This meeting will explore how deaf and disabled people and our allies can campaign against changes to the social security system which will punish and remove essential income from the poorest in society.
Place: Thatcher room, Portcullis House, 1 Victoria Embankment, London SW1A 2JR
British Sign Language and Palantypist provided
Co-chairs: John McDonnell MP and Martha Foulds, Disabled People Against Cuts [DPAC]
Speakers: Martin Cavanagh, DWP President, PCS union; Ellen Clifford, DPAC and author of The War on Disabled People; Meg Thomas, Disability Wales; Andy Mitchell and Brett Sparkes, Unite Community South West; Paula Peters, DPAC; La Toya Grant, DPAC Deaf Group.
This meeting will explore how Deaf and disabled people and our allies can campaign against changes to the social security system which will punish and remove essential income from the poorest in society.
We’ve seen and experienced the cruelty of welfare reform now for over a decade. Now we are facing new government plans to shake up the disability benefits system that will unquestionably lead to further harms and avoidable deaths, to deeper and more widespread poverty and to greater inequality.
In one example of this, savings included in the November budget are linked to lowering benefits for 371,000 disabled people who are already on poverty level incomes.
Plans published in Transforming Support: the health and disability white paper in March 2023 shocked and terrified Deaf and disabled benefit claimants. These were followed by a consultation launched in early September 2023 to tighten the Work Capability Assessment. Key groups of people affected by this will be those with mobility impairments and those at risk of suicide and of harming themselves or others if forced to engage in work search activity.
The plans are justified by unevidenced government claims that Deaf and disabled people can be freed from poverty through lowering benefit payments and mandatory activity supporting them to find work. The reality for many, if not most, will be greater poverty and hardship.
The plans have also been accompanied by media attacks on disability benefit claimants. Covid made it acceptable to openly treat disabled people’s lives as dispensable. Whereas media attacks during early welfare reform inflamed hostility towards claimants in the guise of condemnation of benefit fraudsters, now those attacks are directly targeted at disability benefit claimants with accusations that the system is too generous and open debate about whether those on long-term disability benefits should be supported by the social security system at all.
We know that the majority of the public are in favour of a social security system that provides a genuine social safety net and is targeted at the most disadvantaged in society. However, too many people are unaware of what is happening or unsure how to show opposition to it.
This meeting will hear from campaigners and trade unionists about what we are doing to raise awareness and to challenge the proposed changes.
It will be a chance for Deaf and disabled people and our allies to discuss what more we can do and how to build a united resistance that demands a social security system that is fit for purpose and fair for all.
Find out more about DPAC
