Politics: Benefit cuts would hit the disabled particularly hard

Life costs more if you are disabled, for example like my constituent Jo Doherty.

New research from the disability charity Scope shows that disabled people spend on average £550 a month on extra costs linked to their disability.

Meanwhile, disabled people will receive extra-costs support from central government of about £360 a month.

These payments are not enough and I will be carefully watching the emergency budget, hopeful that my disabled constituents are not stripped of their extra support costs.

Those costs are indispensable for supporting disabled people to live independently, find and keep paid work, and protect their financial situation.

That’s why I’m deeply concerned by the Government’s plan to cut £12bn from social security spending at the emergency budget on July 8.

With disabled people making up eight per cent of the population yet hit hard by 29 per cent of the Government’s announced spending cuts, it would be disastrous if George Osborne announced further changes to Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and its replacement, Personal Independence Payments (PIP).

In Oxford, a total of 4,689 disabled people who now claim DLA and PIP would be directly affected.

Research shows that 386,000 (21 per cent) of DLA claimants are in work across the country.

A survey of 1,000 disabled people has found that more than half of DLA claimants in work said they would not be able to work without it.

This means that nearly 200,000 people require DLA to get to work.

DLA and PIP level the playing field and enable independence, and changes to them will seriously hurt the Government’s stated goal of achieving full employment.

Too many disabled people remain out of the workplace, although they want the same opportunities to work as everyone else.

In Oxford, the employment rate for disabled people of working age is 62 per cent compared with an employment rate of 80 per cent for non-disabled people of working age.

If we’re going to support disabled people to have the same opportunities in the workplace as everyone else, we cannot reduce this extra-costs support and waste the talent they bring.

Research shows that disabled people find it harder to protect against financial shocks than non-disabled people.

A third of disabled people say they could not afford an unexpected, but necessary expense of £500 compared to a quarter of non-disabled people.

This is unsurprising when disabled people have £108,000 fewer savings and assets than non-disabled people, and are three times more likely to draw on doorstep loans.

Any significant change to the DLA budget will disproportionately hurt disabled people.