Yesterday the House of Lords voted – by significant margins – to protect people with cancer, disabled young people and disabled people receiving Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) from some Government welfare cuts [1].
The Government has unfortunately stated today that it will plough on with the cuts regardless of Peer pressure. Neil Coyle, Disability Rights UK Director of Policy and Campaigns says:
“The Government should listen to their Peers and acknowledge that some welfare cuts hit severely disadvantaged disabled people disproportionately. The Government should pause and reflect on the proposed cuts to support for disabled people. A third of disabled people already live in poverty; Government proposals must not lead to disabled people’s destitution.”
The time-limiting of ESA [2] measure proposed would, for example, have ended out of work benefits for someone who had worked all their life but had an accident and accessed the ESA Work Related Activity Group [WRAG; 3] through a tough assessment process. After 365 days – and irrespective of their ongoing health needs – the Government plans would end out of work support. This measure was due to be implemented from April 2012 and Disability Alliance warned the Government that ignoring disability organisations and Peers’ concerns was a mistake when DWP wrote to ESA recipients in September [4].
But disabled people affected by this measure now face a high degree of uncertainty as to how long they may receive support. DWP estimate 700,000 disabled people are affected by time-limiting some ESA support alone [5]. Peers felt the Government’s arbitrary cut off point was ‘immoral’ and lacked evidence [4]. DWP research shows that only 25% of disabled people who moved from work onto ESA had found work within 18 months [5].
Neil Coyle adds:
“Yesterday’s votes would protect some disabled people from the severest of cuts that the Government has proposed. We hope DWP will not simply ignore the Lords votes and the hundreds of thousands of disabled people’s fears. Next week we see key votes on Government plans to potentially end all support for thousands more disabled people receiving Disability Living Allowance. We hope Peers will be equally demanding that the Government gets its priorities right and evidence-base justified then too.”
Notes:
[1] See: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16523649
[2] ESA is an out of work benefit for people with significant health conditions/impairments only. To access this benefit disabled people must pass a stringent Work Capability Assessment. To access ‘contributory’ ESA disabled people must have paid National Insurance contributions previously.
[3] ESA has two groups: Support Group for disabled people assessed as not able to work at all and the WRAG for the majority of disabled people assessed as having limited work capability.
[4] See: http://www.disabilityalliance.org/dapress.htm
[5] 700,000 people would require a financial test to see if they qualified for an income-based alternative but DWP estimate at least 280,000 disabled people would lose all out of work benefits as a result of this change. See: http://www.parliament.uk/documents/impact-assessments/IA11-041I.pdf
[6] See Hansard for the full list of reasons Peers voted against the measures, which included a debate about the morality of the Government plans: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201212/ldhansrd/text/120111-0001.htm#12011182000884
[7] See: ‘Routes onto ESA’ is DWP research report 774 and was published September 2011
