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New disabled MP accuses Conservatives of 'eugenics' policies to make disabled people 'suffer and die'

Jared O’Mara says Tory ministers have 'completely torn up the welfare system'

Tuesday 11 July 2017 08:16 BST

Jared O’Mara, the Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, says Tory ministers have ‘completely torn up the welfare system’ (Twitter)

The Conservatives have dismantled the welfare system and introduced a system of “eugenics” in an effort to make disabled people “suffer and die”, according to a newly-elected Labour MP.

Jared O’Mara, who has cerebral palsy, said the Government has “completely torn up the welfare system” by shutting down the Independent Living Fund and making cuts to disability and social care benefits.

Mr O’Mara, who ousted former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg from his Sheffield Hallam seat, also declared his support for efforts to bring a criminal prosecution against Tory ministers over claims that the Department for Work and Pension’s (DWP) “fitness to work” tests have led to the deaths of benefit claimants.

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

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1/77 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Closing Remploy factories

The Work and Pensions Secretary called time on Britain’s system of Remploy factories, which provided subsidised and sheltered employment to disabled people. People employed at the factories protested against their closure and said they provided gainful work. “Is it a kindness to stick people in some factory where they are not doing any work at all? Just making cups of coffee?” Mr Duncan Smith said at the time, defending the decision. “I promise you this is better.” The Remploy organisation was privatised and sold to American workfare provider Maximus, with the majority of the organisation’s factories closed. The future of the remaining sites is unclear

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Scrapping the Independent Living Fund

The £320m Independent Living Fund was established in 1988 to give financial support to people with disabilities. It was scrapped on July 1 2015, with 18,000 often severely disabled people losing out by an average of £300 a week. The money was generally used to help pay for carers so people could live in communities rather than institutions. Councils will get a boost in funding to compensate but it will not cover the whole cost of the fund. This new cash also doesn’t have to be spent on the disabled

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut payments for the disabled Access To Work scheme

Iain Duncan Smith is bringing forward a policy that will reduce payments to some disabled people from a scheme designed to help them into work. The £108m scheme, which helps 35,540 people, will be capped on a per-used basis, potentially hitting those with the more serious disabilities who currently receive the most help. The single biggest users of the fund are people who have difficulty seeing and hearing. The cut will come in from October 2015. The charity Disability UK says the scheme actually makes the Government money because the people who gain access to work tend pay tax that more than covers its cost. The DWP does not describe the reduction as a “cut” and says it will be able to spread the money more thinly and cover more people

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Cut Employment and Support Allowance

The latest Budget included a £30 a week cut in disability benefits for some new claimants of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). The Government says it is equalising the rate of disability benefits with Jobseekers Allowance because giving disabled people more help is a “perverse incentive”. The people affected by this cut are those assessed as having a limited capability for work but as being capable of some “work-related activity”. A group of prominent Catholics wrote to Mr Duncan Smith to say there was “no justification” for this cut. Mental health charity Mind, said the cut was “insulting and misguided”

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Risk homelessness with a sharp increase disability benefit sanctions

Official figures in the first quarter of 2014 found a huge increase in sanctions against people reliant on ESA sickness benefit. The 15,955 sanctions were handed out in that period compared to 3,574 in the same period the year before, 2013 – a 4.5 times increase. The homelessness charity Crisis warned at the time that the sharp rise in temporary benefit cuts was “cruel and can leave people utterly destitute – without money even for food and at severe risk of homelessness”. “It is difficult to see how they are meant to help people prepare for work,” Matt Downie, director of policy at the charity added

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

Sending sick people to work because of broken fitness to work tests

In 2012 a government advisor appointed to review the Government’s Work Capability Assessment said the tests causing suffering by sending sick people back to work inappropriately. “There are certainly areas where it's still not working and I am sorry there are people going through a system which I think still needs improvement,” Professor Malcolm Harrington concluded. The tests are said to have improved since then, but as recently as this summer they are still coming in for criticism. In June the British Psychological Society said there was “now significant body of evidence that the WCA is failing to assess people’s fitness for work accurately and appropriately”. It called for a full overhaul of the way the tests are carried out. The WCA appeals system has also been fraught with controversy with a very high rate of overturns and delays lasting months and blamed for hardship

7 ways the Tories have ‘helped’ disabled people

The bedroom tax

The Government’s benefit cut for people who it says are “under-occupying” their homes disproportionately affects disabled people. Statistics released last year show that around two-thirds of those affected by the under-occupancy penalty, widely known as the ‘bedroom tax’, are disabled. There have been a number of high profile cases of disabled people being moved out of specially adapted homes by the policy. In one case publicised by the Sunday People last week, a 48 year old man with cerebral palsy was forced to bathe in a paddling pool after the tax moved him out of his home with a walk-in shower. The Government says it has provided councils with a discretionary fund to help reduce the policy’s impact on disabled people, but cases continue to arise

The former school governor insisted the policies were making disabled people have suicidal thoughts.

He told Disability News Service (DNS): “A lot of people say you can’t use that word, but I will do: it’s eugenics. They want disabled people to suffer and die. That’s literally what’s happening.

“Disabled people are out there suffering and dying because they have not got the financial means and financial support and nor have they got the legal means to lead an equal life, or even to lead a satisfactory life.”

Conservative MP accuses mother of disabled child of lying

He added that reports that mentally ill people have been asked why they haven’t committed suicide by independence payment assessors support his claims.

“How is that not eugenics? Putting thoughts of suicide into a disabled person’s head. It’s literally eugenics,” he said.

“I’m not going to shy away from it, people might say I am taking it too far, but as far as I am concerned, what I have seen and what has happened across the board, it’s been eugenics.

“There are people just like me and people who have got conditions that make things even worse for them than mine does, and they are dying and they are suffering.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “We have a proud record in supporting disabled people, including through the landmark Disability Discrimination Act.

“In the last three years, over 500,000 have moved into work and we continue to spend around £50bn a year on benefits to support disabled people and those with health conditions – more than ever before.”

In the wide-ranging interview with DNS, Mr O’Mara also said he “absolutely” supported efforts by anti-austerity groups to bring criminal proceedings against former DWP ministers Chris Grayling and Iain Duncan Smith relating to the fitness to work tests.

A disabled activist from the Black Triangle campaign lodged a complaint with Scottish police claiming the pair might be guilty of “willful neglect of duty by a public official”, but Scottish criminal justice agencies refused to investigate the matter in December.

A DWP spokesperson said at the time: “It is important we make sure that people are receiving the right support, and they are not simply written off to a life on benefits.

“The Work Capability Assessment has been improved dramatically since 2008 following a number of reviews, including five independent ones.”

After a month in his role as Labour MP for Sheffield Hallam, Mr O’Mara said he has not been able to attend debates in the Commons chamber as he cannot stand for longer than 10 minutes.

The 35-year-old MP was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at six months old. The condition leaves him with severe fatigue and the right-hand side of his body is semi-paralysed. Mobility and standing for too long are issues and he needs bannisters on both sides of stairs.

The disability rights campaigner, who compares himself to Forrest Gump, previously said: “I’m this slightly eccentric, little bit weird disabled guy who keeps stumbling into large achievements.”

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