U.K. Leader Proposes Testing for Remaining in Disability Benefits Program
By Laurel Richards (lrichards@ilru.org)
This summer, Great Britain Prime Minister Tony Blair proposed controversial changes to the disability benefits program that place a three-year limit on incapacity benefit; an assessment, including a medical test, to decide whether it can be renewed; work-based interviews to test suitability for employment; and loss of benefit if tests are failed.
In justifying his proposal to members of Parliament, Mr. Blair said, "It cannot be right that we have a situation where people coming on to disability benefit receive up to £4,000 a year for 10, 15 or 20 years without anyone ever checking if they have recovered from injury and are able to work. If people are taking money from the state they must justify it." Mr. Blair's Works and Pensions Secretary, Alistair Darling, has stated that as many as 70 percent of the 2.3 million recipients of disability benefits could return to work.
In an on-line article of July 4, 2001, BBC News political writer Nick Assinder stated that many of the opponents to the changes come from Mr. Blair's own Labour Party who believe that the proposed changes carry the objectionable message that a great number of the people claiming work incapacity due to disability are "shirkers and must be forced back into work." Labour Peer Lord Ashley, long-time supporter of programs for disabled people, says that Mr. Blair and his government are "walking into a quagmire by reviving the 'scrounger disabled' slur."
According to Assinder, supporters of the changes and Mr. Blair say that the Prime Minister is aware that there is much trouble ahead over this proposal but that he is acting on principle--he believes that people who can work should work.
Member of Parliament Lynne Jones, however, believes that the changes will turn the disability benefits program "into a policing regime rather than a supporting regime and will be very counter-productive."
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