The Government has a problem with young people

Blog
Bethany Bale, DR UK Campaigner and Young People’s Participation Manager, reflects on what the benefits cuts mean for young Disabled people.

Last year, Victoria Derbyshire asked a Conservative minister if his government had “a problem with young people”. This came following several policy decisions that would hit young people the hardest, most notably, the proposal to reintroduce national service.

However, nearly a year later, and with a new Government in place, young people are still being targeted by harmful reforms. The latest in a long list of policies that will disproportionately impact young Disabled people is the proposed bar on Universal Credit (UC). Restricting access to the limited work capability component of UC until you’re 22.

This proposal will take £45 a week from around 66,000 Disabled people under the age of 22. For those hit with the ‘double whammy’ of no longer qualifying for PIP and UC, they will lose at least £9,600 per year. As PIP serves as a passport for other benefits, such as Carer's Allowance and council tax deductions, restricting people’s access to PIP will also have a knock-on effect on people’s entitlement to other social security benefits. Carers UK highlights how losing PIP could deprive a household of £10,000 a year in Carers Allowance.

The Department for Work and Pensions is already responsible for hundreds of benefit-related deaths, and has spent years covering up the evidence, so it knows too well the devastating impact that these cuts will have.  

It's also worth noting that, pre any cuts, PIP already doesn’t cover the full additional costs that come from being Disabled, which Scope estimates to be around £12,000 a year.

These cuts unfairly target all Disabled people but will particularly impact those who currently only qualify for the ‘Daily Living’ component of PIP (and don’t qualify for the ‘Mobility’ component). This is a deliberate political choice, as highlighted by the Health Minister himself. Wes Streeting told the BBC that there was an “overdiagnosis” of mental health impairments, which wrote people off for work.

However, the reality of what Streeting is talking about is quite different. A chronically underfunded NHS has left people facing significant delays in diagnosis and support. The lack of mental health provision for young people is in crisis, which, in 2021, saw 198 15-19-year-olds take their own lives. The highest number on record in over 30 years.

The average wait for Autism and ADHD assessments in children is 88 weeks, with some waiting up to 5 years. The time it takes to be identified, receive a diagnosis, and then access the support you’re entitled to significantly impacts a young Disabled person’s education experience, putting them at a substantial disadvantage as they leave school.  Instead of enabling schools to identify children earlier, remove the barriers to diagnosis, hold education providers accountable when they unlawfully refuse support, or even challenge discriminatory employers, the Government has decided to abolish vital lifelines for young people who finish school and find themselves unable to work.

Pushing Disabled people into poverty does not help us enter employment; it deepens exclusion. These proposals won’t remove barriers to work; they will reinforce them.  When the last Government proposed changes to the Work Capability Assessment, the OBR found that the cuts would result in over 420,000 people being pushed into deeper poverty, and only 10,000 finding employment. Targeting Disabled people in these cuts demonstrates the Government’s complete lack of originality and courage to make savings elsewhere.

The system is already stacked against young Disabled people. Financial support often ends by age 20, with the termination of child benefit, child tax credit, and their UC equivalent, as well as limited funding for Further Education. While higher education offers more structured support, many Disabled students are unable to continue learning or training due to financial and accessibility barriers.  

At the same time, other forms of support also fall away. The transition from Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to PIP often means that vital financial support that’s been relied on throughout a Disabled person’s childhood gets taken away.

These changes occur alongside the shift from children to adult services in healthcare, social care, and education – all areas where young Disabled people frequently experience gaps, delays, or a total withdrawal of support. This cliff-edge of support happens just as independence is expected. For many, the result is a halt to their progress – dreams of study, training or work paused or abandoned. Without access to a safety net of social security, many young Disabled people will be forced into exploitative and inaccessible work.

For current young Disabled people, all these barriers have also been exacerbated by recent national and global crises – from COVID-19 disrupting education and delaying socialisation, to several recessions impacting our life chances when our lives have barely begun.

This Green Paper attempts to distinguish between the ‘deserving’ and the ‘undeserving’ Disabled people, and although their distinctions are false and their motivations are ableist, it’s clear that in the eyes of the Government, young Disabled people will never be ‘deserving’.  

The Government has a problem with young people, and it’s time they stop scapegoating us for their own economic and political failures. Young Disabled people deserve access to the same necessities as everyone else.

 

If you want to join us in opposing the benefits cuts, you can find out how on our Take Action page

If you need advice and support during this difficult time, you can find it at:

You can also sign up for our Future Ready Newsletter, and keep an eye on the Future Ready Hub, for all things related to Young People at DR UK.