David Maples, Brighton Socialist Party
The Tory government’s Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has launched a ‘consultation’ on work capability assessment (WCA) reform so that disabled people assessed as having a limited capability for work related activity (LCWRA) are not “held back” from the “opportunity” to work.
The WCA is used in Universal Credit (UC) and Employment Support Allowance (ESA) to determine what ‘work-related conditions’ a disabled person must meet to keep getting their benefits.
As Disabilty Rights UK’s Ken Butler said: “In March 2023 there were 1,676,770 people claiming UC on health grounds. This caseload is dominated by the LCWRA group made up of 1.12 million. Just under two-thirds of WCAs result in a LCWRA classification.
“The government’s proposed changes to the WCA are a cynical attempt to impose conditionality and to reduce benefit expenditure.
“The consultation proposals include excluding consideration of someone’s mobility problems altogether, and removing the assessment category of work having a substantial risk to health.
“This means that disabled people may be forced to look for or obtain work beyond their capabilities.”
DWP decisions can be fatal for disabled claimants.
Its own figures show that over 2,300 former claimants of sickness-related benefits died within six weeks of losing their claim for ESA and being declared ‘fit for work’ between December 2011 and February 2014.
In 2017 the DWP was forced, under a Freedom of Information request, to release data showing that 10,950 claimants died whilst in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) of ESA, between 2014 and 2017. Claimants placed in the WRAG group are people aged 16-64 who the DWP deems can start moving towards work. The DWP data showed that 10 of these people died every day between 2014 and 2017.
Disabled people can’t look to Labour for support. In 2015, Liz Kendall, the newly appointed shadow secretary of state for Work and Pensions, supported the introduction of the benefit cap. And the party has recently scrapped its plans to remove the punitive two-child benefit.
We need to replace the punitive benefits system with real living benefits that rise with the cost of living, and a party that will fight for it too.
