The right-wing Reform UK Party has published a manifesto warning of major spending cuts to welfare benefits and public services, repeatedly threatening the rights of disabled people and suggesting significant risks to protections for welfare recipients.
While the manifesto contains few detailed policies and mentions disability explicitly only twice, the 28-page document is packed with policy proposals that will unsettle many disabled people.
The document issues repeated and explicit threats of cuts to social security spending and attacks on long-established rights.
In one worrying policy for those who rely on public services that are already struggling to deliver after 15 years of austerity, the Reform Party claims it can save £50 billion a year by telling all government departments to “cut wasteful spending, reduce bureaucracy, improve efficiency and negotiate better value procurement”.
Reformers’ claims that this can be done “without impacting frontline services” and other tax and spending claims have been widely discredited.
On social care, the manifesto is again short on detail but suggests a reformist government would launch a new initiative to boost disabled people into employment, suggesting that forcing “more than one million” people back into work could save £15 billion a year.
While it does not explicitly target people with disabilities, the document states that “people who can work will be able to work”, adding that “employment is essential to improving mental health”.
There is another alarming threat for unemployment benefit recipients: the declaration states that “all job seekers and those able to work” must find work within four months or accept a job after two offers, otherwise “benefits will be terminated.”
The Declaration also suggests that all assessments for Personal Independence Payment and all assessments of capacity to work should be carried out “face-to-face” – a policy that is likely to have dangerous consequences for many disabled people who are unable to cope in such situations.
The manifesto also states that a reform government would “require independent medical assessments to prove entitlement to benefits”, but it has yet to explain how this differs from the current system of assessments, carried out on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions by private contractors such as Capita and Maximus.
In one of two mentions of disability in the manifesto, the Reform Party says that “people who are registered with a severe disability or serious long-term illness will be exempt from regular testing”, but again, no further details are given.
By 11am this morning (Thursday) the party had not explained whether disabled people currently deemed unfit to work would be forced off welfare benefits and, if so, how it would avoid a repeat of the countless tragedies associated with past welfare reforms.
It also did not clarify whether the threat of cutting benefits to those who cannot find work would also apply to recipients deemed unfit to work, or whether disabled people who are not healthy enough or in too much pain to tolerate a face-to-face assessment would be forced to attend such interviews.
When it comes to addressing the welfare crisis, reformers insist that a “national plan” is “critical,” but they don’t explain what that plan might look like.
Instead, he has suggested there should be a royal commission into the social care system, but agrees “further funding” will be needed, although he has not said how much.
It says the social care sector needs “flexibility, tax incentives, VAT reductions and less waste”, but provides no details or evidence as to why this is needed.
It also calls for social care to have “a single source of funding rather than split between the NHS and local authorities”, although details have yet to be given.
Among a series of attacks on rights – many of which will have a significant impact on disabled people – the Bill proposes to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights, amend the Human Rights Act to “give paramount importance to the rights of law-abiding people”, and create a UK Human Rights Act.
So far they have not been able to give specific examples of what rights they would like to remove from human rights law.
The bill suggests that such a bill of rights would prevent the government from ever again ordering a nationwide lockdown, an emergency measure taken during the pandemic to stop the spread of COVID-19 and protect millions of disabled people who are particularly vulnerable to severe illness if they become infected.
The UK Office for National Statistics has repeatedly found throughout the pandemic that around 60% of coronavirus-related deaths were people with a disability, and most academic studies have concluded that lockdowns have been effective in reducing the spread of the virus and the number of deaths.
Disability groups have publicly supported the lockdown, and they and others argue that it has almost certainly saved tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of lives.
The manifesto also suggests that a reformist government would replace the Equality Act (which it incorrectly calls the Equality Act), but does not explain why, other than to stress that the Act “requires discrimination in the name of ‘affirmative action'”.
It has not yet been explained which parts of the bill will be repealed.
The party also promises to repeal “diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) rules that have lowered standards and reduced economic productivity,” but has not provided details on which rules it opposes or evidence for its claims.
On criminal justice, the manifesto suggests a reform government would make it even harder for disabled people to persuade the police to investigate crimes motivated by disability-related hostility by changing the definition of hate crime to say that “British citizens must not be investigated because ‘someone’ perceives’ that a hate crime has been committed”.
The definition of disability hate crime currently used by police and the Crown Prosecution Service is any criminal offence that is “perceived by the victim or another person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice” based on a person’s “disability or perceived disability”.
It is unclear what a reform government would replace this definition with.
Another item that explicitly mentions people with disabilities is the Reform government’s policy proposal to eliminate all postal voting except for “those who are elderly, disabled, or unable to leave their homes.”
Photo: Reform UK leader Nigel Farage
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