“Disabled people have forever had to justify their sickness. Never heard but always judged by a system that is about cutting costs not calculating the consequences.”
By Rachael Maskell MP
As if managing pain, or an impairment, were not enough, the announcement that the ‘welfare’ bill must be cut through crude ‘back to work’ initiatives echoes of failed attempts of the past which often left people in poverty. The last major reforms left 290,000 with worsened mental health and tragically 600 of these taking their lives. It is a dangerous act to make vulnerable people more fragile.
Disabled people have forever had to justify their sickness. Never heard but always judged by a system that is about cutting costs not calculating the consequences. For the fait of birth, or injury, or left languishing on an NHS waiting list, or victim of some progressive illness, the determination of state to stigmatise and stress has never worked but always hurt it target audience.
Getting support is no easy task as it is. Questionnaires and assessments are dehumanising and stigmatising. They already scrutinise force you to prove your capabilities before the state will step in, to only now here that you have step up. Such an approach will result in many losing their vital lifeline of support.
Rather than taking an axe to disability support, the Government should be challenging the employers who dismiss people at the end of their trial, who place them under capability processes or who see them bullied out the door. It isn’t that many don’t want to work, it is just that when they try, they have been rejected or they simply can’t.
Removing the five-week wait to receive support would help people at least try, so I trust that Labour will end the revolving door that results in people going with out funds.
However, it has been right to push back on freezing support this year. Disabled people face inflation as much as anyone else, so to protect Personal Independence Payments, protects people being able to stay independent, the clue is in the name. 20% of those who receive PIP are in work, so cuts would mean less in work.
However, hearing eligibility criteria is to tighten is also deeply concerning, not least for those who also face mental health challenges. We recognise, with growing concern, the increase in the number of young people with poor mental health, anxiety and depression, and little resilience to protect them. It is not that they are over diagnosed, it is that they need care and compassion, help and support, to find the confidence, the kindness and the help to find a job that matches their gifts and talents, that will keep them engaged with understanding not judgement.
At the root of this latest discourse, is the ability of the state to pay. We all know that Labour was dealt a poor economic hand in taking over at the Treasury last July. We know that costs are rising and can feel out of control. But this is no reason to strip the poorest at the hands of the powerful.
Instead we need to reshape our economy, recognising that if we invest, then it reaps rewards, if we provide support it saves as people are kept out of ever more costly support, and if we treat people with dignity, it speaks of the kind of society that we want to build.
As the sums get harder at No.11, the solutions must be broader. A wealth tax would release billions of new money into the economy, where those with the broadest shoulders pay the most. A more progressive tax system would redistribute money better, and loosening the fiscal rules, in line with other jurisdictions, only makes sense when the economic shocks from wars in the East and the US President’s actions in the West, is tearing up the rule book anyway.
If Labour are to rediscover its roots, then there is much to learn from the aspirations of Keir Hardie and the greatest reforming Government of Clement Attlee in 1945. Disabled people have a vital part to play in our society, and it starts with giving them dignity.
- Rachael Maskell is the MP for York Central. You can follow Rachael on Twitter/X, Bluesky and Facebook.
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Featured image: Official Parliamentary Portrait of Rachel Maskell MP. Photo credit: House of Commons under an Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence.
