The UK’s War Against Disabled People Part 2: ‘Workfare’ to Austerity
How the Tories and New Labour turned the welfare state against society’s most vulnerable
Read Part 1: ‘Scroungers’ here
It’s easy to think of the previous New Labour government as being more socially and economically left-wing or progressive than the Conservative governments that came before (or after) them.
However, New Labour were a far cry from their socialist-minded ‘old Labour’ predecessors. The language of progress and compassion employed by New Labour concealed a very similar ideological approach to the welfare state as that of the Conservatives.
The ‘Third Way’
Tony Blair’s Labour party pursued what was outlined by Sociologist and later adviser to the Blair government, Anthony Giddens, as the ‘Third Way’; a policy approach characterised as avoiding both the traditional neoliberalism of right-wing politics and social democratic politics of the left.
In practice though, New Labour’s Third Way quickly became a capitulation to neoliberal political and economic forces. In many ways they were a continuation of Thatcher’s neoliberalism.
New Labour’s policies often favoured the private sector and were more aligned with the needs of global capital and corporate interests than any concern for the working class or social justice (based on an assumption that the private sector was best placed to develop solutions to social problems).
New Labour old rhetoric
Not long after coming into office, New Labour published their 1998 Green Paper New Ambitions for Our Country: A New Contract for Welfare, in which they discussed the issue of ‘welfare dependency’ in relation to disability benefits. The previous government had only used this term to talk about the unemployed.
To justify it’s own ‘reforms’ the Blair government employed similar anti-welfare rhetoric to that of it’s Conservative predecessor: the need for reform was again justified by the idea that the UK was experiencing a crisis in terms of rising number of benefit claimants, particularly those on Incapacity Benefit (IB).
The supposed issue of fraud was also raised, with the Secretary of State for Social Security, Frank Fields, stating in a speech that “The system as it stands promotes fraud and deception, not honesty and hard work”. Given that fraud only actually accounted for around 0.4% of claims, the implication of Field’s statement was that too many people currently able to legitimately claim IB were actually capable (in the eyes of the government) of working, and thus the system needed tightening.
The reality is that the number of UK benefit claims at the time was fairly static. Relative to other countries, the UK had a higher level of participation within the labour market. According to an OECD report, the UK already had some of the toughest barriers to claiming disability unemployment benefits.
A raw deal for welfare
New Labour’s attack on the welfare state was touted in Tony Blair’s speech on welfare reform in 2002, the central theme of which was the need to encourage people with disabilities and single parents into work. Blair backed up this approach with the assertion that ‘work is good for you’.
This approach was formally outlined in New Labours 2006 Green Paper A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering People to Work. It cynically utilises the language of empowerment to justify conditionality for disabled claimants, stating that benefits will be reduced if people don’t engage in ‘work related activities’ with a view to preparing for work.
“For individuals and families, the benefits of work are clear. Work is the best route out of poverty. It strengthens independence and dignity… and can improve an individual’s health and well-being. Furthermore, there is a clear link between benefits dependency and hardship”
- Department for Work and Pensions (2006) — A New Deal for Welfare: Empowering People to Work
The government wasn’t alone in pushing it’s ideological agenda for welfare reform. On the same day that the A New Deal for Welfare was released, the BBC aired the first episode of it’s investigative series On the Fiddle, which followed benefit claimants to show that some were actually capable of doing some work.
There were many similar programmes and sensationalist news stories at the time which apparently highlighted the problems New Labour claimed were inherent in the welfare system, and thus justified reform.
“[T]he press and the government were metaphorically singing from the same song sheet; IB claimants were benefit-dependent because of their inadequacies rather than because of a range of disabling barriers that they face in accessing paid work. The focus upon individuals and their responsibilities as citizens was being used to justify retrenchment in benefits for sick and disabled people”
- Piggot & Grover (2009) Retrenching Incapacity Benefit: Employment Support Allowance and Paid Work
New Labour’s neoliberal approach to welfare promoted the supposed health benefits of work, couched in the language of empowerment and opportunity. This was coupled with a political and media narrative which demonised the ‘undeserving poor’ and lamented ‘sicknote Britain’ to justify monumental changes to the benefit system at great cost to disabled claimants (the extent of which would only become truly apparent in later years).
Work capability
In 2000 New Labour had already replaced the previous ‘All Work Test’ used for assessing claims for IB with the Personal Capability Assessment (PCA). Frank Fields, the Secretary for Social Security, justified the change in terms of helping claimants and providing opportunity:
“In place of the current test, we are looking instead to assess the scale of people’s employability, and then give them the opportunity to get the help that they need to return to work.”
- Frank Fields in a 1998 Parliamentary speech on welfare reform
Essentially, rather than focusing on entitlement to benefit due to disability, the new test was aimed at encouraging people back to work as a way of reducing claims.
This approach was further pursued through the replacement of IB with Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and the new Work Capability Assessment (WCA). ESA and the WCA introduced a two-tier system. One tier for the most disabled and therefore unable to work at all, and a lower tier for those sick but deemed able to do some work or return to employment in the future.
To aid in ‘motivating’ claimants in the second tier a new regime of conditionality and benefit sanctions would be applied. Those who failed to engage with interviews to prepare them for work, as well as training and actively looking for work would gradually have their benefit reduced.
Where John Major’s Conservative government had added points-based health assessments as a barrier to claiming benefit, New Labour added conditionality, sanctions and work programmes to ‘motivate’ (force through threat of poverty) people off of benefits and back into the labour market.
With New Labour having fully transformed the welfare system into a punitive system of ‘workfare’, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition of 2010 would pick up the responsibility of neoliberalising the welfare state by introducing their own contribution to the decimation of the UK’s social safety net.
Enter Austerity
The Conservatives came to power in coalition with the Liberal Democrats in 2010, and formed a majority Conservative government under David Cameron in 2015.
Conservative rule would usher in more ‘tightening’ of eligibility for disability benefits, as well as a host of brutal cuts justified by a neoliberal programme of Austerity (an alleged solution to the Great Recession arising from the 2008 global financial meltdown).
The Conservatives would once again invoke the issue of ‘welfare dependency’ as a cultural phenomenon rooted in individual failings, situated within a broader narrative of ‘Broken Britain’ which attacked supposed ‘social pathologies’: ‘worklessness’, substance misuse, anti-social behaviour, out-of-wedlock childbirth and (a lack of) personal responsibility.
The structural causes of these issues were, of course, ignored. Much like the New Labour approach to Britain’s supposed ‘benefits crisis’, the solution would be aimed at forcing people into work — even though the financial crash had heavily impacted job availablity.
In practice this meant making it more difficult to claim many benefits. A new stricter regime of sanctions and further conditionality was applied to those claiming ESA but expected to return to work. This approach was fully outlined via the Welfare Reform Act (2015); it was criticised from the start:
“[A]s a tool for raising employment and economic growth the reforms to disability benefits have little value. Rather than being based upon a sound analysis… the reforms wrongly assume that underlying problems are individuals’ motivation and financial incentives, rather than ill health, disability and job opportunities.”
- Beatty & Fothergill (2015) Disability Benefits in an Age of Austerity
Additionally, in 2012 the Coalition government introduced ESA-style assessments for Disability Living Allowance (DLA). Unlike ESA, DLA was an ‘additional costs’ benefit, designed to make up for the considerable extra costs of living with a disability.
Previously eligibility and the amount of benefit had mostly been predetermined by a claimant’s specific disability; now eligibility would be subject to a points-based system mirroring that of ESA, focusing on functional ability rather than the actual cost of living with a disability.
But even as questions were being raised about the efficacy and moral legitimacy of the new reforms, worse was around the corner in the form of Austerity.
A thousand cuts (or, cuts to thousands)
Austerity would mean huge cuts to the benefit budget. Much of this was achieved via the government’s new Universal Credit system, aimed at bringing unemployment benefits (including ESA) and housing benefit, as well as several other benefits, into one service. Once introduced, new claims would have to be made to UC, rather than the more generous ‘legacy benefits’.
In addition, DLA would be replaced with the new Personal Independence Payment (PIP). Like previous benefit replacements, the (often explicit) goal of scrapping old ‘legacy benefits’ was to introduce stricter systems of eligibility and conditionality (sanctions) which would reduce the number of people claiming.
Cuts included abolishing the ‘work related activity component’ for those ESA claimants subject to conditionality and job-seeking — a reduction of around £30 a week.
Disability Premiums — an additional amount previoulsy paid to disabled claimants eligible for both ESA and PIP — were also scrapped for new claimants, meaning that compared to the old system claimants would be hundreds of pounds worse-off a month.
Working Tax Credits, aimed at supporting people on a low income into work, were also abolished, including the disability element, further reducing the entitlement of disabled people able to do some work.
Claims for ‘New Style’ ESA would now be limited to 12 months and claimants moved to a means-tested version of ESA; this change meant that many people would have their benefit reduced (or be totally ineligible) if, for example, their partner earned above a certain amount (making disabled claimants financially dependent on their partners or older children living with them).
Finally, a new ‘Bedroom Tax’ was introduced for local council and social housing tenants claiming UC, where money paid to help with rent would be reduced if they were deemed to have an extra bedroom they did not need. This particularly impacted disabled people who required an extra bedroom to store medical equipment, or to allow overnight carers to stay. I also essentially punished those unable to access accommodation because of limited housing stock through no fault of their own.
As if aware that these changes would bring significant legal challenges, the government also cut eligibility for Legal Aid, financial support aimed at aiding those on a low income with legal costs. The cuts meant that 99% of disabled claimants disputing benefit decisions now no longer qualifying for support.
Altogether these new policies and Austerity cuts would have devastating impacts for disabled people, and though issues were being raised at the time the true extent of harm caused wouldn't become clear for several years.
This is only side of the story
Underlying the policy actions I’ve outline in the first two parts of this series is an ideological programme informed by dodgy evidence and the profit motive of the private healthcare and insurance industries.
The extent and impact of their involvement in reshaping Britain’s welfare system, which borders on conspiracy, will be the focus of part 3 of this series.
This series has largely been made possible by the Deaths by Welfare Project and the timeline put together by some amazing folks over at Healing Justice London, Litany for Survival and Disability News Service, which I have used as a jumping off point for much of my research into this issue. A huge thank you for all your hard work.