Anger and concern over government’s ‘hand-me-down’ employment white paper

Disabled people and their organisations have pointed to “fundamental” and “very concerning” flaws in the government’s “hand-me-down” employment support white paper.

The long-awaited Get Britain Working white paper was launched by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall on Tuesday, and includes proposals for a national jobs and careers service, plans for central government to work more closely with mayoral and local authorities, and a focus on using the NHS to tackle the rise in “economic inactivity” (see separate story).

There is also the promise of a “youth guarantee” in England, so every young person aged 18 to 21 has access to “further learning, help to get a job or an apprenticeship”.

But the white paper fails to answer key questions about how disabled people on out-of-work benefits will be treated by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), while it confirms that proposals for reforming the disability benefits system will not be published until next spring.

The attitude of disabled people and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) towards the white paper was not helped by the prime minister’s decision to write a column for the Mail on Sunday.

The article criticised the last government’s “shirkers” rhetoric but then pledged to “get to grips with the bulging benefits bill blighting our society” and to “crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system”.

This allowed the newspaper to run a front-page story that claimed “Starmer declares war on benefits Britain”.

A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People said yesterday (Wednesday): “If the government was sincere in working with disabled people to improve our lives it would first agree a co-production process with our organisations towards designing a new disability strategy.

“Instead, we are hit with these hand-me-down relics of a discredited policy approach together with toxic messaging in hostile media from the prime minister.

“It is hard to see any difference between this and the last government.”

Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts, said she was particularly concerned by the white paper’s emphasis on increasing engagement between disabled people on out-of-work benefits and employment support services, particularly those disabled claimants “who do not currently have any contact with Jobcentre Plus”.

She said: “These plans are only going to ramp up most people’s anxiety levels and probably make them even more ill.

“Any additional engagement with DWP or other services should be voluntary and initiated by disabled people who would like to work, not forced on them.”

And she highlighted the double impact of the white paper and tomorrow’s parliamentary debate and vote on Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill.

Burnip said she was concerned that this combination was “telling disabled people that if they don’t work, their lives are worthless”.

She pointed to a Labour advert that claimed the government’s “plan to get Britain working” would offer a “pathway back to work” for disabled people “who don’t want to be written off”.

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle Campaign, said it was “deeply offensive and degrading” to refer to disabled people as “‘written off’, as if our lives have no meaning or purpose and that we exist on the margins, on the scrap heap of society”.

Although the government insists it will consult disabled people on its plans, through a new panel, disabled activists pointed out that proper co-production of policy should start at the beginning of the process, and not when a white paper had already been published.

Fazilet Hadi, head of policy at Disability Rights UK (DR UK), said: “Given that disabled people are the subject of the white paper, it is disappointing that we weren’t engaged with prior to its publication.

“There is mention of setting up a disability advisory panel to assist with the changes, which is welcome, but it is likely that this will have limited influence.”

She added: “Local disabled people’s organisations should be funded to engage with local job plans.”

Inclusion London said it was concerned that promises of consultation “come against the backdrop of a pre-stated commitment to deliver Conservative cuts of £3 billion from health- and disability-related social security payments.

“It is very difficult for disabled people and our representative organisations to see this as a good faith exercise of genuine consultation, when vital parameters have already been set without our input.”

Bill Scott, an independent policy consultant and previously head of policy at Inclusion Scotland, said the new panel “gives the appearance of co-production but avoids the substance” as the white paper proposals “have been arrived at with zero to minimal input from disabled people and their representative organisations.

“Any consultation with DDPOs* now will at best result in tinkering at the edges and at worst provide legitimacy for policies which punish rather than provide genuine support to young disabled people.”

There are also concerns that the government has yet to announce how it will find the £2.8 billion in savings by 2028-29 that the last government promised to find by tightening the work capability assessment.

And there was no mention in the white paper of how the Labour government plans to reform personal independence payment (PIP), following the last government’s controversial consultation that included a proposal to replace cash payments with a voucher system.

The government’s plans in these areas will not be published until the spring, and even then only in the form of a green paper that will be put out for consultation.

Inclusion London welcomed the white paper’s proposals to move away from enforcing benefit conditionality and DWP’s “punitive approach” that has been “dangerously traumatising” for disabled people and to move instead towards “genuine support”.

Julia Modern, Inclusion London’s senior policy and campaigns manager, said: “We’re pleased, for example, to see a commitment that there will be no national or local targets for Jobcentre Plus staff to apply sanctions; however, we believe there should be no place for sanctions at all in an effective social security system and we urge the government to move away from this failed policy entirely.”

Inclusion London also noted the “difference in language” between how the white paper refers to disabled benefit claimants and employers.

Modern said: “While the former must fulfil ‘obligations’ to receive assistance, the white paper discusses only how employers should be ‘supported’.

“This is despite employers having existing legal obligations to provide reasonable adjustments, a fact that is never mentioned in the paper, which also does not name the legislation, the Equality Act 2010 (passed by a Labour government), that enshrines this duty.”

Fazilet Hadi, from DR UK, raised concerns about the further reforms to come.

She said: “Whilst it is positive that the white paper is couched in more supportive and enabling language, it is difficult to fully believe in the change of tone, when proposals on benefit cuts are round the corner.

“Combining jobcentres with the careers service, devolving job plans to local and regional government and introducing a youth guarantee, are on the face of it positive; however, there are huge societal barriers to overcome if the dial on disability employment is to shift.

“Low educational attainment, inadequate social security levels, lack of health and social care support, discriminatory attitudes, inaccessible transport, and inaccessible jobs, remain very real barriers.”

Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, said the white paper contained few details on how government reforms would affect disabled people.

She called on the government to “take a more robust approach, working in coproduction with disabled people to redesign the benefits system to one that is supportive rather than punitive as well as to creating workplaces that are inclusive not discriminatory.

“Meanwhile, ministers must take urgent action to tackle the cruelty in the way the current system operates and prevent further tragic loss of life among disabled claimants.”

Bill Scott, who is former chair of Scotland’s Poverty and Inequality Commission, said his initial impressions of the white paper were that it contains “a number of positive proposals”.

But he said he was “really concerned that the announced increased investment in employability services and mental health support is completely inadequate to address the scale of the problems faced by young disabled people.

“That may result in young disabled people, particularly those with learning difficulties or mental health issues, being blamed for their failure to take up work and subjected to even higher rates of sanctions.”

Ken Butler, DR UK’s welfare rights and policy adviser, said: “A fundamental problem with the white paper is what it doesn’t say.

“While the government says that it wants to engage with disabled people, there was no such pre-white paper engagement.

“It is also silent as to whether benefit sanctions will be scrapped, and [whether] all participation by disabled claimants with the reforms proposed will be solely voluntary.

“In addition, what it doesn’t acknowledge is that the social security system itself is an obstacle to disabled people finding employment.

“So long as benefits inadequacy exists, disabled people will continue to struggle, so impeding their ability to gain employment.”

And he said there was “genuine concern that still undisclosed work capability assessment and personal independence payment reforms will result in reduced eligibility numbers and a drop in benefit levels paid”.

John McArdle was even more critical.

He said he believed the white paper was simply “preparation for and a smokescreen for swingeing cuts that will further impoverish and immiserate disabled people and irrefutably lead to countless more benefit deaths” and which were “based in a neoliberal ideology, a clear political choice to blame and punish disabled people for economic failure”.

*Deaf and disabled people’s organisations

Picture: (From left to right) Rhian Davies, Linda Burnip and Fazilet Hadi

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