The Government should support disabled people to succeed instead of setting them up to fail!

Over the weekend we have seen a lot of rhetoric about getting people into work and tackling benefit fraud.

On Sunday the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was all over the press declaring war on benefits Britain: Prime Minister vows to crack down on £137billion welfare 'blight'

In the Independent the headline was Starmer says ‘bulging benefits bill’ is ‘blighting our society’

He has declared ‘War on Disabled People’ despite the fact that the level of fraud related to disability benefits is extremely low.

Isn’t it time for the Prime Minister and his new Labour Government to turn their fire on large corporate companies and billionaires who don’t pay their fair share of tax?

Isn’t it time for him to introduce the ‘Windfall Tax’ which he promised before the General Election?

Where is the action he promised against those companies making excess profits and over inflated prices?

Let us remember that, in the words of the American Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendell Holmes jr, “Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society”

So if billionaires and big corporations want to benefit from being part of society they need to pay their fair share of taxes.

Apart from this nasty negative rhetoric from the new Labour Government, which is very similar to the nastiness of the last Government, what is Keir Starmer and his Government going to do to remove the barriers preventing disabled people getting into work?

The reality is that he and his cabinet colleagues really do not understand the challenges facing disabled people who want to work.

Earlier this week I attended a webinar organised by the Campaign for Trade Union Freedom on Labour’s Employment Rights Bill and I asked a straight forward question:

“Can you tell me whether, in your opinion, there is anything in the Employment Rights Bill, which has not been put out to consultation, for disabled workers to celebrate.”

My question was answered by the highly respected Employment Law Barrister, John Hendy KC, and he effectively told me that there is absolutely nothing in the Employment Rights Bill for disabled workers

So this new Labour Government that says that it wants to support disabled people into work offers no support but instead continues the War on Disabled People and is threatening to bully them to take unsuitable jobs.

How is the disabled person supposed to get to work when the public transport to take them to work is not fully accessible?

If the disabled worker has access to a car adapted to meet their needs, will there be a parking space close to the entrance they need to use to get into work?

Is the workplace building itself accessible or are there steps and other barriers to entering the workplace?

Once the disabled worker goes into work will they have been assessed for the reasonable adjustments that they need and will the employer be required to provide those reasonable adjustments?

(You may wish to read my post on Reasonable Adjustments over the weekend.)

The simple truth is that this new Labour Government, and indeed any previous UK Government, has no understanding or comprehension of the barriers and issues facing disabled people who want to work.

I would suggest that most MPs, regardless of party affiliation, have little if any insight into the issues disabled people face in the employment market, including the unprovable discrimination that takes place. What I mean by that, is if you declare your disability up front on your application form you may end up simply not being shortlisted.

Both employers and the Government need to work in co-production with disabled people to identify and remove these barriers. Many of us have heard of the ‘glass ceiling’ which was, and still is, the barrier to women getting promoted in their chosen careers. In that context the Government needs to remove the ‘Glass Barriers’ blocking disabled people from entering work and having productive and successful careers.

If we look behind the rhetoric of the current Government, the reality is that they are setting up disabled workers to fail.

It is time for the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer; the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Liz Kendall, and the Minister of State for Social Security and Disability, Stephen Timms, to get real. If they truly want to ‘Get Britain Working’ again then they have to include disabled people in their plan, by removing the barriers put in the way of disabled workers both by employers and society, before pressurising them into work.

We fail to understand how the new Labour Government could set up the Labour Market Advisory Board to examine “economic inactivity” without appointing a single representative of a disabled people’s organisation (DPO). The Secretary of State made it clear that the key aim of the board is tackling the “spiralling inactivity” caused by a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness.

Whilst in opposition, Labour had “repeatedly promised over the years that it would co-produce policy with disabled people and yet Liz Kendall failed to appoint any DPOs or experts with declared lived experience” to the new board.

As we have said before, Actions Speak Louder than Words.

Let us be clear, disabled people should have the same chances and opportunities to work as everyone else. However, the Government needs to put in place personalised and comprehensive employment support, for disabled people, which would include reasonable adjustments. If this was implemented, it could be transformative for so many disabled people. But the bottom line is that the government must fully fund it and ensure that they commission the right organisations to deliver it.

It is time for the new Labour Government to end the 40 Years War on Disabled People and work in partnership with them to remove the barriers they are facing. Instead of setting up disabled people to fail they need to support them to succeed.