Miliband fails to show the difference

With Government cuts and tabloid rhetoric to oppose, Anoushka Alexander says that disabled people appear to be able to take disappointingly little hope from what Labour leader Ed Miliband has to say on the welfare reform agenda

Every Budget and Spending Review has become something to dread. The new Work Capability Assessment (WCA) is failing, and with cuts to housing benefit and DLA, disabled people disproportionately bear the brunt of the Government’s reforms. While the Coalition is in power, Labour is the only real opposition party, so what – if any – opposition is it providing?

Not much, if Ed Miliband’s speech over the summer on responsibility was anything to go by.

The speech was a clear attempt to give the Labour Party some definition but the differences between Labour and the Coalition appeared to be very few.

Although Miliband raised the welfare reform bill he was widely supportive of it, making no mention of its affects on disabled people. No one would argue that those who can work shouldn’t, but he failed to recognise what Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of Scope, (the charity which publishes Disability Now) calls the “structural inequality disabled people face” when trying to find employment. And if, as Miliband asserted, Labour is to be the “party of the grafters” then what about those who, for whatever reason, cannot graft?

Miliband criticised cuts to Disability Living Allowance (DLA), but it was hard to escape the feeling that only the most profoundly disabled are seen as deserving of state assistance, despite the fact that DLA helps many into work.

As for housing benefit, the Labour leader was silent on the effect the cuts here will have on disabled people. Instead, he suggested prioritising council tenants who volunteer or work, despite the fact many disabled people – myself included – can do neither.

Elsewhere on the employment landscape, perhaps it is not surprising that Miliband skimmed over WCA and the replacement for Incapacity Benefit, Employment Support Allowance (ESA), as these were Labour inventions.

More worrying still was the overall tone of the speech. Both Maria Miller, the Minister for Disabled People and Employment Minister Chris Grayling have denied it is the Coalition’s fault that people on benefits are demonised as scroungers, blaming the media instead. Labour MP Kate Green has described this argument as disingenuous and called on Labour to reframe the debate away from the Government’s obsession with scroungers and onto a positive argument about making sure jobs are created and available to take.

Instead Miliband chose to buy into the Government’s rhetoric.

His opening words were about meeting a man on Incapacity Benefit who could, in Miliband’s opinion, be working. Later in the speech, Miliband asserted that this was not the man’s fault, but due to the system: scant consolation. He offered no evidence to support his opinion of the man; it was merely an assumption, and one which rapidly hardened into fact as the hapless man was compared to Southern Cross executives.

Throughout his speech Miliband set up an opposition between workers and people on benefits, eliding responsibility with working, paying tax and not being on benefits. He forgot that most of those who cannot work are responsible, contribute to society, and may have previously worked and paid tax.

And because his opening example of irresponsibility was of a man on IB, the clear implication was that it is disabled people who commit most benefit fraud.

This despite the fact that according to the DWP’s own figures, fraud in disability benefits is relatively low with Incapacity Benefit fraud at 1.0% and DLA at 0.5% while fraud in Jobseeker’s Allowance is at 2.8%, Income Support at 2.9% and Pension Credit at 1.5%.

Admittedly, the speech was peppered with qualifiers such as the word some as in “[it is] some of those on benefits who [are] abusing the system”, but after his strong opening statements this seemed like a half-hearted attempt to cover Labour’s back rather than a real defence of the majority.

Perhaps most risibly of all, Miliband said: “We should not demonise people anywhere in society. I do not accept the Conservative characterisation of those on benefits as being feckless and worthless.”

In that case, why did Miliband specifically choose a man on IB as an example of irresponsibility?

This rhetoric has consequences. A recent survey commissioned by Scope, found that 37% of disabled people surveyed said they were increasingly abused on the street and erroneously reported to the benefits fraud hotline. One third said this had worsened in the last 12 months. If Miliband really cares about the “feel, fabric and character of our society” then he should reflect on the kind of society rhetoric like his creates.

Ed Miliband claims he wants a country “where compassion and responsibility to one another are valued”. In a climate where disabled people are constantly maligned, he should show more compassion and behave more responsibly himself. In words Kate Green MP used about the Conservatives: “Language doesn’t have to be explicit when the mood music’s constantly negative.”

Labour could have been the party which stood up for disabled people, but if this speech seeks to define Labour it defines it as a party which largely goes along with Coalition policies and, more worryingly still, apes the prevailing tabloid-friendly tone.