Disabled people are ready — indeed eager — to educate and support Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, in her crusade to boost employment opportunities for people receiving health and disability-related benefits (Report, March 5).
However your article makes clear that the primary driver is the search for cuts, in order to boost defence spending, support Ukraine and fill other holes identified since the Budget. In chasing short-term savings, Kendall and the chancellor seem set on repeating the mistakes of their predecessors.
Many disabled people will embrace additional employment support, as long as it is offered without coercion and in a genuinely supportive and personalised manner.
The government does not need a swath of shiny new “support” initiatives to achieve that. It can build on the Access to Work programme. Since it was established 31 years ago, the programme has adapted to meet the needs of thousands of disabled people and supported them to find — and keep — jobs.
Ministers should also adopt and fund other employment programmes co-designed by disabled people which have delivered encouraging results in terms of supporting disabled people into work. Many of those are still being piloted but the early results are impressive — and will deliver long-term savings.
This spring we publish the 50th edition of the Disability Rights Handbook. It began as a pamphlet about benefits for those affected by the thalidomide scandal but there is a bleak common thread between the first and 50th editions: the link between disability and poverty. It’s time to break that link — not strengthen it, as some seem eager to do.
Kamran Mallick
CEO, Disability Rights UK, London, UK
