‘DISABLED people are getting into debt to pay for essentials. What’s the government’s response? It is cutting the very financial lifeline designed to help them meet the extra costs they face.’
Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, was speaking out against yesterday’s abolition of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA).
Personal Independence Payment (PIP) has now replaced DLA for new claimants and by 2015 it will have been rolled out for all claimants.
Through this the government is aiming for a 20% cut in payments to the disabled.
Scope is warning that almost a fifth of claimants – 600,000 vulnerable, disabled people – face losing their benefits.
By the end of 2015 all disabled people receiving DLA will have been ‘re-assessed’ and if they still qualify for support it will come in the form of a PIP.
Thereby, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) aims to throw at least 450,000 disabled people off benefits by 2018.
But Scope says that by that date it estimates that 607,000 disabled people will be denied the necessary support.
‘Disabled people believe this reform is an excuse to save money,’ said Hawkes.
Robbie Spence, Advisor Disability Rights UK, told News Line: ‘We are very worried about the new system because the government has set the target for reducing expenditure on DLA by 20% and this translates into 600,000 fewer people.
‘They are making it harder by getting rid of the low-rate care component which applies to help with getting up, getting washed, getting dressed and so on, looking after yourself.
‘Under DLA the care component has a low rate, a middle rate and a high rate, but the PIP will just have the equivalent of the middle and the high rate, thereby excluding a large number of people on the basis that they don’t need that much care.
‘We also deplore the lowering of the threshold of the distance which you can’t walk – from 50 metres to 20 metres – to get the mobility component, which means that many people will lose their adapted car.
‘This will mean that people who are currently able to get out a bit will be trapped inside their homes.
‘We have been getting desperate emails from desperate disabled people, wondering how they will possibly manage without their disability benefits.
‘We profoundly disagree with the government’s new PIP system and we deplore the reduction of mobility threshold.’
Sue Bott, Director of Policy and Development at Disability Rights UK, said: ‘We’re concerned about the number of disabled people who will be affected.
‘By the government’s own figures there are one million disabled people who will either get a reduced benefit or will no longer receive any benefits.
‘The benefit is designed to cope with the additional costs of disability and if you don’t get it disabled people are likely to find themselves institutionalised in their own homes, unable to get out, meet friends, go shopping, having a job indeed.
‘What we also need to consider is the cumulative effects of cuts to disabled people, this is not the only one, things like the bedroom tax for example, these together, we think, will mean that disabled people will have less opportunity to lead their lives in the way that everybody else takes for granted.
‘However the government dresses it up, this is a cut to disabled people and a threat to our way of life.’
