With an estimated one million people facing having their benefits reduced by Labour Chancellor Rachel Reeves in an announcement expected next week, our latest Andrew Fisher Interview meets disability rights campaigner Ellen Clifford to talk about what she calls ‘a life or death issue’.
Cost-cutting reforms due to be announced are set to deny payments to many people with mental health conditions and those who struggle with washing, dressing themselves and eating.
Clifford, a member of the campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts, last year won a High Court case brought against the government over a misleading public consultation, because it failed to explain that planned reforms would lead to 424,000 disabled people receiving lower benefit rates and that many would be worse off by at least £416.19 per month.
A High Court judge ruled that the Department for Work and Pensions acted unlawfully by presenting benefit assessment reforms as a way to support disabled people into work, without making clear that cost savings was a “primary rationale” for the proposals.
The consultation ran for almost eight weeks before the cost-saving changes were announced in the Chancellor’s autumn Budget – the judge said that that was also unlawfully short given the circumstances.
The DWP uses the Work Capability Assessment to evaluate whether disabled people are eligible for the health component of Universal Credit or Employment Support Allowance.
“This is a life-or-death issue,” Clifford said.
“One internal DWP estimate (which we only know about because of my legal challenge) indicates that 100,000 disabled people who are classed as highly vulnerable would be pushed into absolute poverty by 2026-2027, as a result of the types of cuts they proposed in this consultation.”
Now listen to what Ellen Clifford has to say about the latest round of cuts being proposed by the Labour Government in our exclusive Andrew Fisher Interview.
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