Disability campaigners vow to continue struggle

DISABLED activists and disability campaigners, including the 500 NGOs gathered under the banner of Disability Rights UK, have said they will be keeping up the struggle against the Westminster coalition government's controversial Welfare Reform Bill.

Neil Coyle, Disability Rights UK Director of Policy and Campaigns, declared this week: “The Government’s removal of protections for some disabled people from the Welfare Reform Bill ignores the hundreds of thousands of disabled people directly affected, the hundreds of charities who have highlighted the potential devastating impact for disabled people and their families, the House of Lords who proposed additional protections and the Joint Committee on Human Rights who suggested the Bill will cause destitution.”

Disabled people are disproportionately represented among benefit claimants due to educational attainment issues, higher poverty, lack of accessible work and employer discrimination.

The Bill aims to cut 280,000 disabled people from receiving out of work benefits altogether and 500,000 disabled people to be made ineligible for a benefit designed to help with disabled people’s higher costs of living.

These plans have long term cost implications being ignored, critics say, by Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) – including a substantial potential increase in avoidable NHS use and rise in demand for council social care services - which many disabled people are being made ineligible for due to council budget cuts.

House of Lords amendments had secured protection for some disabled children, disabled adults needing longer than a year to find work and disabled students.

Disabled people believed their fears and concerns had been acknowledged and addressed in the Lords, says Disability Rights UK, but but this hope has been removed in the Commons' demand for short term welfare expenditure cuts which, they say, ignore risks of higher future costs as well as abandoning or exposing vulnerable people to suffering and even destitution.

Legal challenges are now being considered. The Spartacus Report campaign for DLA, initiated and led by people who are themselves living with disabilities and sickness, has been opposing the Bill in its current form and demanding that they be involved in policy and decision-making on issues that deeply effect their dignity and livelihood. 

Disabled people to take to the streets

DISABLED and sick people angry at government cuts and changes that will hit thousands of vulnerable people across Britain are taking to the streets this weekend.

They are to calling on the Westminster parliament to think again about its Welfare Reform Bill, Work Capability Assessment (WCA), and the abolition of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and its replacement by vaguely specified Personal Independence Payments.

The protests, backed by UK Uncut, Disabled People Against Cuts and by the lobbying group 38 Degrees, cover concerns widely shared in Scotland, though determined by reserved powers in Westminster. The government has now suffered six defeats in the House of Lords over welfare issues.

The key role in awakening public and political opinion has been the work of disabled people themselves in publishing the Spartacus Report on DLA. They are demanding full inclusion in policy determination and shaping processes, in line with the ethos and values of the Poverty Truth Commission.

Scottish Health Secretary and Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has commented after the first three Lords amendments passed 11 January on that "pleased to hear about Lords votes tonight. The Welfare Reform Bill will hurt many vulnerable people."

'Hardest hit' have their say

DISABLED and ill people and their families are taking to the streets and initiating online action today (11th May 2011) to highlight the effect on their lives of cuts to the benefits and services they rely on.

People from Scotland and other parts of Britain will be joining the Hardest Hit March in London. Just as the Poverty Truth Commission is showing that poverty will only be addressed when those at the sharp end are at the heart of the process, so those living with disabilities and sickness say that their voices must be at the core of the debate over public services.

Hardest Hit, which is being backed by a range of charities, community organisations and action groups, says: "Many are living in fear of huge cuts to essential benefits including Disability Living Allowance (cut by £2.17 billion) and Employment and Support Allowance (cut by £2 billion). The total cuts will mean an estimated £9 billion loss to families’ incomes over the next four years, on top of cuts to many local care and support services.

"This affects people and families across the UK living with conditions like cancer, dementia, arthritis, Parkinson’s and Multiple Sclerosis, sensory impairments, learning disabilities, mental health conditions and physical disabilities. Their everyday lives depend on facilities under threat from the government’s plans to cut billions from support for disabled people and their families."

The march and online protest can also be followed on social network site Twitter.