Joy Macready reports on the cuts to disability welfare and the growing resistance
“THE PAST 12 months have seen a string of cuts that have hit disabled people the hardest, from benefits changes to local authorities slashing social care budgets and axing concessionary bus passes.”
This comment by Jaspal Dhani, CEO of the UK Disabled People’s Council, highlights the devastating effects the Con-Dem’s cuts will have on people with impairments, both directly in the form of 40 specific cuts targeting disabled people and as a side effect of cuts in public services.
The Coalition government’s cuts to the welfare system could set independent living back 30 years, according to UK Disabled People’s Council (UKDPC). They could force many into poverty or residential care homes, which are also facing budgets cuts.
In addition, the proposed 300,000 additional jobs to be cut in the public sector – up from the original estimate of 410,000 – will also damage disabled workers’ ability to find employment, as private sector businesses have a poor record in employing people with disabilities.
But it just gets worse – families and carers could be hit by more cuts when learning disability services are reviewed in the new year. For example, Kingston Council will try to find £1.2m of savings from day care, home care and other projects when it begins its six-month review in January.
After widespread outrage, the Con-Dem government was forced to do a U-turn on plans to scrap mobility component of disability living allowance (DLA) for 80,000 people in care homes. It planned to save £160 million by removing the £50-a-week benefit.
However, what the Coalition hasn’t backed down on is the demeaning and dehumanising retesting of those on DLA by private contractor Atos Healthcare, despite doctors’ challenging the medical legitimacy of these tests. According to DWP figures, the DLA has the lowest fraud rate (0.5%) of any benefit. Therefore, the government’s determination to take 20% of people off DLA will mean that 19.5% of disabled people will have their benefits withdrawn and pushed into abject poverty.
Atos, which is paid £100 million a year by the government to take benefits away from the sick, has been accused of altering forms – after the person tested had signed them – to falsely claim they were NOT disabled. With sickening irony, the company is a sponsor of the Paralympic Games.
But people with disabilities are organising and taking action against the government and Atos Healthcare. In May, over 8,000 joined the Hardest Hit March on parliament to protest against the cuts. This was followed up on 22 October, one year after the government’s comprehensive Spending Review, which saw mass protests in 14 cities across the UK.
As part of UK Disability History Month, a number of actions are planned across the country in December. In London, activists are planning to target Atos in a ‘Festive Month of Action’. This began with a demonstration of disabled people, benefit claimants and supporters outside the Paralympic Goal Ball test event being held at the Olympic Park on Saturday 3 December, and ends with a ‘Real Victorian Christmas Party and Picnic’ in Triton Square NW1 outside Atos Healthcare’s headquarters on 16 December at 2pm.
The government is making a fundamental attack on equality. Local and national anti-cuts organisations must link the fight against public sector cuts and the battle against private companies profiting off of people’s misery into a mass fight back. Only a mass mobilisation will stop these attacks. As a disability rights activist said: “I am not disabled – I live with an impairment. The term ‘disabled’ is defined by how society views and treats you.”
