IN 2016 the UN Committee for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities conducted an investigation into the treatment of disabled people in Britain.

It produced a damning report, which concluded that disabled people in this country faced systematic discrimination on multiple levels.

In 2024, following the submission of evidence by Disabled People Against Cuts and other disability rights groups, the UN investigated Britain for a second time.

In late April the UN committee for disabled people issued a 14-page report which concluded that Britain “has failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights of persons with disabilities and has failed to eliminate the root causes of inequality and discrimination.”

It also called on Britain to take measures to prevent disabled people on benefits from killing themselves. At the UN committee hearing in March 2024 it noted how hundreds of disabled people had killed themselves due to sanctions and other repressive measures of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), which really should be called the Department for War on the Poor.

Since this UN report Labour has been elected with a landslide majority. Yet in the many Bills announced for the new parliament not one addresses the serious issues raised by the United Nations.

Sadly, both Liz Kendall, new boss of the DWP, and Rachel Reeves the Chancellor, between them have made it clear that people on sickness benefits are a burden on our society and that the money spent on sick people claiming universal credit, employment support allowance (ESA) and personal independence payments (PIP) could be better spent on more “important things” in our society. They have repeated reactionary Tory propaganda which the UN cites as a reason for a spike in disability hate crime which is massively under reported and rarely investigated by the police.

Reeves has gone further in one of her statements regarding the autumn Budget warning that she would “look closely at our welfare system, because if someone can work, they should work.” The insinuation being disabled people claiming benefits are a bunch of skivers who choose not to work as a lifestyle choice.

Reeves further added that “welfare spending ballooned” under the last government, while “inactivity has risen sharply in recent years.”

Keir Starmer has made it clear that his priority is helping “working people,” omitting to say that hundreds of thousands of workers are in receipt of benefits due to their low wages. Starmer has repeated vicious Tory propaganda, saying that he will take tough action against rampant benefit fraud. 

This is a blatant misrepresentation of the facts as fraud within the benefits system is tiny compared to the tax avoidance and tax evasion of big business. Starmer also wants to proceed with spying on the bank accounts of people on benefits.

Head of policy at Disability Rights UK Fazilet Hadi said the comments of Starmer, Kendall and Reeves on economic inactivity “were interchangeable with those of the previous [Tory] government.”

She said: “The reasons for many people being unable to work due to disability and ill health isn’t down to a poor work ethic, it’s because of an ageing workforce, high levels of mental distress, lack of NHS treatments, a failing social care system and negative employer attitudes and behaviours.

“We heard nothing about tackling these underlying drivers of ill-health and disability.”

She said: “This was a truly shocking move from a new UK government, which purports to be on the side of the most disadvantaged people.”

In November 2024 Labour unveiled its white paper for getting disabled people back into the workforce. It places heavy emphasis on talking therapies like cognitive behavioural therapy to get disabled people into work, yet recent figures from the Office for National Statistics reveal that “After three years, there was an increase of just 1.4 percentage points in the probability of someone being a paid employee.”

Amy Wells, senior communications and membership manager for National Survivor User Network, said: “It becomes ever more transparent and worrying that our government is intent on pushing disabled people — and those living with mental ill-health — back into work, in place of genuine, comprehensive support.

“Little regard is being paid to whether it is possible or beneficial for disabled people to get ‘back into work,’ furthering the rhetoric that people are not valuable beyond their contributions to the economy.

“The majority of investment for these plans is being funnelled into talking therapies, with the expectation of its ability to ‘support’ people back to work, which has now been shown to have a very insignificant impact on individual employment status.

“What this new data shows is that the government’s plans are not only harmful, but that they also will not work.

“We find these developments incredibly disappointing and call for a rethink of the government’s strategy around disability employment.”

Labour is consulting over changes to the work capability assessment (WCA) which is linked to the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of disabled people from 2010 to 2024. In the spring it will issue a green paper claiming it will consult with disabled people and the public over whether or not to abolish the WCA. 

Yet Labour has promised to deliver £3 billion worth of cuts to disability benefits so we cannot be optimistic that it will do anything to stop the cycle of deaths linked to the repressive measures of the DWP. 

In fact Reeves is hinting that due to the rising costs of government debt that even deeper public spending cuts will need to be made. Cutting benefits has always been seen as the easy option by both Tory and Labour governments.

Labour is also committed to keep benefit sanctions which are directly related to the deaths of hundreds of disabled people.

As if this isn’t bad enough, Minister for Disabilities Stephen Timms is supporting the DWP in its legal action to prevent the release of internal DWP documents related to the deaths of vulnerable claimants due to benefit sanctions.

Another area where Labour has yet to reveal its plans are for the reform of PIP. The last Tory government wanted to replace monthly cash payments with vouchers. We need to keep up pressure on Labour to keep PIP in its current form where disabled people receive monthly cash payments.

This year Labour is going to force nearly one million people on income-based ESA to migrate to universal credit. Once they start a new claim for UC their benefits will be stopped. People will have to wait a minimum of five weeks without any money. In most cases due to the lack of DWP staff most people will have to wait much longer before they receive any money. Besides this, new research from Inclusion Scotland reveals rampant levels of bullying by the DWP towards people on UC which was directly linked to the suicides of at least three people last year.

Dr Rianna Price of Inclusion Scotland told Disability News Service (DNS): “The issues that people spoke about were in some cases very shocking and eye-opening to the levels of systematic error and bullying that are apparent in the Department for Work and Pensions.”

It is clear already that the Starmer brand of Red Toryism will take no action to address the systematic violations of disabled people’s human rights. In fact quite the opposite. Resorting to austerity will merely continue the attacks on disabled people’s living standards and human rights and lead to more unnecessary deaths.

Already Labour has refused to lift the two-child cap on parents claiming universal credit, condemning hundreds of thousands of children to poverty, and cutting the winter fuel allowance for millions of pensioners. This determination of Labour to implement yet more austerity, after the damage and suffering caused by 14 years of Tory austerity, will help tip our fragile economy back into recession and cause many more unnecessary deaths and suffering. Of course, it doesn’t have to be this way.

There are numerous measures which Labour could take to not only avoid austerity measures but to actually start repairing and rebuilding our damaged economy and public services.

Disabled People Against Cuts and other disability groups are already calling for a united front including the unions and all those affected by Labour’s spending cuts to fight back against this self destructive and totally unnecessary austerity.

Huddersfield Unite community and a member of Disabled People Against Cuts.