Activists ask why a Labour government is ‘gleefully’ backing Tory plans to tighten work capability assessment

Disabled activists have questioned why a Labour-run department was in the high court this week defending cuts proposed by the last government which would cause “human suffering” among hundreds of thousands of claimants of out-of-work disability benefits.

They spoke during a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday (pictured) as disabled activist Ellen Clifford and her lawyers from Public Law Project were preparing to challenge the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over a “rushed and disingenuous” consultation on plans to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA).

The plans were announced in the 2023 autumn budget, and would see more than 400,000 disabled people losing out on £416 a month by 2028-29, with many also facing strict new conditions and the risk of benefit sanctions that could see them lose even more money.

Clifford says the changes would be “cataclysmic for Deaf and disabled people in the UK and would push many into destitution”.

Labour’s work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has promised to make the savings promised by the Conservatives, who pledged to cut spending by £2.8 billion in the four years to 2028-29 by tightening the WCA.

Kendall said the government would make these savings by “bringing forward our own proposals”, but she has yet to rule out the WCA changes.

Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, told Tuesday’s vigil that it was “incomprehensible that the new Labour government is picking up these plans and seemingly running ahead with them in glee”.

She said: “We know this is slash and burn austerity. We know that a punitive welfare regime does not work.

“It does not get people back into jobs. It does the complete opposite.

“It pushes people away from work, it makes people ill, and it makes people poorer.

“We have 15 years of evidence to show that now.”

She added: “This Labour government needs to show us that they are different than the Tories.

“This Labour government needs to pause these plans and start working with us, not against us.”

Among others supporting Tuesday’s vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London were disabled activists and allies from groups including Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), WinVisible, Black Triangle Campaign and Changing Perspectives as well as representatives from the unions Unite, Equity and PCS.

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle, who had travelled from Edinburgh to attend the two-day hearing, said: “All of us have been campaigning now for 15 years against the injustice of the work capability assessment, which is nothing less in most cases than a disability denial factory with its foundations in the American insurance system.

“What we did not expect was for a new government to come in and continue with the Tories’ plans to cut an extra three billion from the support that disabled people need to live with dignity.”

Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, said: “I think Ellen’s judicial review is a point for everyone to focus on to stop the Labour agenda of continuing with the Tory cuts.

“Before they were elected we knew they were going to be tough on welfare and it’s actually worse than we expected.”

The proposed cuts will make it more difficult to use the protection of the WCA’s “substantial risk” safety net and will make changes to the assessment’s “getting about” and “mobilising” activities.

Emma Cotton, a social security adviser with Equity, said: “The government is here today to defend this, and it does so against the mounting evidence of benefit deaths, many of which can be linked to the failure to apply the substantial risk rules, the substantial risk rules that the government propose to make even tougher.”

She said the government was taking these measures even though the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities called on the last government in a report earlier this year to take “all legislative, policy and administrative measures to prevent, review and respond to occurrences of ‘unexpected deaths’ and ‘benefit deaths’”.

John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor but currently sitting as an independent MP, said he wanted to “educate this government that disabled people will not stand by and witness again the human suffering that the WCA has caused”.

Andy Mitchell, co-founder of Unite’s Cut Sanctions Not Incomes campaign, said the new government “should be looking to end rather than increase conditionality and sanctions, which are proven to move individual claimants further from employment while causing avoidable harm”.

A DWP spokesperson said: “We can’t comment on live legal proceedings.”

The department claims it has been clear that the WCA is not working, which it says is why it plans to publish a green paper in the spring on reforming the disability benefits system.

It claims that its plans to support more disabled people into work – including through its Get Britain Working white paper – will reduce benefits spending, and it claims it will work closely with disabled people and their organisations as it develops its proposals.

It also claims that the secret internal process reviews it carries out into deaths linked to its actions allow it to learn how to improve its processes, and it claims it is cooperating with the Commons work and pensions committee’s inquiry into DWP safeguarding failures, and that it is looking forward to receiving and responding to the committee’s report.

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