Scots fear cutting wind from the south

Disabled people in Scotland celebrated their achievements at an Independent Living Festival in February. But, says Jim Elder-Woodward, the celebrations had to be tempered by reality

Giving disabled people the freedom of choice and control over their own lives and lifestyles is now part of mainline social policy, particularly here in Scotland.

The independent living movement, comprised of disabled people fighting for such freedoms, is also beginning to discuss such issues with senior Scottish Government officials on a regular basis.

But, unfortunately, I’m a glass-half-empty kind of guy and 2011 looks to me as if it’s going to be an annus horribilis, because it heralds the beginning of a protracted onslaught by the UK Government on the freedoms we have fought so hard for over these past 50 years.

While we celebrated our success at our one-day Independent Living Festival in Glasgow, in February, the latest in a whole string of welfare reform bills were being lodged by the Westminster Government which, over the next four years, will decrease the standard of living of the most vulnerable in society by the most drastic amount since 1931.

At that time, the Liberals in the then National Government persuaded the other parties to cut public expenditure by £96.5m, the biggest chunk of which was £66.5m on unemployment benefit.

It’s interesting to note that every time the Liberals were in a coalition or national government during the last century, they cut social spending on education, housing and unemployment benefit.

For example, during the Conservative Liberal Government in 1922, the “Geddes Axe” cut spending on social expenditure alone by £13 million; but by 1924 the coalition government had cut it by £30 million.

All the advances in public health, housing, education and unemployment benefit that the Coalition had brought in after the First World War to make the country “fit for heroes” were done away with.

I wonder if similar thinking is happening in today’s Coalition around the new thinking of independent living, despite what they say to the contrary.

By 2015, cuts in welfare benefits alone will be in the region of £18 billion. It is reckoned over half of this (£9.8 billion) will be achieved by moving disabled people onto Jobseekers Allowance and cutting other disability benefits like DLA.

By 2013, Disability Living Allowance will be no more, and the Independent Living Fund will be gone by 2015.

This will affect 3.5 million disabled people throughout the UK.

We still don’t know how those receiving funding from the ILF will be able to continue with their support packages. The Fund is now closed to new applicants, in any case.

We do know that the DLA will be replaced by the Personal Independence Payment, which will take into account the cost of any aid to daily living, like a wheelchair or help in getting dressed, when deciding the level of payment.

It’s said people are not oppressed until they feel oppressed. As a movement, we haven’t really expressed our oppression by the state and those in authority.

Perhaps it’s time to start expressing that oppression by coming together to learn from each other, and to give solace and support to each other.

Perhaps all of us should come together to say to governments, at local level as well as in Edinburgh and London: “Wait a minute; haven’t we got rights too?

Haven’t we got the right not to be treated in an inhumane and degrading manner? Haven’t we got the right to exercise our citizenship and participate in the lives of our families and communities? Why are you denying us the opportunities and resources to exercise those rights? If we’re all in it together, as you keep saying, don’t put us in it more than others.”

We need to come together, because only then will those in power take us seriously enough; and the Government’s proposed attack on our well-being and quality of life, through cuts to our welfare, may well be cushioned.