Rachel Reeves' disability deceptions

Labour’s latest "pocket money" attack line against the disabled isn’t just offensive it’s downright deceptive too.

Rachel Reeves’ comparison of her huge cuts to disability benefits with a parent revoking pocket money from a teenager isn’t just offensive, it’s downright deceptive too.

It shows an obscene disregard for the lives of disabled people to pretend that there’s any kind of valid analogy between the subsistence benefits that disabled people receive, and a few quid per week in pocket money for a teenage child.

Maybe stopping a teenage child’s pocket money makes them more likely to go out and look for a "Saturday job" (if such things even exist anymore), but that’s got nothing to do with making it even harder for sick and disabled people to qualify for Personal Independence Payments (PIP), and slashing the amount they would receive if they can navigate an even more draconian and Kafkaesque social security system.

PIP isn’t an unemployment benefit at all. It exists to help disabled people pay for things like care, medical equipment, and mobility vehicles so that they can lead more normal lives.

Many people on PIP are far too sick or disabled to find work. Shifting the goalposts to make them ineligible, and slashing the amount they’re entitled to receive if they still are isn’t going to incentivise them into finding jobs if they’re too disabled to work, because they’re too disabled to work.

Then there are all the people in receipt of PIP who already work. Removing their access to medical equipment and transport is actually going to make it much harder for many of these people to stay in work.

One thing that actually could be done to get more people back into work would be to invest in the NHS to bring down the enormous waiting lists for operations, and for mental health services. However Reeves prefers the deceptive narrative that making life even harder for disabled people is the solution, because that way she can do more of her beloved austerity book-balancing, rather than investing in something that’s been broken by years of ruinous Tory austerity book-balancing.

The OBR have stated that there’s absolutely zero evidence that Rachel Reeves’ attack on disabled people will get more people into work. The government simply hasn’t provided a shred of evidence to support their claims that more disabled people will find work as a result of these cuts.

It’s not just grotesque to pretend that people’s vital subsistence benefits are equivalent to a pittance in pocket money for kids to spend on sweets or whatever, it’s utterly deceptive to pretend that the objective is to drive disabled people into work without presenting a single piece of evidence to show that’s what would happen.

It’s inconceivable that Reeves is unaware of the facts that PIP isn’t an employment related benefit, and that there’s no evidence whatever to prove that cutting disability benefits would get more disabled people into work.

Either she’s aware of these facts and she’s being highly deceptive, or she’s unaware and therefore manifestly unfit to be making such decisions.