The Nation's Shame

The Nation’s Shame

The UK supported the development of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (the Convention) & was among the first countries to sign it in 2007.

The convention (UNCRPD) is aligned with the UK approach to disability equality which focuses on inclusion & mainstreaming, with additional support provided as necessary, & on involving disabled people in making the decisions that affect their lives.

So proud are the government of this fact, they refer to it on a government website (please refer to here https://www.gov.uk/rights-disabled-person/overview) advising you of your rights as a disabled person.

The government claims as a disabled person, you have rights to protect you from discrimination. It cites the Equality Act 2010 (please refer to here https://www.gov.uk/guidance/equality-act-2010-guidance) & the UNCRPD (please refer to here http://www.un.org/disabilities/convention/conventionfull.shtml) will help to enforce, protect & promote your rights.

So, it is surprising to find last week that the UK, as a result of being the first member to be investigated by a United Nations committee for not fulfilling the terms of the UNCRPD, have been found guilty of grave & systematic violations of the rights of disabled people as a direct result of austerity policies introduced into welfare & social care by the UK government aimed at reducing public spending since 2010, an inquiry has concluded.

The highly critical report (please refer to here http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CRPD%2fC%2f15%2fR.2%2fRev.1&Lang=en), published in Geneva on Monday 7th November 2016, says a range of measures including controversial cuts to disability benefits, social care budgets & the introduction of the bedroom tax, have disproportionately & adversely affected the rights of disabled people to live independently, to work & achieve an adequate standard of living.

It makes 11 recommendations, including calling on the UK government to carry out a study of the cumulative impact of all spending cuts on disabled people & to ensure the human rights of disabled people are upheld.

In response, the government stated it “did not plan to follow up on any of the recommendations”.

Isn’t this to our nation’s shame?

In light of this, why hasn’t there been public outcry? Why has it not been plastered across our television screens constantly? Why haven’t hordes of disgruntled & angry citizens waving placards not taken to the streets en masse in protest at the treatment of one of the proudest but, flawed sections of society?

Because it’s been another stroke of luck for the government that in the same week this damning report was published, the Americans voted for a misogynist, racist to be their president & Mondelez International changed the size of bloody Toblerone!

I will not let the human rights abuses this government are guilty of go unnoticed or unchallenged.

Surely, everyone knows of at least one person that relies on the safety net of social security? A fallen hero perhaps, injured in the line of duty. Somebody injured in an accident. A cancer sufferer or someone suffering from some equally debilitating condition that limits their ability to live, work or function ‘normally’. Or some poor soul living in the invisible prison of a tortured mind.

It may be congenital; it may be something that they’ve contracted, it may be through no fault of their own but, they are ill & rely on support from the tax payer in order to survive.

Why aren’t the people uprising & protesting in disgust at our nation’s shame through fear one day; it may be them. One day, they too may rely on the same safety net being pulled from under those that can’t fight for themselves.

I am shocked & saddened at the apathetic reaction to this report by the public. This is your money, not the governments, despite what they might think. It’s your money that you work damn hard for that is purposely being withheld or wasted by the very government department, the Department of Work & Pensions (DWP), charged with protecting the less fortunate.

Until now the welfare state has, without question, stepped in & declared that ‘as we live in a compassionate, caring & civilised country, the state will protect you from poverty’. Far from being a lifestyle choice, welfare is all too often a struggle for survival. Benefits are the buffer between people & penury.

Welfare benefits & social care are critical in supporting disabled people to live as active members of the community & short term savings are being favoured over the dignity & independence of people with disabilities up & down the UK.

Since 2010 every aspect of our support has been reduced, abolished or failed, costing the taxpayer & costing lives. The government, rather than increasing life chances for disabled people, are cutting the financial life lines that are designed to help them meet the extra costs they face. Disabled people are struggling to make ends meet & are twice as likely to be living in poverty as non-disabled people.

So, I ask again, why isn’t there mass protestation at the loss of liberty, equality, quality of life & indeed loss of life?

The governments approach to welfare & the way they justify the removal of it seems to be based on some key assumptions. The assumption that benefit claimants, be they unemployed, sick, disabled or working poor are likely to be either workshy, dishonest, unmotivated, undisciplined or all of the above.

This is the way we’re portrayed by the government & their torch bearers in the media. Perpetuating negative stereotypes, culminating in a rise year on year in disabled hate crimes.

Hate crimes recorded by police against the disabled have risen to 3,629 in 2015-16 compared to 1,748 in 2011. Indeed, it’s a widely-held view by campaigners that the true scale of the problem will never be known as many cases go unreported.

Glen Owen of The Daily Mail attempts to undermine the findings & seriousness of the UN report (please refer to here http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3909276/Controversial-task-force-slams-Britain-s-welfare-cuts-says-disabled-people-unfairly-bearing-brunt.html?ITO=1490&ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490) & credibility of one of its authors in a new low for journalism. Even for the hate filled Daily Mail.

Mr Owen makes a tawdry reference to a suggestion Stig Langvad once put to the Danish government in his attempts to discredit Mr Langvad.

It really doesn’t matter because the Mail’s reporting of the story loses all credibility when referring to an ‘anonymous’ Whitehall source (how very convenient they wished to remain nameless) that claims “This committee has chosen the UK for its first report & we fear they are trying to make a name for themselves.”

There’s no conspiracy. It was not a coincidence the UK were chosen & it wasn’t by any means random.

The reason the UN committee investigated the UK is because the UN was asked to intervene by the grass-roots campaign network Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) under a monitoring mechanism known as the Optional Protocol as a response to cuts & reforms introduced by the Tory party during the previous parliament (in Coalition with the Liberal Democrats 2010-15) & with good reason.

The Mail’s petulant response & misrepresentation of facts is regrettably typical of the agenda the disabled have come to expect from certain sections of the media. We’re seen as an easy target.

If the government are the architects of our pain & suffering then the likes of the Daily Mail are their errand boys & deliver their vitriolic message with great gusto & fanfare, trivialising the relentless struggle of the disabled in the UK under the Tories.

Poorly researched & irresponsible reporting typified by Mr Owen is undoubtedly motivation, if not responsible, for the surge in unwarranted & unprovoked physical assaults on the disabled.

The headline here should not be questioning why we are the first country to be investigated by the UN. The headline, that should have been on the front page of EVERY newspaper should have been “we should be ashamed. We have been investigated by the UN!”

Then there is the derision emanating from the new Secretary of State for Work & Pensions, the Rt Hon Damian Green MP.

Mr Green denounces the UN report as “patronising & offensive” claiming “The UN measures success as the amount of money poured into the system, rather than the work & health outcomes for disabled people”.

“The UK is a recognised world leader in disabled rights & equality. Not only do we spend about £50bn a year to support sick & disabled people, but we also offer a wide range of tailored & effective support, which this report fails to recognise.”

‘Was’ being the operative word. This government has taken disability rights back at least twenty years & people live in fear.

No sir, your reaction is reminiscent of a scolded child. It is vulgar & quite frankly, damn right offensive. Your protests are based on a misplaced, perceived sense of injustice of which you have no justifiable right to be offended for.

The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks.

I find Mr Green’s response is in keeping with the condescending & disrespectful attitude to the disabled which lies beneath the policies borne of his department.

In your first interview sir, once you had been made aware of this report, instead of pretending to be offended & decrying the evidence, your first words should have been to offer a profound apology for all the damage & hurt done by your party, as proven in the report.

The government said it spent about £50bn a year to support sick and disabled people – a bigger proportion of GDP than countries including Canada, France & the US.

But this is a flawed argument. Mr Green & the government are the only ones trying to quantify the job they do by bragging about the money they spend on it. Furthermore, spending billions doesn’t guarantee the job is done properly & that’s exactly what the report highlights. Spending isn’t enough because the measure of its success will be the results it achieves but, when you cut, cut, cut, inevitably there will be consequences.

Dire & fatal consequences on the “health outcomes for disabled people”.

Mr Green, if you think people losing their cars, their jobs, their homes, unprecedented reliance on foodbanks, destitution & even people taking or losing their lives are indicative of successfully supporting disabled people & an efficient way of distributing £50 billion then we have very contrasting definition of success.

And exactly how much of this alleged £50 billion outlay does the DWP waste on maintaining an IT infrastructure that’s not fit for purpose? And I would be very interested to know exactly how much of this alleged £50 billion the DWP spend, is spent by them defending & enforcing their draconian measures (such as the bedroom tax) in court via First Tier Tribunals, Upper Tribunals & beyond.

Mr Green is trying to defend the indefensible in government policy & the DWP. The motivation for the change in welfare is to drive down costs.

The reality is; the skivers & malingerers you’ve portrayed us as, the disabled, has turned out to be the genuinely sick & ill & now we’re suffering as a direct result.

Money. It’s all about money for the Tories Mr Green & always has been. Austerity is about money & clearly your government value money more than life.

You are guilty of systematic violations of our human rights sir. Fact.

Surely this is the nation’s shame?

Why isn’t it disabled people in government & at the DWP implementing & overseeing government policy?

You wouldn’t employ a government minister to work on your motor vehicle if it broke down. You need a mechanic. So why is it, it is able bodied, affluent government ministers with no medical training that are drawing up policies & dictating to disabled people how much support they need? They couldn’t be any further removed from our reality.

In response to the committees report the government said “disabled people get the same opportunities as other people to find work, while ensuring that people who cannot work because of a disability or health condition receive the support they need”.

Mr Green told the BBC Today on the 1st October 2016 “If you have got a condition that has made you unfit for work & which can only stay the same or get worse, it seems to me that re-testing & reassessing them doesn’t do them any good. It is also not doing the system any good because it is pointless.”

Then on 1st November 2016 the government launched a consultation on changes to the work capability assessment & at its launch & in complete contradiction to what he said on the 1st October, Mr Green said “In the long run there is nothing more expensive than saying to someone, ‘Here’s a benefit you can have for the rest of your life & we will ignore you”.

What he means, & what the government believe & have always believed is that work cures what ails you. Well it’s good to see the staggering ignorance, lack of empathy & the inherent party rhetoric is consistent & maintained between the appointments of Secretary of State.

This government genuinely seem to believe that the only indication of a person’s functional capacity, potential & value is their economic productivity & the only indication of their moral worth is their capability & degree of willingness to work.

One of the aims of the green paper appears to be to oblige many claimants in the support group to undertake work-related activities.

So, not satisfied with their punitive measures they’ve imposed thus far to make savings that aren’t reaping the rewards they expected from welfare ‘reform’ & cuts, the government are now proposing targeting those deemed in most need of assistance with no prospect of being able to work & who have already been placed in the support group of Employment & Support Allowance (ESA), & suggested putting these vulnerable people in touch with work coaches.

These meetings will be mandatory.

This is in spite of what Mr Green said on 1st October, that some people on ESA with ‘severe conditions’ may not have to have repeat assessments.

Pressure. Pressure & lies. PRESSURE!

There is a gaping chasm between what the green paper says it will strive to do & what the government actually does in reality.

If the government genuinely wanted to ‘help’ the sick & disabled into work, I’m certain they would not have cut the Independent Living Fund, Access to Work funding & made the eligibility criteria for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) much more difficult to meet in order to simply reduce successful claims & cut costs. This has also meant that thousands have lost their Motability vehicles & support.

It smacks of utter hypocrisy in telling disabled people to work themselves out of poverty, work themselves healthier while cutting Access to Work etc. etc.

In the fractured relationship between disabled people & employers, employers hold virtually all the cards & have it in their power to make a huge difference to the situation. They have so far shown little inclination to do so but, are nevertheless courted & praised through the government’s Disability Confident scheme. Meanwhile, the government piles pressure onto sick & disabled people for not striving harder to get jobs that just aren’t there & they aren’t able to get to.

You need to reduce barriers, not benefits.

Before piling more pressure onto disabled people to get jobs, the government needs to ensure suitable jobs exist & restore all the support it has removed that would make it possible for them to work, e.g. restore Motability cars & reverse the £4.6 billion social care cut.

In fact, if you care to read through the government’s response to the UN committee’s report (please refer to here http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/Download.aspx?symbolno=CRPD%2fC%2f17%2fR.3&Lang=en), it’s a work of fiction.

To say the government have embellished their achievements in disability rights is a huge understatement. I don’t recognise or live in the disabled utopian Britain that the government refers to in their fabricated response.

I would like to put the author on the stand as they are guilty of perjury. The report does not reflect my life; it does not reflect the reality of the life of a disabled person under this government.

Taking someone’s car from them & in turn their independence, something they rely on & use in place of legs whilst blatantly lying to the United Nations you help the disabled into work & to stay there, is that not the nation’s shame?

We started our own fight with the DWP two years ago with regard benefits we’re entitled to. We’ve now been trapped in the Tribunal’s process for the past year with no end in sight.

Two years we’ve been without sufficient support we’re entitled to by law.

Our crime? Both being disabled & daring to marry each other. Like ‘normal’ people do every day. Only my wife & I have paid a financial penalty for doing so. Being able to marry & start a family, like anyone else is free to do, is one of the pillars of the UNCRPD.

As a result of being left to fend for ourselves in our fight with the DWP by the likes of the Citizens Advice Bureau, a law centre & our local MP, I’ve had to learn the ins & outs of the benefits system & the way the it works & quickly, in order to suitably defend us because everyone else I asked, shied away.

I don’t fully understand the inner workings of the social security system & Tribunal procedures but, I try. There’s a lot of assumption on behalf of the system. Everyone assumes you know what you’re doing & you know how the system works, what the law is & what help you can get.

Nobody tells you, it’s not all written in one place.

My family & I had hoped that Tribunals would be a cathartic experience compared to the initial application, assessment & subsequent, albeit inevitable mandatory reconsideration process’.

However, we haven’t experienced the rapturous release from purgatory we’d hoped for. Rather this tiresome & endless merry-go-round goes on & on & at what cost to our mental & physical well-being?

You have to be stubborn & fighting fit to take on the DWP because they’re banking on you giving up. I’m at least one of those things.

Could this be the nation’s shame? Of course not. Why should our plight resonate any more than any other disabled person? Regrettably, it’s not an uncommon story.

Do you think when disabled claimants start out on the very long road to fight for the support they need to survive, support they are entitled to, they are remotely aware there is a clandestine network that exists to operate between Her Majesty’s Courts & Tribunals Service (HMCTS) & the DWP that they are not party to?

HMCTS exchanges undisclosed information behind the back of the claimant with the DWP on forms identified as AT38 & AT39.

HMCTS claims that these forms are mere cover notes & that any documentation received would be shared with all Parties to The Proceedings (PTTP).

If the only information on these AT38 & AT39 forms that shouldn’t be shared with the claimant (appellant) is the name of the DWPs decision maker (DM), why do they deem it necessary to non-disclose this information? What have they got to hide? Why can’t people be held to account?

People’s lives depend on the decisions made by these DMs & if they get it wrong, which appeal success rates suggest they invariably do, people consequently suffer.

Do you think that the UN committee were aware of the existence of such forms & practise? It made me incandescent to discover them, quite by accident.

The DWP are so determined to prevent people from getting the support they’re entitled to; they station presenting officers at the courts. I absolutely understand the DWPs right & need to be represented if the claimant attends the Tribunal but, these people are present & free to speak out on behalf of the DWP, arguing their case, regardless of whether the claimant is able to attend or not (submitted their case via papers & not present in court).

Tribunals I might add that are only held in cities that the claimant will more than likely have to travel great distances to.

How can this be just?

The overriding objective of the Tribunal Procedure rules 2008 is to enable the Tribunal to deal with cases fairly & justly. Our experience is contrary to that & far from unique.

It’s a wholly one sided system that favours the DWP & this imbalance needs to be redressed. It is not equal access to justice. It is barely justice at all.

The DWPs plans to deploy even more staff at Tribunals in order to identify which cases they lose they can themselves appeal.

Here’s an idea, why don’t you cut out the DMs with no medical training & the unsuitably qualified ‘healthcare professionals’ so-called employed by third party contractors, who are in the business of making money & take the word & evidence supplied by claimant’s doctors, who are familiar with their patients more than anyone & are suitably medically qualified in order to get the decisions right at the first time of asking instead.

Or better still, actually employ doctors & the disabled you so obviously deplore.

I just want to know & I would like to ask the prime minister to her face, what did we, the disabled, do so wrong to offend your government? Why does the Tory government hate the disabled so? Why are the disabled the ones to make up the deficit created by others?

Don’t Tory government ministers have disabled friends or relatives?

We didn’t put the country into debt & we had nothing to do with the worldwide banking crisis of 2008, that was unavoidable.

I am my mum & dad’s son, I am a husband, I am a brother, I am a nephew, I am an uncle, I am a cousin, I am a friend & (hopefully) a good neighbour & I have feelings because I am human too.

Why are the disabled not allowed to live in a reasonably relaxed state of existence without having to live in fear of ‘brown envelope syndrome’?

We don’t want to live like kings, we just want to live. Shouldn’t our disabilities be the hardest thing in our lives we have to deal with?

It is my understanding that the principle behind being a signed-up member of the UNCRPD would be to protect the disabled from exactly the sort of treatment we as a community are subject to in 21st century Britain.

I lament the fact; this is the reality of life of a disabled person living under the punitive rule of the Tory elite in this country.

The impact of the government’s cuts has been capricious & unfair. The UN report merely confirms what we as a community have known for some time – the disabled have been consigned to living a subsistence in the UK.

The UN report is as damning as it is withering about the manner in which the government have conducted welfare & social care reform, arguing that they pushed ahead with changes even when they knew they would have an adverse impact on disabled people.

And yet the government & Mr Green dare to sneer at the UN who, quite rightly, point out their abject failure to adhere to & honour the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

SHAME! SHAME! SHAME ON YOU!

If this is not the nation’s shame, then maybe, just maybe, I have it all wrong. Maybe it is me after all. Maybe I am the nation’s shame.

What if I, as a disabled person, am the blight on society the government & their errand boys in the media will have you believe?

I think about removing myself from the equation. I think about it every time one those brown envelopes drop into our post box but, then, why should I? Then the government & the DWP win & I become just another statistic that they deny any link to.

What characterises the whole welfare reform project is a lack of respect for anybody who is not making what the government considers a sufficient contribution to the economy.

And they’re right. I’m no longer able to work or contribute to the government coffers due to a chronic, progressive & debilitating condition for which there is no treatment or cure.

Could this be why people aren’t up in arms at the way we, the disabled, are perceived & treated & why the public aren’t outraged at the findings of the UN committee?

Is this why there isn’t million man walking stick & wheelchair marches?

If that’s the case, then I, disabled bloke, don’t wish to be the nation’s shame anymore.

I apologise for being such a terrible burden, being disabled beyond my control & bringing shame on you all.

IDB