Disability Discrimination, ABC's Simon Collyer Appears on RT TV

The Disability Benefits Consortium - Has Welfare Become Unfair - report which talks about the impact of welfare changes on disabled people was launched in the Atlee Suite, Portcullis House, Westminster, SW1A 2LW on the 16th July.  The report was funded by the Three Guineas Trust and research was carried out by the University of East Anglia and Howard Reed, from Landman Economics. 

After some refreshments and networking the 80 odd organisations represented, heard passionate speeches from Neil Coyle MP, former co-Chair of the Disability Benefits Consortium, who is a current member of the Work & Pensions Select Committee. This was followed by a speech by, Michael Griffin, the projects research lead.

Image: Neil Coyle MP

A very detailed and comprehensive talk was them given by rising star; Marsha De Cordoba – Labour Shadow Disability spokesperson.

Image: Marsha De Cordoba – Labour Shadow Disability spokesperson. 

A less technical, but no less powerful speech was next up from Neil Gray MP, SNP spokesperson, and DWP Work and Pensions committee member.

Image: Neil Gray MP.

We then heard from Adam from Bexley Mencap, who despite great difficulties due to autism and learning difficulties gave the large audience a most sincere and moving account of the problems that he and his wife...who is also disabled, have encountered due to the cuts.

Rounding off the afternoon meeting was Independent Cross Bench Peer and disability campaigner, Baroness Campbell of Surbiton, who despite being disabled herself since a child and wheelchair-bound, has been an active and strident campaigner for improving the welfare of such a needy group of people. The Baroness remarked on how all the gains of the preceeding decades were being swept away. 

Image: Baroness Campbell of Surbiton. 

Disabled people have lost four times the amount of benefits, that able-bodied people have. Non-disabled people have seen a reduction of £300 but the disabled have seen a reduction of £1,200. A disabled adult and a disabled child have lost around £4,300 each year.

Boris Johnson has talked about 'work' being the way forward for disabled people, but when the Tory government talk about work, they mean paid work. There is a lot of work done in the economy that is unpaid, and here you will find many disabled people contributing to society. A reasonable income allows people who must climb their own personal Everest everyday to live in dignity and to contribute to society. 

The disabled are currently living in fear of being migrated onto Universal Credit, where after the transitional support runs out, they fear they will be left destitute.

Labour have pledged to do away with the dreaded face-to-face interviews and to come up with a fairer, more constructive way of evaluating claims. We have been invited to the House of Commons by Neil Coyle MP and we hope to bring you more information on the plans of all the various political party’s as we progress to what Boris Johnson is hoping will be an early general election.  

The report is having an impact already. Amber Rudd DWP minister has been quick to claim the benefit freeze is coming to an end, which it was anyway. Boris Johnson [strangely] has been pointing out Winston Churchill as an example of someone who suffered from a disability (depression) yet still managed the job of prime minister. Churchill was a high-functioning alcoholic by today’s standards and used to work in his bed till midday, something that a Jobcentre Plus Work Coach would hardly approve of!

The irony is that Churchill lost an election in (5 July 1945) that everyone expected him to win. In came Clement Attlee's, Labour government, that set up the NHS and much of the welfare state. Perhaps a better example of someone holding down a job [as a diabetic as it happens] is that of the current prime minister, Theresa May.  Either way, Churchill is a most strange example to pick for someone facing their own election D-Day.  

Prime Ministers Question Time is likely to resemble the Tom & Jerry show in the meantime. The protagonists battling towards an election, in what promises to be a showdown between those in favour of the cruel, unjust dynamism of dog-eat-dog capitalism, and those in favour of a managed economy, one that works for all, including those with a disability. There are fourteen million disabled people in the UK. Ignore their views at your peril we argue here at the ABC.     

RT TV deserves praise for giving these issues an airing. 

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PLEASE download the report: Has Welfare Become Unfair below: