by consensus of the Disability Activism Society

In our last statement on this issue we called these cuts violent. Today we say we were right to.

The decisions undertaken by Labour are not undertaken under a moral imperative that anyone moral could support. These cuts will disproportionately impact those with learning disabilities. Those with mental health conditions. The young, and the elderly. And, of course, those with the kinds of visible physical disabilities the public tends to imagine when they hear the word “disability”.

Being disabled - any kind - costs more. 

According to disability charity Scope, people living with a disability face extra costs that average £570 a month. All of the months. 

That adds up to a “disability tax” of about £6,840 a year. But one in four disabled people are paying more than £12,000 a year as a direct result of their impairment(s).

Imagine if you started adult life, at 18, and you were already £12,000 a year behind your peers no matter what. And on top of that, you face barriers to work that your peers also don’t. And which in some cases your peers contribute to!

Disabled people don’t have to imagine this. It is already our reality.

Even with DLA being extended to 18 for young people and children, there will be a gap from 18 to 22 where young disabled people will receive no extra funding whatsoever. How will they survive those years? How will they manage to navigate further education? Will they be able to at all? If we are to be excluded from education as a class from entry to adulthood - then how can we be expected to find work?

But there are structural concerns too. Councils use PIP awards to pay for care services, and under the new scheme people can lose their PIP award because their “points” are distributed across a number of areas instead of focused in one. This is a problem because then councils will either have to find extra funding from somewhere (requiring council tax rises) or services will be cut.

And carers will be hard hit by this too. 

Often, carers are unpaid family members, and the care they provide is essentially a labour of love. Not all carers are even adults: there are around 120,000 young carers in the UK. Most take care of a family member, often to the detriment of schooling and later career opportunities. This labour can be as much as tens of hours a week.

The number of young carers will almost certainly be pushed upwards by these cuts. It will increase against a troubling backdrop of families already struggling to find enough money to heat and eat. This is all on top of the cost of living crisis that already prevails.

The Government’s green paper claims that people on benefits are afraid of seeking work, but it ignores the root cause of that fear: people live on benefits are living in enforced deprivation - enforced deprivation which is meant to make suffering out of work so much worse than suffering in work that people do not complain so much as their working rights are eroded.

And often, that deprivation we speak of has been multigenerational. The heating and eating question is not new. Huddling up in blankets to avoid turning the heating on isn’t new. Trying to send the kids round to their mates’ houses for a sneaky free dinner isn’t new.

No real solutions have been offered for decades. Only castigation, crackdowns, and cuts.

As others have noted it is damning that there is always money for war, but not always money for welfare. 

We say opposing these cuts is a moral imperative and we call on you to stand with disabled people: DPAC (Disabled People Against Cuts) are organising a protest in London on the 26th, and online participation will be possible too through the hashtag #WelfareNotWarfare. Get involved!

And expect us!