Scope: 'Last chance' for Chancellor to drop proposed disability benefit cuts
Cutting disability benefits will do nothing to halve the disability employment gap, it will just make life harder for disabled people, says Scope.
Next week Chancellor Philip Hammond will deliver his first Budget. It comes just weeks before the financial reduction comes into force for disabled people receiving out of work benefits (specifically those in the Employment Support Allowance Work Related Activity Group (ESA WRAG), a cut of around £30 per week for all new claimants.
Social care and Personal Independence Payments (PIP) have also both featured heavily in the media in recent weeks and we hope to see them included in the Chancellor’s plans. Prime Minister Theresa May has indicated a desire to help ordinary working families and support everyone to go as far as their talents and hard work take them, and this Budget provides an important opportunity to do this.
Extra Costs and PIP
Life costs more if you’re disabled: monthly costs of, on average, £550 on additional energy, equipment, travel costs and many more every day items incurred because of their disability. PIP plays an important role in helping disabled people cover some of those costs. Scope wants to see those payments protected and a cross-departmental strategy introduced to drive down extra costs at source.
In the context of the extra costs disabled people face, we are very concerned that the Government has recently announced its intention to restrict access to PIP. This could lead to disabled people facing a reduction in the vital financial support they rely on to live independently.
The Chancellor must offer clarity and reassurance that these new measures will not negatively affect the financial support disabled people receive now or in the future, and stand by their commitment to making no further changes to disability benefits in this Parliament.
Social Care
Social care is high on the political agenda at the moment and it is likely the Chancellor will include an announcement on funding for social care in his red box.
400,000 disabled people rely on social care to get up and get dressed and good social care can support disabled people to work and participate in their communities. However reductions in funding mean fewer disabled people are receiving adequate care.
Working age disabled adults make up a third of all social care users. Yet Scope’s research found that 55 per cent of disabled people think social care never supports their independence. Government needs to ensure the Budget is used to support disabled care users to have control over their care and live independently.
The Association of Directors of Adult Social Care found that £4.6bn was taken out of the social care budget between 2010 and 2015 and their research highlights that social care needs at least £1bn extra investment each year in order to ‘stand still’. It is vital the Government provides adequate funding in the short and longer term so all social care users can get the support they need.
Employment
Scope is calling for the Chancellor to be bold and signal a new direction in Treasury policy, by halting the planned reduction of £30 a week for new ESA WRAG claimants, which could affect 500,000 disabled people. This is the last chance for the Government to cancel the change.
We know reducing disabled people’s incomes will not incentivise them to find a job and it won't help the Government meet their commitment to halve the disability employment gap. Disabled people tell us it will just make life harder.
These bold moves by the Chancellor – to invest in social care, halt damaging cuts to out of work benefits for disabled people and ensure all disabled people who face extra costs get PIP – should be the first moves in a cross-government strategy on disability, led by the Prime Minister. If Theresa May and her team are serious that disabled people face injustice and they are committed to creating a society that works for the many, not the few, there is much work to do.
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