Whatever ministers think, disability doesn't begin and end with a wheelchair. Restricting mobility payments to those who can walk less than 20 metres will have a devastating impact.
by Sharon Brennan; the Guardian UK - Oct 22, 2013
Disabled people protests against cuts outside the Department for Work and Pensions. Photograph: Graham Turner for the Guardian
The government's decision this week to severely curtail access to mobility payments condemns people with serious disabilities to a lifetime of dependence, social isolation, and unemployment.
Following a second consultation with the disabled community on personal independence payments (PIP), the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has decided to uphold its decision to award the higher rate mobility element only to those people who cannot walk more than 20 metres. This will replace the long-held qualifying criteria for receiving the equivalent disability living allowance – being unable to walk a distance of more than 50m – which is being phased out in favour of the new PIP.
This change has nothing to do with rooting out people who are allegedly cheating the system, but is solely about the government cutting its disability benefit bill, regardless of the consequences. In the consultation document the government openly admits it is rationing help, as it argues that priority must be given to those with the "greatest barriers to mobility". Yet this insistence that the change will target funds to those most in need displays a disastrous lack of understanding of modern-day disability. A severe disability is not just one that confines someone to a wheelchair for life. People suffering from progressive, life-limiting conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's and cystic fibrosis all have illnesses that over time take away their ability to walk, yet they will now be ineligible for meaningful support until their condition has deteriorated to the stage at which it is almost life-threatening.
A 20-metre qualifying threshold means that the government absurdly believes that disabled people who can get around inside their homes, but not for any significant distance outside it, are no longer eligible for higher rate mobility payments, and therefore access to a car through themotability scheme – the very scheme designed to stop people being isolated in their own homes. The government argues that people who can walk less than 50 metres but more than 20 metres, will still be eligible for standard rate mobility, but at £21 per week this will pay for little more than a return journey by taxi. Imagine if you had to choose the one occasion each week you could go out? The DWP's own figures suggest 428,000 people could be forced to make this choice under the new rules. The CF Trust, which represents people with cystic fibrosis in the UK, has found that of the 70% of people with CF who are in employment or training, one-third believe they would no longer be able to get to their workplace if they were deemed ineligible for PIP higher rate mobility. 90% of people with CF said they would struggle to access basic hospital appointments.
This fiasco over PIP eligibility ultimately reveals the sophistry behind the government's disability agenda. As PIP can be claimed by those both out of work as well as those in work, its rationing will make it harder for those with serious disabilities to find employment, undermining the government's oft-repeated policy that disabled people shouldn't be allowed to languish on benefits. It raises questions over whether the government truly understands that the permanent use of a wheelchair is not the only definition of disability. And it confirms that the government refuses to listen to the very people it professes to help.
This second consultation on PIP was only undertaken to head off a judicial review as the DWP's first consultation had failed to mention its intention to change the qualifying criteria for higher rate mobility payments. The government has yet to publish the responses to yesterday's consultation, but it's clear the it has little intention of overturning a decision it had already made without asking disabled people about its devastating impact. For all its talk of empowering the disabled community, this government has chosen short-term financial savings over the independence of disabled people.
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