On Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 November, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is in court in London. Campaigner Ellen Clifford is mounting a legal challenge over its proposed changes to the Work Capability Assessment (WCA). Of course, this all started under the previous Tory government- meaning, the new Labour Party-run DWP could have settled with Clifford out of court if it wanted to. Instead, the Labour government dug its heels in. So, Clifford’s DWP WCA challenge continues – and disabled people will be at court supporting her.
DWP WCA reforms: a looming disaster
As the Canary has documented, the planned DWP WCA reforms relate to which claimants will fall into the limited capability for work (LCW), and the limited capability for work related activity (LCWRA) groups of Universal Credit.
The DWP ran a consultation on these between September and October 2023. As the Canary previously detailed:
the DWP is planning to change the WCA. Specifically, it’s 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“
In November, the then Tory-run DWP responded to the consultation. Notably, it laid out how it would proceed with a number of these. Specifically, it decided to take forward DWP WCA changes to:
- Work being a risk to claimants. Specifically, it will tighten the criteria for this. Notably, it stated that: “We will specify the circumstances, and physical and mental health conditions, for which LCWRA Substantial Risk should apply.” In other words, the DWP will decide who this will apply to going forward – and will obviously move the goalposts.
- People’s mobility – which it’s removing as a descriptor altogether.
- People’s ability to leave their homes – which it will now reduce the points for in the assessment.
A risk to disabled people
Campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) has warned about the DWP WCA changes. It said:
A forecast from the Office for Budget Responsibility showed that only 3% of the 453,000 disabled people predicted to lose out by 2028/9 as a result of the changes will be able to move into employment.
The changes will only apply to new benefit claimants – although existing claimants will be affected if they come off benefits and then reapply.
The two groups of claimants who will be impacted are those with mobility impairments and those in the “substantial risk” group, who are those deemed to be at risk of self injury and/or suicide if forced to look for work.
Around 424,000 claimants will as a result of the changes only be able to access out of work benefits at 47% of the rate existing claimants do.
Those with mobility impairments will have to undertake mandatory work search activity and be subject to conditionality and sanctions.
Those in the substantial risk group will not have mandatory work search activity. However, there are increasing expectations in terms of engagement with the Department for Work and Pensions.
Labour’s position
However, despite the DWP WCA changes being in the Tories’ Autumn Budget of 2023, it is still unclear if Labour will implement them or not – although many analysts and disabled people are indicating that the new government will.
New Labour Party chancellor Rachel Reeves announced during the Autumn Budget that she would honour the DWP WCA savings that the previous government planned to make through these reforms.
She said:
First, we inherited the last government’s plans to reform the Work Capability Assessment.
We will deliver those savings as part of fundamental reforms to the health and disability benefits system that the Work and Pensions Secretary (Liz Kendall) will bring forward.
Most people have interpreted that to mean that the planned DWP WCA reforms will go ahead.
Ellen Clifford’s legal challenge
However, Clifford has been challenging the reforms in court – specifically over the consultation. Her lawyers argued that the primary motivation in fact appears to be reducing welfare spending.
Under these proposed changes to the DWP WCA, thousands of people would lose £416 per month in benefits and many would be at risk of sanctions.
According to Clifford, this was not made clear during the consultation. 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.
During an earlier stage of Clifford’s case, it emerged that the DWP WCA changes had not even been subject to:
- Any employment or disability assessments of the proposals they wished to consult on before the consultation was launched.
The DWP did, however, undertake reviews to work out what savings may be made from the DWP WCA proposals before consulting. This included estimating how many Deaf and Disabled people may no longer be assessed as having limited capacity for work or work-related activity, if proposals were implemented. Yet no information about potential savings or numbers impacted was provided to consultees as part of the consultation process.
Join disabled people at the Royal Courts of Justice to challenge the DWP WCA changes
So, it seems the DWP’s defence over the WCA changes has already got off to a rocky start. On 10 December, disabled people and their allies will be gathering outside the Royal Courts of justice for a vigil.
Organisers DPAC said in a statement:
We are disappointed that Labour has chosen to defend the case in order to push ahead with the same changes proposed by the Tories…
These changes will lead to deeper poverty among disabled people and unquestionably to more benefit deaths.
The proposed changes also ignore the findings and recommendations from the special inquiry under the Convention on the Rights of Disabled People carried out by the United Nations Disability Committee which found the UK guilty of grave and systematic of violations of Disabled People’s rights due to austerity and welfare reform.
If you are unable to attend the vigil but want to show solidarity please take to social media using the hashtag #NoMoreDeathsFromBenefitCuts.
Please also contact your MP to ask for their support in opposing disability benefit cuts and to tell them what you think the consequences of these cuts will be.
More details on the vigil can be found here.
