The Tories are callously redefining what it means to be sick or disabled

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jul/21/conservatives-redefining-sick-disabled-welfare-bill

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Two moments over the past fortnight provide an insight into what this government thinks it means to be sick, or a disabled or unemployed person.

One of those is the Conservatives’ welfare bill. Under the proposed legislation, future disabled and chronically ill claimants in the employment and support allowance’s (ESA) work-related activity group will see their benefit cut to the rate of jobseeker’s allowance (JSA). That means people with Parkinson’s or multiple sclerosis losing £30 a week.

The other moment came via David Cameron’s official spokeswoman when she confirmed that the prime minister was looking at the idea of making workers pay into flexible saving accounts to fund their own sick pay (as well as unemployment benefit). Iain Duncan Smith is said to be “very keen” to debate this. “The PM shares the work and pensions secretary’s view that we should be doing more to encourage people to take personal responsibility,” the spokeswoman added.

Related: George Osborne’s assault on welfare must not go unchallenged | Polly Toynbee

We can’t accuse the Conservatives of being secretive about their plans for the welfare state, or their feelings about the people who rely on it. Being disabled or chronically ill while not being rich enough to survive without government help has now been redefined as a personal failing.

The ideology exhibited here has such faith in individualism and such contempt for the social safety net that it appears to want to redefine disability and illness itself. Talk to campaigners or those being put through the current “fit for work” assessment system, and the feeling is that the Conservatives do not see disabled or chronically ill people put in the work-related category of ESA as being “really disabled”. This has been politically expedient, allowing the Conservatives during the coalition government to time-limit, condition and sanction a key benefit – and now cut it – while claiming the “vulnerable disabled” are being protected.

Being placed in the work-related category means a person has been assessed as being medically incapable of work but able to do “work-related activity” such as preparing a CV. If these people were able to take a job and get off benefits, just as “fit for work” claimants are – by the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) own definition – they would have been put on JSA in the first place.

It may suit the current agenda to pretend that debilitating illness can be cured through making an effort or that employers are lining up to hire people whose chronic fatigue means they can’t get to the office before mid-morning, but the benefit system has good reason not to treat disabled people in the work-related group as typical jobseekers. Some 60% of those on JSA move off the benefit within six months, yet almost 60% of people in this category are stuck there for at least two years. Freedom of information requests show there are almost 5,000 people in this category who have been classified as being “unable to work in the longer term” – essentially living indefinitely on whatever the government will give them.

I was told this month of one man with a neurogenetic sleep disorder who the DWP is putting through his eighth fitness-to-work test. He’s been stuck in the work-related group for the past five years.

Creating policies that cut these sort of welfare benefits is simply worsening the lives of people who – the government is fully aware – have little or no chance of finding another source of income. That the Conservatives have reached this point reflects the depth of their disdain for the social security system.

It is a warning to those who could become chronically ill or disabled. Under this government, even needing sick pay is seen as a sign of “welfare dependency”.