Work is already planning further benefit reforms that could leave 400,000 disabled people in the red, a leading anti-poverty campaigner has said.
Anela Anwar, chief executive of the charity Z2K, was speaking as the Government faces a significant backlash against its plan to strip around 10 million pensioners who are not receiving the benefits of the £300 annual allowance. winter fuel payment.
And writing to the Big Problem magazine, she warned that there was more to come.
Ms Anwar explained: “Since the election of the Work government in July there was a change of tone with regard to social security and disability.”
Department for Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall has vowed to “end the culture of blaming people who are unemployed”, she said.
“But look closer, and there are more worrying signs. Speaking to parliament in late July, the chancellor warned that the autumn budget would involve ‘taking difficult decisions’ on social security, and said she would ‘take a hard look at our welfare system, because if someone can work, they should work’.”
Ms Anwar, who said her son had received disability benefits after a five-year battle, stressed: “Many of our clients who are unable to work due to serious illness or disability face a system that is already stretched thin, where financial support is regularly cut or removed altogether as a result of poor decisions. For our clients, the prospect of further cuts to financial support is terrifying.”
Much has been made of what Ms Anwar called the previous government’s “ill-conceived” proposals to make radical changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
She said: “Among a number of worrying proposals was a suggestion that PIP cash payments could be replaced by vouchers. Labour has yet to set out its intentions on PIP, but notably said it is ‘reviewing the responses people gave to the previous government’s consultation’.
“The new government has also been worryingly silent on its plans for the work capability assessment (WCA). Its manifesto said the WCA ‘needs to be reformed or replaced’, but Labour has so far failed to provide much detail on what this would mean in practice.”
Particularly worrying was the government’s failure to reject the WCA proposals put forward by the Conservatives before the general elections in July.
Ms Anwar explained: “The planned changes to the work capability assessment criteria, which were due to be implemented before the election was called, would mean that more than 400,000 seriously ill and disabled people would lose more than £400 a month of additional financial support and would have to survive indefinitely on the grossly inadequate basic rate of universal credit.
“The basic rate of universal credit is just £91 a week for a single person. That’s hard enough to live on if you’re in good health and able to look for work: research from the Trussell Trust released last week found that almost half of those on universal credit went without food in the last month. But imagine being seriously ill for months on end, and potentially for life, and having to live on that meager amount.”
The Office for Budget Responsibility analyzed the plans and predicted that only three percent of those affected by the cuts would be able to work as a result of these reforms, leaving the remaining 97 percent having to survive on the lower benefit rate for an undetermined period.
Ms Anwar added: “Furthermore, the proposals would not even result in significant savings for the government. The Institute for Fiscal Studies said the plans ‘will at best generate short-term savings before becoming irrelevant’.
Writing on Wednesday, she said: “That is why we are today handing in our petition to call on the government to officially drop these proposals. More than 11,000 people have already backed our campaign to say no to these cruel reforms. MPs from the Lib Dems and Green Party will also be there to support us.
“The new government has a real opportunity to restore the relationship between people with disabilities and the PDM. Putting forward these ill-considered and dangerous proposals would taint these efforts before they even begin.”
In a speech last month, Ms Kendall said: “People have been deprived of the opportunity and the right to participate in the world of work.
“They have been excluded. Then labeled and blamed for the position they are in. If that is what has happened to you, my message today is: We hear you.
“We’re on your side. And we’ll work day and night to fix this.”