Yesterday, the Secretary of State for the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) Liz Kendall, formally presented the long-awaited welfare reform bill. The bill has been hotly anticipated by disability rights campaigners, MPs, and disabled people more broadly for some time.
It means we will finally know just how much the government is planning to fuck with disabled peoples lives – but most importantly it means we can start organising how to stop it.
One thing that’s quickly becoming a pattern with this government, however, is how much they’re trying to sneak the bill through quietly. Unfortunately for them, disability justice campaigners are ready and waiting.
DWP trying to sneak through cuts
The bill is called The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill. However, the green paper that’s up for public consultation is called Pathways to Work: Reforming Benefits and Support to Get Britain Working. That’s more than a little shady when there’s been such a strong public reaction to disability benefit cuts. Surely they wouldn’t want to make it difficult for people to respond to the outrageous cuts they’re proposing?
On top of that, the presentation was expected just after 12:30, but didn’t actually happen until 2pm. Apparently this was due to an urgent update and questions around HS2. I’m sure was a vital debate that absolutely had to happen today and definitely not a distraction tactic so that the welfare bill wasn’t covered by the press or barely even noticed.
PIP cuts: jarring to see them admit so clearly what they’ve spent months trying to hide
Government paperwork is almost always written with lots of jargon, and is difficult to understand. With this bill, once you cut through the bullshit, there’s not much we didn’t already know. Even so, I was still surprised at how angry it made me.
The bill says it will:
Make provision to alter the rates of the standard allowance, limited capability for work element and limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit and the rates of income-related employment and support allowance, and to restrict eligibility for the personal independence payment.
To see them so clearly admit they will make it harder to claim PIP is actually jarring to see after months of them claiming that it won’t affect the majority of claimants.
Savings over disabled people’s lives
So what will the bill actually introduce?
Much of the bill was already known to us, but there are a few slight tweaks and changes snuck in through alternate wording.
Universal Credit (UC) will be increased above inflation between 2026 and 2030. Originally, this was pitched as a way to support those who receive UC and work. However, by making this calculation, the bill claims that there is no need to review this yearly. That means that if – or when – inflation rises, claimants will lose out.
This decision is also supposed to offset how much those in the Limited Capability for Work Related Activity (LCWRA) group will lose. LCWRA will be halved for new claimants and frozen for existing claimants. This will mean those who can’t work and have no requirement to look for work will receive less money, despite having no other income source. In order to get LCWRA you now must struggle to complete tasks at all times. Of course, being disabled isn’t always a static thing. Those with fluctuating conditions that are difficult to predict on a day-to-day basis will suffer under these changes.
Those on end of life and “most severe” conditions will not be routinely reassessed. But, it’s the DWP that will decide who is classed as having a “most severe” condition.
Put simply, PIP will be harder to claim. Whereas before you only had to score 12 points overall in the daily living element, a claimant must now score 4 points in at least one activity. These changes will undoubtedly affect the quality of life of PIP claimants who already struggle to survive.
Appeasing the Daily Mail readers and screwing those failed by the system
Another element of the bill that jumps out is how determined the government want us to thin they are when it comes to those who “fiddle” the system. In particular the bill talks about how conditions only count if they’ve been diagnosed by a NHS professional in an NHS setting.
This on first glance appears as though they’re saying ‘you can only apply if you have a REAL disability, not just say you have one.’ But by doubling down on this, they’re actually saying that those who sought private diagnosis wont be included. Many assume that a private diagnosis means the patient is rich, and certainly has no need for benefits. However, as fellow disabled people will know, long NHS waiting times mean that people often have to scrimp and save for a private diagnosis because they were failed by the crumbling NHS.
Of course, this will massively affect those with mental health and neurodivergent conditions. Coincidentally, that’s just the group of people the government, MPs, and the media have spent years claiming are faking their diagnoses for benefits.
Despite Kendall claiming that the bill will:
give people peace of mind, while also fixing our broken social security system so it supports those who can work to do so while protecting those who cannot.
What it’s actually doing is attempting to rush through cuts with no care for the fact that hundreds of thousands of lives could be at risk.
Stop Taking The PIP
For the last few weeks now I’ve been part of the core team of Taking The PIP. We’re a campaign group aiming to bring awareness of the true human cost of the cuts on the disabled community. The government are working hard to make it seem like these cuts are all about saving money. We as disabled people need to show the public just how much it will cost: disabled peoples lives.
As a community we need to flood social media with as much of the reality of the situation as possible. Please, if you’re able to share your stories of what benefits enable you to do and what the cuts would mean for you, share how much this would impact you.
Keep bothering your MPs, now is the time to email them and tell them why they should oppose the cuts. If you already have and they haven’t replied, email them again. Many assume they can just stay silent on this but we need to show them that isn’t an option when disabled lives are at stake. We have a quick and easy template and tool on our website.
Kendall and her ilk can harp on all they like about how much good this will do for the economy, but are they really willing to pay for the cost of disabled peoples lives?
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.