Answering Shakespeare's big question

In considering the Government's proposed move from DLA to PIP, Ruth Patrick finds there's more than meets the eye to a change of name

In one of his most famous and best-remembered quotations, Shakespeare has Juliet ask: “What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

Juliet is understandably fed up that her developing romance with Romeo is being frustrated by their surnames and the family animosity between the Montague and Capulet clans. If only he had been a Smith perhaps their love would have still blossomed, but without all the tragedy and drama! While I take Juliet’s point, arguably the names and language we appropriate really do make a difference. Certainly, this is the case in the political arena where the words used often have heightened meaning and reflect underlying assumptions about what is and what should be in our society.

This seems to be the viewpoint of Baroness [Jane] Campbell who is considering how best to challenge the Government’s plans to change the name of Disability Living Allowance (DLA).

From 2013, DLA is to be reincarnated (and substantially reformed) under the new tagline – Personal Independence Payments (PIPs). Baroness Campbell feels this will detract from the original purpose of DLA.

“I am concerned by the new title chosen to replace Disability Living Allowance because the original title sums up the principle behind the payment. It is for the extra costs of “living” with a disability (hence Disability Living Allowance) and once awarded is left to the disabled person to decide how to spend it most effectively. Personal Independence Payments does not encapsulate this clear principle, therefore changing the entitlement’s intent. Personal Independence Payment is too similar to the term personal budgets or personalisation, which does not have the same intention and is heavily associated with social care”.

Baroness Campbell is concerned that it also represents part of a broader move away from recognising and responding to the extra costs associated with disability. Arguably, though, the changing language is about something else too. The coalition Government, like New Labour before it, repeatedly praises and fetishises independence which it associates with the behaviour of the hard working majority struggling to make ends meet. Their supposed “independence” is contrasted with the passive “dependence” of people on benefits who are stigmatised, undermined and demeaned. Seen against this context, the movement to PIPs is yet another example of the Government’s promotion of independence and related denigration of dependency.

While the Disabled People’s Movement has long made the call for true independence a central part of its campaigning efforts, there is perhaps also mileage in challenging and collapsing these unsustainable and politically motivated divisions between independence and dependence. Rather than accept the assumption that all workers are independent and non-workers dependent, we should instead explore the fundamental dependency of all upon all. The reality of human interdependency as a basic part of the human condition should be laid bare, as should the truth that many (if not all of us) are “dependent” on aspects of the welfare state for fulfilling some of our most basic needs. While I may be in full-time employment, I’m not independent – I rely on the NHS, on the local council and soon on Child Benefit to support me and my family. Looking deeper, I am “dependent” on a network of family, friends and colleagues to support me through life.

Perhaps by starting to talk more positively about dependency – both on the state and on each other – we might also start to challenge the Government’s continued demonization of welfare “dependence”. Juliet may have felt that names shouldn’t matter. But, as she discovered to her cost, they can and do matter a great deal.