• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / News Archive / Liberal Democrat conference: Disabled members help overturn welfare policy

Liberal Democrat conference: Disabled members help overturn welfare policy

By guest on 2nd September 2011 Category: News Archive

Listen

Disabled Liberal Democrats have helped force a major change to their party’s policies on welfare reform, and the use of “fitness for work” tests to determine eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits.

The party voted this week for urgent improvements to the government’s much-criticised work capability assessment (WCA) – which helps decide eligibility for employment and support allowance (ESA) – after disabled members took to the stage to explain the disturbing impact of the tests.

Among changes approved by members was a call for Atos Healthcare – the company which carries out the WCAs for the government – to be replaced by a charity or public sector organisation when its contract expires, and for its performance to be reviewed.

They also called on Liberal Democrat ministers to oppose any “arbitrary” time limit on claiming ESA. The government’s welfare reform bill proposes a one-year limit on claiming the contributory form of ESA for those disabled people found able to return to work in the future.

The Department for Work and Pensions began sending letters out this week, which will warn all such claimants that they could lose the benefit from next April if they have been receiving it for more than 12 months, even though the measure is still being debated in parliament.

Liberal Democrat party members also voted for less stressful WCAs, and clearer criteria and more accurate tests, particularly for those with fluctuating conditions.

They also want all claimants appealing against the result of their ESA application to have access to legal aid and expert advice.

Disabled Liberal Democrat Shana Pezaro told the conference debate the WCA was “utterly failing” the many disabled people who were “genuinely not able to work”.

Pezaro, who has multiple sclerosis (ms), said: “It is impossible to give a standard answer to a benefits assessor about how ms affects me on a typical day.”

She welcomed the coalition’s efforts to improve the WCA, but she added: “We still need to send a bold and clear message that much more needs to be done.”

She said the stress of the test was “making ill people suffer still further”.

George Potter, the young Liberal Democrat activist who first proposed the WCA motion, said plans to impose the one-year time-limit on ESA were “potentially dangerous and devastating” to hundreds of thousands of disabled people.

After the debate, Greg Judge, an executive member of the Liberal Democrat Disability Association, who supported the motion, said he believed Liberal Democrat peers would now submit amendments that were similar to parts of the motion to the welfare reform bill as it passed through the Lords.

Although the motion is now party policy, Liberal Democrat ministers, other MPs, and peers are not bound by the vote, although they are certain to take note of the party’s decision.

The disabled Liberal Democrat peer Baroness [Celia] Thomas told Disability News Service that she hoped there would be some “compromise” from the government as the bill passed through the Lords.

She said: “I hate the policy of time-limited ESA. What we desperately hope is that we can get some compromise.”

But she said there were many aspects of the bill that she wanted to challenge in the Lords, including proposals to increase the qualifying period for the replacement for disability living allowance (DLA) from three months (as it is with DLA) to six months, and the government’s proposed benefits cap.

She said: “What do you do when there are so many things to fight for? We will do our best, but we have got to pick our fights.”

21 September 2011

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on RedditShare on LinkedIn
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Related

‘Muddled’ blue badge reforms ‘are to blame for renewal delays’
6th February 2015
UN debate will be reminder of true inclusive education
6th February 2015
IDS breaks pledge on PIP waiting-times, as tens of thousands still queue for months
30th January 2015

Primary Sidebar

On the left of the image are multiple heads of different colours - white, aqua, red, light brown, and dark green - all grouped together, then the words ‘Campaign for Disability Justice. Sign up to support. #OpportunitySecurityRespect’
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Access

Latest Stories

Disabled MP who quit government over benefit cuts tells DNS: ‘The consequences will be devastating’

Disabled peers plan to ‘amend, amend, amend, amend, amend’ after assisted dying bill reaches Lords

Minister finally admits that working-age benefits spending is stable, despite months of ‘spiralling’ claims

This bill opens the door to scandal, abuse and injustice, disabled activists say after assisted dying bill vote

Timms says cuts must go ahead, despite being reminded of risk that disabled claimants could die

Absence of disabled people’s voices from assisted dying bill has been ‘astonishing’, says disabled MP

Timms misleads MPs on DWP transparency and cover-ups, as he gives evidence on PIP review

Ministers are considering further extension to disability hate crime laws, after pledge on ‘aggravated’ offences

Making all self-driving pilot schemes accessible would be ‘counter-productive’ and slow us down, says minister

Involve disabled people ‘meaningfully’ from the start when developing digital assistive tech, says report

Advice and Information

Readspeaker
A photograph shows an audience raising their hands in a BSL sign. The words say: 'BSL Conference 2025. The future starts with us. Leeds 17-18 July. Be part of shaping the future of Deaf cultures and identities. Get 10% off with BDA10'

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Bluesky
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Threads
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2025 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web