So you think there’s no harm in tormenting the long-term sick, minister?

The government’s fondness for announcing new ways to make life harder for disabled people proves what I have long believed, says James Moore – that there is a streak of ableism running through this rotten administration… and they don’t care who knows it

Work and pensions secretary Mel Stride’s latest idea, the WorkWell scheme, ‘has gone down like a tuna milkshake’ (PA Wire)

Is ableism now official government policy? I ask as a disabled person blindsided by the seemingly limitless cruelty – and the Conservatives’ fervour – involved in ending what it has termed Britain’s “sick-note culture”.

To put a stop to what they see as a rise in people being unnecessarily parked on welfare, the work and pensions secretary Mel Stride and his team have dreamt up some peculiarly dastardly ideas about how to make it harder to claim disability benefit: replacing cash payments with vouchers; a review of payments to people with mental health conditions; and rethinking the personal independence payment scheme.

Far from being linked to an ability to look for work, PIP is received by three million disabled people to help with the extra living costs involved with a long-term physical or mental health condition. But what does that matter? Stride’s punitive proposals focus-group well in Tory heartlands and with ordinary voters squeezed by the government’s cost-of-living crisis, a fact that may not be entirely coincidental.

Earlier today, Stride, a close confidant of the prime minister Rishi Sunak, did a media round to announce WorkWell, a new pilot scheme offering support services including physiotherapy and counselling to help people overcome health-related barriers to stay in or return to the workforce. If successful in the 15 areas it is being trialled, it will nationwide next year, to "help thousands with health conditions get back to enjoying the benefits of work".

The plans have so far gone down like a tuna milkshake. In fact, Stride’s interviews to launch the new initiative were such car crashes, he appeared to be the one in need of immediate assistance.

On Good Morning Britain, Susanna Reid confronted the minister with some uncomfortable realities, raising the issue of a woman told she would have to wait 18 months for a hip replacement. Her condition had left her in “crippling pain” and was preventing her from working. Reid asked: “How is a WorkWell job coach going to help somebody in that situation?” Stride dribbled on about workplace adaptations that could be made by her employer, but as Reid pointed out: “She’s in crippling pain!”

Reid put it to him that the real problem here are the government’s record waiting lists. Almost eight million people are in the queue for operations.

You want to solve the problem of Britain’s sickly workforce? Invest in the NHS. Attacking disabled people and railing against an alleged “sick-note culture” is a cynical attempt to divert attention from uncomfortable facts about the state of the service. Satisfaction with the NHS in 2010, when the coalition government took office, was the highest since records. Today, it is at the lowest.

Stride repeatedly claimed that people with health conditions and/or disabilities are at present taken on a “healthcare journey” that inevitably leads to a life on benefits, a statement I found deeply offensive.

My “healthcare journey” saw me back at work within a couple of weeks of leaving hospital after an accident that very nearly killed me and left me with a shattered body.

Like many disabled people, I wanted to stay in work. But I had two big advantages over most disabled people. The first was that my employer was willing to facilitate my working full-time from home.

And despite what has been claimed, especially in this era of hybrid working, most employers aren’t – as professor Kim Hoque explained before a Parliamentary committee last week.

“If you actually look at the percentage of jobs that are actually advertised as working from home in the UK, it is minimal,” Hoque said. He described how one of his colleagues had looked at the DWP’s “Find a Job” website – the first port of call for people sent to see one of Stride’s job coaches. Out of 129,000 listings on the site, Hoque’s colleague identified just 0.5 per cent that were fully remote. Some 2.75 per cent were listed as hybrid. Hoque also argued that the government’s flagship “Disability Confident” scheme had made almost “no difference” to the employment prospects of disabled people. Preach!

This morning, Stride also talked about making more mental health support availed to people with disabling mental health conditions. But getting NHS help for those can prove to be even harder. I found it less stressful to pay for the ongoing support I needed following an accident.

But, then, this isn’t really about helping disabled people with their issues, either physical or mental. It isn’t about making things fairer. And WellWork isn’t about helping employers tweak the office layouts to enable disabled staff to continue in role. No, this is a thinly disguised assault on a vulnerable group in the hope of raising funds to pay for the tax cuts they need to offer in the election manifesto.

Stride’s little local difficulties during his morning media round coincided with the resurfacing of an unfortunate old clip of a Tory backbencher saying the quiet part out loud.

Footage of Hastings MP Sally-Ann Hart telling an election hustings in 2019 that “some people with learning difficulties, they don’t understand about money”, while going on to argue for a “therapeutic exemption” from the minimum wage – admittedly, to horrified gasps – has re-emerged on X (formerly Twitter).

But what is the destination of this grim political journey that this government is on? One where it is acceptable to vilify disabled people, to suggest we’re all “at it”, conning GPs so that we can take sickies and live the “high life” on benefits?

The ableism within this administration is naked. It is ugly. And it is frightening to those of us on the receiving end. I can only hope, when it comes to the election, we don’t let them get away with it.