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Theresa May refuses to rule out further disability benefits cuts

‘I know there are some issues that people continue to raise about assessments that are made on those payments’

Political Correspondent

Wednesday 10 May 2017 18:54 BST

The Prime Minister during a visit to York Barbican on Tuesday while on the election campaign trail (PA)

Theresa May has refused to rule out making further cuts to disability benefits in the next Parliament if the Conservatives are returned to government.

Asked by The Independent at a campaign event in Mansfield whether she would rule out any further cuts to support, the Prime Minister avoided giving a direct answer.

“If you look at what we’ve been doing on disability benefits, what we have done is look at focusing disability benefit payments on those who are most in need. In fact we are spending more on disability benefit payments than has been done by any government in the past,” she replied.

“We have changed the way that disability benefits have been paid and I know there are some issues that people continue to raise about assessments that are made on those payments. But we will continue to be moving to a system that ensures we are supporting those most in need.”

A £30-a-week cut to some new claimants of the Employment and Support Allowance came into effect last month despite opposition from more than 30 disability charities.

Disabled people put in the Work Related Activity Group will now receive £73 a week instead of £103 – the same rate as non-disabled people claiming jobseekers’ allowance.

The Department for Work and Pensions says the lower rate of cash support will encourage disabled people to find work. Charities say the cuts do not incentivise work, make life harder for disabled people who face extra costs, and mean some people will be unable to afford basic necessities.

The Government was also forced to U-turn on a £4.4bn cut to the personal independence payment (PIP) in March last year after signs of a rebellion amongst its own backbenchers and the resignation of Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, who said he could not back the policy.

But with polls showing the Conservatives likely to return to office with a larger majority than before, the threat of backbench rebellion would be unlikely to constrain the Government in the same way.

Labour slated Ms May’s position on further cuts.

“It should come as no surprise to disabled people who have borne the brunt of Government cuts that the Prime Minister has refused to rule out further cuts to their support in the next Parliament,” Debbie Abrahams, the shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, told The Independent.

“If the Prime Minister really cared about disabled people she wouldn’t have supported punitive and unjust cut including for PIP affecting over 160,000 people with chronic mental health conditions and ESA WRAG affecting half a million sick and disabled people. Only Labour will stand up for disabled people.”

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

On Wednesday Ms May took questions from workers and journalists at a print shop on the outskirts of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. She also took questions from the media earlier in the day at a gathering of Tory activists in Carlton, Nottinghamshire.

The events come a day after Tory campaign headquarters was accused by Channel 4 News of vetting questions asked to the Prime Minister and keeping her away from the press in a highly stage-managed campaign. No question vetting took place at the two events on Wednesday.

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