it has taken to the helm – with part of the focus on Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits like Universal Credit.
However, less than two weeks into its term, and it’s already clear that Labour is sidelining disabled and chronically ill people.
Despite this, the letter is cautious and falls short of taking the new government to task.
DWP benefits: groups write to the new prime minister
On Tuesday 16 July the DPCG, led by Disability Rights UK (DR UK) and Inclusion London, penned a letter asking for:
a positive relationship with the new UK Government, which promised in its manifesto to listen to and work with Disabled people.
Crucially, the letter put forward a range of “recommendations” for the new Labour government on a range of policy areas that impact disabled people. These included for instance:
- Introducing a consultation on an energy social tariff to help lift disabled people out of fuel poverty before winter.
- An extension to the Household Support Fund (HSF)
- An immediate “debt amnesty” for carers that the DWP has overpaid and are now facing punitive action due to the department’s failures.
- An increase to carers allowance to “redress the injustice of historically low payment rates.”
You can read the DPCG’s full demands in its letter to the prime minister here.
Notably, one of the coalition’s key asks centred round the UK’s “inadequate” DWP benefits and “punitive” welfare system. DPCG wrote that:
The previous government falsified the reality of this country’s punitive and inadequate welfare system with its claims of “sick-note culture” .
So firstly, the DPCG is pushing the new Labour government to make a break from Sunak’s smears of chronically ill and disabled people. To date however, new DWP boss Liz Kendall have pandered to this rhetoric, in not so many overt words, with its “Back to Work Plan”.
During Kendall’s first speech post-election, in one breath she opined that:
Economic inactivity is holding Britain back – it’s bad for people, it’s bad for businesses, and it’s bad for growth.
Then, in the other, she referenced the 2.8 million people able to work owing to long-term sickness. Following this, the DPCG letter stated that:
The Labour government must act to ensure necessary DWP, and welfare reforms are expedited, and informed by disabled expertise, compassion and Labour’s commitment to honour UNCRPD. The previous government’s PIP reforms consultation must be scrapped.
As the Canary pointed out on 15 July, far from dropping the Tories’ PIP consultation, Labour insiders have indicated the government’s plans to review its responses.
Meanwhile, Labour hasn’t made any noise about other welfare reforms the previous Conservative government kicked into motion either. This includes plans to reform, and eventually scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) for Universal Credit.
Of course, the invariable endgame of these changes is to force more chronically ill and disabled people into work. Naturally, this will likely be at great expense to their health.
Low DWP benefits and real-terms cuts
Next, the letter calls for the new government to “uplift what are the lowest benefit rates in Europe”.
Unsurprisingly to anyone stuck in the quagmire that is the UK’s social safety net, but likely a shock to anyone who reads the corporate media, this is indeed the case. As Euronews reported in 2023:
After two months of joblessness, the UK provides its citizens support worth 17% of their previous in-work income – compared to 90% in Belgium.
The UK replacement rate is substantially lower than every other northwestern European country, including Luxembourg (85%), Norway (78%), Denmark (78%), Iceland (75%), Switzerland (74%), Sweden (72%), The Netherlands (69%), France (66%), Germany (66%), Finland (57%), Austria (57%) and Ireland (54%).
Not only this, but the Tories have routinely implemented real-terms cuts to DWP benefits as well. As the cost of living spiralled, the previous government refused to raise benefits in line with inflation. In short, basic daily necessities soared in price, but DWP benefits did not keep pace to match.
Begging for crumbs
While the DPCG letter’s recommendation intimated these issues, it did so in a tentative way. The letter is littered with civil language and commendations of the few pledges Labour has made.
Of course, after fourteen years of successive Tory governments punching down on disabled and chronically ill people, improvements are a low bar. DPCG sets out its mission to:
dismantle decades of disablist policies and systemic oppression and injustice
Yet, throughout, it embarks on a long exercise in hedging its demands.
From “seeking clarification” to “expect to see progress”, this tentative language only feeds into a feeling that the Labour powers-that-be need not prioritise disabled people’s policy needs across its electoral term. Given how the party largely ignored disabled people during the run-up to the election, this is clearly the wrong tone.
In one notable line, it even states that Labour must increase benefits:
to ensure Disabled people can afford the essentials.
Not only does it embody a severe lack of imagination, it begs for crumbs, when it should be shouting vociferously for disabled and chronically ill people’s rights.
Enough is enough
In short, while its “recommendations” are a start, these should be whole-hearted, unapologetic demands. After all, disabled and chronically ill people are hardly asking for the Earth. Because what they’re agitating for in reality, is fundamentally just respect for their human rights – like everyone else.
It shouldn’t need to be said – but that’s absolutely NOT a controversial thing. Policies that make society more accessible and equitable should be par for the course – like DWP benefits that are based on dignity.
In fact, that can only be the beginning. We deserve more than the basic socioeconomic ingredients to survive. Disabled and chronically ill folks should have every opportunity and support to truly thrive.
Of course, disabled and chronically ill people know only too well that bowing to the oppressor is not the answer. Therefore, the letter in three words: this ain’t it. In little over a decade, callous Tory DWP policies and reforms have killed tens of thousands of people. Enough is enough.
It’s why disabled and chronically ill people took to Parliament Square. That is, to tell the Labour government that the Tories’ legacy of harm must end now – including around DWP benefits.
As the Canary reported, on Thursday 18 July grassroots disability rights groups, campaigners, and allies spent the day celebrating the community. Significantly, they loudly and proudly articulated their demands in collective creative protest.
And for the next five years they will hold the Labour government’s feet to the fire every step of the way. That is the way forward – not, as the Canary’s Steve Topple previously put it, having “tea and biccies” with the Labour Party, begging for scraps off their table.
Feature image via the Canary
