Disabled people’s organisations consider halting engagement with disability minister over ‘brutal cuts’

Some of England’s leading disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) are considering halting all engagement with the minister for disabled people over the government’s “brutal cuts” to disability benefits.

Disability News Service (DNS) has been told that members of the DPO Forum England are considering whether to stop their regular meetings with Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability.

Inclusion London said it was now “carefully assessing the situation as to whether to continue, pause or stop engagement” with Sir Stephen and the wider government in the light of the “devastating cuts”.

Inclusion London’s chief executive, Tracey Lazard, said it would also be doing this “collectively” with other members of the forum and “as a wider sector and movement”.

She said: “Inclusion London is very clear that Labour’s disability benefit cuts are morally indefensible from every angle and have very little to do with getting disabled people into work and everything to do with choosing to balance the books on the backs of our community rather than, for example, a wealth tax that would affect just 0.4 per cent of the population.

“It’s also clear that, despite reassurances from Timms, the green paper consultation and related impact assessment information is woefully inadequate.”

She said Inclusion London would not take any decision on engagement lightly “as there is always the real danger that if we do choose to pause/stop engagement the government will simply consult with organisations not representative of our community and pretend it’s business as usual.

“Above all else, we will be using the next few weeks to campaign as effectively as we can to make sure MPs and the public understand the huge levels of anger, distress and damage these cuts will bring and that there are other political choices that can and must be made.”

The Alliance for Inclusive Education said it would support any decision taken collectively by other DPOs on whether to “disengage with Stephen Timms”, which would be a “powerful message and a necessary act of resistance”.

ALLFIE said there had been a long history of “tick box” engagement with DPOs by ministers for disabled people, who had “rarely if ever demonstrated real commitment to the progressive realisation of justice for disabled people in the UK”.

And it said this had merely been an “attempt to appear inclusive while forcing through brutal cuts that directly and disproportionately target disabled people and strip away our entitlement to inclusive education in mainstream settings”.

Navin Kikabhai, ALLFIE’s chair, said: “There is a long, shameful history of governments, both past and present, treating disabled people’s lives as disposable.

“The cuts we face are not isolated, they are part of a deliberate system of oppression that devalues disabled people’s lives.”

He added: “At ALLFIE, we are deeply concerned that no education ministers have agreed to meet with us, nor has Stephen Timms accepted our invitation. Their actions speak volumes.

“It confirms what we already know: that they have no interest in addressing the structural and systemic discrimination and injustice experienced by disabled people in the education system.

“Meanwhile, local authorities are being pressured to reduce spending, and in reality, this has resulted in disabled children and young people being disproportionately targeted.

“More and more segregated units are being built within mainstream schools, segregating disabled children and young people from their non-disabled peers, stripping away their right to an ordinary school experience and rolling back on hard won progress.”

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is also believed to be considering whether to stop engaging with Sir Stephen.

Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, told DNS: “Stephen Timms had said previously that he wanted to engage with disabled people and co-produce policy, but it’s just empty words.

“The Labour government have no interest in listening to disabled people’s serious worries over disability benefit cuts or concerns about social care.

“The government’s agenda is cutting support, discriminating against us and making our lives even harder.

“They are not interested in talking to us or listening to us.

“We cannot work with a government whose only interest is causing further distress and harm to disabled people.

“We will take the fight to them and hold them to account.”

Among disabled people who have already taken the step to stop working with the government is veteran activist Robert Punton, who last week resigned as a member of its West Midlands Regional Stakeholder Network.

It is one of nine networks across the country that were set up by the Conservative government’s Disability Unit in 2019 to “make sure the voices and views of disabled people across England are at the heart of the work of the UK government”.

Punton has been involved in the disabled people’s movement for nearly 40 years, including through the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN), DPAC, Not Dead Yet UK and Act 4 Inclusion.

In an open letter, he said he had “never known any government with such little regard and respect for the rights and welfare of the disabled community of this country”, and he described it as “callous and uncaring”.

He said: “I have advised Conservative governments with more empathy than this government.

“Whilst I would never vote for nor want a Conservative government, I am extremely scared for the safety of disabled people under a Starmer-led government.”

He said he had decided he could “no longer work with or be associated with a government who treat my brothers and sisters so appallingly”, and he called on other members of the Regional Stakeholder Network to consider their own positions.

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