The plans to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA) were announced in the 2023 autumn budget, and they would see more than 400,000 disabled people losing out on £416 a month by 2028-29, with many claimants facing strict new conditions and the risk of sanctions.
The new Labour government has promised to make the same overall level of savings but has yet to say how it will do this and if it will implement the WCA cuts.
The judicial review case is being taken by disabled activist and author Ellen Clifford, who is challenging the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over a “rushed and disingenuous” consultation that was held last year before the reforms were announced in the budget.
Before the two-day hearing began, disabled activists and allies from groups including Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Inclusion London, WinVisible, Black Triangle Campaign and Changing Perspectives joined representatives from unions Unite, Equity and PCS in a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.
Clifford, who is supported by solicitors from Public Law Project, said before the hearing: “More than 400,000 people will be worse off by £416 a month if the changes proposed in this consultation go ahead.
“And then there is the risk that people will lose even more money if they are sanctioned for not being able to comply with conditions they will now need to fulfil in order to receive their benefits.
“To be blunt, this would be cataclysmic for Deaf and disabled people in the UK and would push many into destitution.”
Clifford believes the true motive of the consultation was to cut spending on disability benefits, rather than trying to get more disabled people into work, while the consultation document failed to provide any “meaningful information about the likely impact of the proposals”.
She said: “I am very glad that we will finally be heard in court today.
“This is a necessary first step in Deaf and disabled people working towards a system that prioritises our lives, rather than cuts or savings.
“Going forwards, we hope there is real co-production in designing a social security system that is a benefit to society and which prevents rather than causes harm.”
John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor but currently sitting as an independent MP, who attended the vigil, said he believed the judicial review was “one of the most significant cases for disabled people that I have seen in the last couple of decades”.
He told Disability News Service (DNS): “I think if we are successful, which I think we will be, it could force a whole rethink both in terms of the cuts themselves and also future policy.”
He later told the vigil that The Department, written by DNS editor John Pring and published in August, had exposed the “brutality” of the work capability assessment and its impact on disabled people, and how it caused many deaths.
McDonnell said the last government had been aware of these fatal links and so “you would have expected them to take seriously the discussions and consultations that they had with wider society but also in particular disabled people.
“This legal action demonstrates that they had a complete disregard for consultations, discussions, engagement.
“They had a disregard for the implications of the work capability assessment.”
He said the last government had also shown “a complete disregard for the human suffering that took place and the many lives that were lost”.
Clifford’s case, he said, would “demonstrate just how callous that government measure was, but also their complete disrespect for the very people this policy hurts”.
The proposed cuts will make it more difficult for disabled people to use the protection of the WCA’s “substantial risk” safety net and will make changes to the assessment’s “getting about” and “mobilising” activities.
Source and for further information see Court hears disabled activist’s challenge to ‘cataclysmic’ cuts to out-of-work disability benefits available from disabilitynewsservice.com.
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