Whatever ministers think, disability doesn't begin and end with a wheelchair. Restricting mobility payments to those who can walk less than 20 metres will have a devastating impact
Disabled people protests against cuts
outside the Department for Work and Pensions. Photograph: Graham Turner for the
Guardian
The government's decision this week to severely curtail access to mobility
payments condemns people with serious disabilities to a lifetime of dependence,
social isolation, and unemployment.
This fiasco over PIP eligibility ultimately reveals the sophistry behind the
government's disability agenda. As PIP can be claimed by those both out of work
as well as those in work, its rationing will make it harder for those with
serious disabilities to find employment, undermining the government's
oft-repeated policy that disabled people shouldn't be allowed to languish on
benefits. It raises questions over whether the government truly understands that
the permanent use of a wheelchair is not the only definition of disability. And
it confirms that the government refuses to listen to the very people it
professes to help.
Following a second
consultation with the disabled community on personal independence payments
(PIP), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has decided to uphold
its decision to award the higher rate mobility element only to those people
who cannot walk more than 20 metres. This will replace the long-held qualifying
criteria for receiving the equivalent disability living allowance – being unable
to walk a distance of more than 50m – which is being phased out in favour of the
new PIP.
This change has nothing to
do with rooting out people who are allegedly cheating the system, but is solely
about the government cutting its disability benefit bill, regardless of the
consequences. In the consultation
document the government openly admits it is rationing help, as it argues
that priority must be given to those with the "greatest barriers to mobility".
Yet this insistence that the change will target funds to those most in need
displays a disastrous lack of understanding of modern-day disability. A severe
disability is not just one that confines someone to a wheelchair for life.
People suffering from progressive, life-limiting conditions such as multiple
sclerosis, Parkinson's and cystic fibrosis all have illnesses that over time
take away their ability to walk, yet they will now be ineligible for meaningful
support until their condition has deteriorated to the stage at which it is
almost life-threatening.
A 20-metre qualifying
threshold means that the government absurdly believes that disabled people who
can get around inside their homes, but not for any significant distance outside
it, are no longer eligible for higher rate mobility payments, and therefore
access to a car through the motability scheme – the very scheme
designed to stop people being isolated in their own homes. The government argues
that people who can walk less than 50 metres but more than 20 metres, will still
be eligible for standard rate mobility, but at £21 per week this will pay for
little more than a return journey by taxi. Imagine if you had to choose the one
occasion each week you could go out? The DWP's
own figures suggest 428,000 people could be forced to make this choice under
the new rules. The CF Trust, which represents people with cystic fibrosis in the
UK, has found that of the 70% of people with CF who are in employment or
training, one-third believe they would no longer be able to get to their
workplace if they were deemed ineligible for PIP higher rate mobility. 90% of
people with CF said they would struggle to access basic hospital
appointments.
This second consultation
on PIP was only undertaken to head
off a judicial review as the DWP's first consultation had failed to mention
its intention to change the qualifying criteria for higher rate mobility
payments. The government has yet to publish the responses to yesterday's
consultation, but it's clear the it has little intention of overturning a
decision it had already made without asking disabled people about its
devastating impact. For all its talk of empowering the
disabled community, this government has chosen short-term financial savings over
the independence of disabled people.
