Government, Tarrant style

Give with one hand, take away with the other. That's the basis of the Chancellor's approach to benefit and welfare reform, says Peter White

One of the stranger questions I’ve been asked since the Government made clear its plans to slash the benefits bill is, “Shouldn’t disabled people accept their fair share of the cuts?”

Presumably this is based on that mantra we used to hear all the time: “We’re all in this together.”

Do I need to point out the fallacy in the question? Well, yes, probably, since it’s been asked. Well, the benefits in question, especially DLA (Disability Living Allowance), were designed precisely to overcome some of society’s unfairness and inequality.

I’ve frequently said that DLA was one of the most enlightened and liberating things done to help disabled people since the start of the welfare state, and it was greatly to the credit of the Conservative Government that brought it in. It finally accepted the argument – set out very coherently by early campaigners – that being disabled cost money, and that the fairest way to offset it was a benefit which recognised the fact.

So: asking if we shouldn’t be prepared to face our fair share of the cuts is really like asking: would you like to face your share of the cuts twice?

The problem is, of course, that this has nothing to do with fairness. The Government has made it clear that it wanted to save at least 20 per cent on the cost of DLA – many believe the real figure was nearer 40 – before any process of reassessment took place. The figure was there as an indicator to those doing the assessing of just how many people would be removed from benefit or have it reduced, regardless of considerations of fairness.

Incidentally, I don’t see this as vindictive; it’s more impersonal than that; this is cuts by accountancy. It’s Treasury-driven, not DWP. It just says: this is the figure I want saved; now go and save it. The accusations of fraud – never substantiated – are just a political ruse to sell it to the public.

The sadness, of course, is that such cuts inevitably result in unfair­ness. We’ve seen it in the removal of mobility component from people in residential care and we’ll see it again when some visually impaired people, about to receive upper-rate mobility component for the first time, have it taken away again when the new personal independence payments (PIPs) come in. It’s government, Chris Tarrant-style: “but we don’t want to give you that.”

This is what happens when you tell your researchers the answer you want before they’ve had a chance to ask the question; Sir Humphrey would recognise the technique all too well.