Fears over Freud's new allegiance

By Sunil Peck

The defection of the architect of the government's welfare reforms to the Tories is terrifying, say disabled welfare reform campaigners.

David Freud, who drew up the government’s policy to scrap Incapacity Benefit and award private sector organisations contracts to support disabled people into work, severed his connections with Work and Pensions Secretary James Pernell over the weekend. He's taken up a post with Theresa May, the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary. It's also believed that a possible life peerage could make him available to join David Cameron's front bench team.

Julie Newman, Acting Chair of UKDPC, said: "Why would a man who has skills in economics want to make a career out of defining how disabled people use their lives. I find it quite sinister."

She said that it was "frankly terrifying" that Mr Freud could oversee the delivery of welfare reform if the Tories win the next election.

She said that what she described as a punitive approach to welfare reform ignored the lack of job opportunities for disabled people and the barriers to maintaining jobs.

Gareth Davies, president of the National League of Blind and Disabled People, said that he had not been surprised by the defection and put it down to political opportunism and the prospect of a Tory victory at the next election.

He said: "There are some people of the political class who don't really care what political party they are in, they want to back a winner."

Davies said that both parties argue that the current welfare system is "unaffordable and morally questionable".

But he said that neither party had addressed the danger that disabled people could be railroaded into unsuitable jobs under the reforms advocated by Labour and the Tories.

Paul Treloar of Disability Alliance said that he had been surprised by Mr Freud's defection. He said that the fact that the two main parties are in broad agreement over welfare reform policy suggests that Mr Freud's motivation was a likely Tory victory at the next election.