Violation of disabled rights in the UK with government 'reforms'

Austerity policies introduced into welfare and social care by the coalition government amount to “systematic violations” of the rights of people with disabilities, a UN inquiry has concluded.

The report says a range of measures aimed at reducing public spending since 2010, including the controversial changes such as changes to Employment and Support Allowance, the scrapping of the Independent Living Fund, cuts to the Access to Work scheme, the under-occupancy deduction from Housing Benefit or ‘bedroom tax’ and the Benefit Cap.

The highly critical report, published in Geneva on Monday 7th November, says the “rights of disabled people to live independently, to work and achieve an adequate standard of living have been negatively affected by austerity measures”.

It makes eleven recommendations, including a key statement calling on the UK government to carry out a study of the cumulative impact of all spending cuts on disabled people and to ensure the human rights of disabled people are upheld.

The UK government, however, rejected the UN report, the work and pensions secretary Damien Green saying that the report was “patronising and offensive” and presented an outdated view of disability in the UK. He said Britain was “a world leader in disability rights and equality”.

However, disability activists and charities welcomed the report, saying it accurately highlighted the real economic and social pressures faced by disabled people after years of harsh cuts to social security and social care.

The report is damning about the actions in which ministers have conducted welfare and social care reforms, arguing that parliament pushed ahead with changes with the knowledge they would have an extreme impact on disabled people.

The inquiry highlighted that the personal independence payments and the independent living fund had “hindered various aspects of [disabled people’s] right to live independently”, it says making them more reliant on family and carers and in some instances forcing them into institutional care which has also seen significant cuts.

The highly controversial bedroom tax and other housing support such as Disabled Facilities Grants (DFG) had led to debt and eviction. The bill has hit many families as tenants in social housing have their benefits reduced by 14% if they have a spare bedroom, or 25% if they two or more.

The bedroom tax hit families who needed a spare room for an overnight carer, families such as the Rutherford’s. Paul Rutherford, the grandfather of a disabled child from Pembrokeshire has been fighting a legal battle for three years with the government. Warren needs an extra bedroom for an overnight carer. The court appeal ruled that the bedroom tax was discriminatory in the cases of the Rutherfords. However, the Department for Work and Pensions appealed against the decision and the supreme court announced the case of the Rutherfords and several other bedroom tax challenges would be heard. 

Government attempts to decrease the disproportionately high levels of unemployment among disabled people have had little impact. It is highly critical of what is calls the ‘functional assessments’ of disabled people who have applied for social security benefits. The report stresses that their experience tended to be one where they were “merely processed rather than being listened to or understood”.

Alarmingly the report highlighted that disabled people had suffered from a climate in which they were portrayed as “lazy and putting a burden on taxpayers”. The blame game which politicians have relied on to win votes and the Tories election posters with slogans such as ‘Let’s cut benefits for those who refuse work’ have had an extremely negative effect. The report noted that disabled people have continued to experience “increasing hostility, aggressive behaviour and sometimes attacks to their integrity”.

The report, issued by the committee on the rights of persons with disabilities concludes: “There is reliable evidence that the threshold of grave or systematic violations of the rights of persons with disabilities has been met”.

The investigation was instigated by the charity Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) who contacted the committee in 2012 – since then other charities have also confirmed that they had contact with the UN. After two years of deliberations, the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities gave the green light to the inquiry in May 2014.

After extensive interviews and hearings from the 11-day inquiry tour of the UK undertaken by two UN envoys in October in 2015. The inquiry team met with more than 200 individuals, including officials, MPs, activists and academics.