WAKING up in a Tory-dominated Britain often makes me feel like I’m Alice in Wonderland, having fallen down a rabbit hole into Lewis Carroll’s opium-induced crazy world. Not of course that I am suggesting Tory policy is in any way influenced by excessive drug use by those who put it in place. It just sometimes feels like it may have been, as it is so nonsensical.

Disabled people are trapped between politicians who harp on incessantly about increasing our life chances and getting us into meaningful work, regardless of the barriers we face in getting and keeping employment, and yet more politicians who at the same time strip away the vital elements of support we need to be able to work. There we are, stuck in the middle of a crazy world.

For months disabled workers have faced cuts to their access to work funding, with many being left with bills for thousands of pounds that the access to work (AtW) scheme initially refused to refund to them. These people were told they were not eligible for any funding as they had not paid enough national insurance contributions. In one case a disabled person had their funding slashed to cover only 20 per cent of the total costs of additional support needed to stay in work.

New claims have taken up to eight months to process and applications have not been dealt with. The same often inappropriate information has been repeatedly requested by AtW.

Many people affected by these cuts have used the complaints procedure available to them through the parliamentary and health service ombudsman and there are numerous outstanding complaints, although in the run-up to the election most of those who had made complaints were contacted by AtW suggesting that their claims would be settled so they could withdraw their complaints. If people agree to that then of course it would stop any investigation into what has been happening with AtW funding, which we believe is the aim of the DWP.

The Tory manifesto said: “As part of our objective to achieve full employment, we will aim to halve the disability employment gap: we will transform policy, practice and public attitudes, so that hundreds of thousands more disabled people who can and want to be in work find employment.”

The reality was that within hours of winning the election by less than a quarter of the total votes cast, the Tories renewed their vicious attacks against disabled people and the DWP released an equality impact assessment to justify the further planned cuts to AtW funding.

The assessment illustrates clearly how the government plans to refuse claims from disabled people by trying to make the employer responsible for the additional costs of reasonable adjustments in the workplace, by providing support to meet the most minimum needs, and by putting in place both individual caps on funding and an overall cap for the amount of money available.

These limits of course just don’t make any sense if the manifesto pledges are anything more than hollow words, although of course the fact that they were nothing more than that will come as no surprise to most disabled people.

These cuts mean that fewer disabled people will be able to get enough funding to support them to stay in work and there will also be no extra money available for others to seek employment.

The equality impact assessment identifies two main impairment groups who will be most badly affected by the planned cuts — deaf people and those with a visual impairment who have high support needs.

A deaf spokesperson for the Stop Changes to Access to Work campaign explained the problems faced by a colleague: “[She] needs support to deal with hearing colleagues and providers on behalf of her clients. Her working week is never the same so she needs flexibility. Her AtW hours have been reduced from 30 to 14 per week. This lack of resources is causing problems with her employer as she is not able to fulfil her role as a social worker.”

As always, these cuts are justified by needing to reduce the cost of the scheme — but AtW funding makes the Treasury a return of £1.40 for every £1 spent. While I have to admit that maths was never my best subject, those figures seem to suggest that AtW funding actually makes more money for the government than it costs. Surely that’s the sort of value-for-money spending we should be seeking to expand rather than cut?

• Sign the petition to stop changes to AtW funding at you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-changes-to-access-to-work. Linda Burnip is a disabled activist with campaigning group Disabled People Against Cuts.