Under the Tories, attempted suicides by disability benefit claimants have doubled – why won’t Theresa May scrap the work capability assessment?

I can understand why many people might have reacted to Theresa May’s Christmas message by saying, “Please, would you just put a sock in it” – but in the light of some figures released today, what she said is worthy of scrutiny.

The Prime Minister took the opportunity of the festive season to gush about this nation’s “Christian heritage” while highlighting the “values” of the religion: values that she says all Britons should share. They are “love, service and compassion” in case you wondered.

These are the things, she opined, that we should take pride in getting behind as a nation.

Which brings us to the figures I spoke of. They come from NHS surveys and are reported on by The Independent today.

The first set of them were put together in 2007, a year before the controversial Work Capability Assessment (WCA) test began. They showed that 21 per cent of the incapacity benefit claimants who took part had attempted suicide, a rate more than 20 per cent compared to a nationwide figure of 6 per cent.

However, a repeat conducted in 2014 showed that number had more than doubled, with the figure reaching a shocking 47 per cent for female claimants.

That’s right: 47 per cent, nearly one out of every two women claimants. I actually had to look at The Independent’s report twice to make sure I was reading it correctly when I first saw that. Sadly, I was. It’s all there in black and white. But what caused this?

In the intervening period between the two surveys, the previous Labour government introduced a new assessment process (in 2008), replacing Incapacity Benefit (IB) with Employment & Support Allowance (ESA).

This was controversial and had some significant problems. Far from acting to correct them, however, the subsequent Conservative and Conservative-led governments embraced the regime. This was despite a growing body of evidence that the testing process was so stressful and humiliating that it was permanently damaging the mental health of a large number of those subjected to it.

These people, remember, had (and still have) disabilities or health conditions that severely limit their ability to work full time. They make up a distinct and particularly vulnerable subset of Britain’s disabled community. There are lots of disabled people who qualify for the Personal Independent Payment (which has its own problematic testing regime) who don’t come close to qualifying for ESA, by way of explanation.

That would have been bad enough, but the Tories, living up to their reputation as the “nasty party”, added some additional cruelties of their own into the toxic mix.

I highlighted some of them in a column in February, in the wake of a damning report by the all-party Work & Pensions Committee. It lambasted cuts imposed on new claimants who make it through the application and appeals process (the success rate of the latter is running at more than 60 per cent).

It also questioned the logic behind the vindictive policy of forcing large numbers of them to attend “work-like activities” at Job Centre Plus branches.

Given all that, I shudder to think what the proportion of claimants attempting suicide may be when the next set of figures is collected in 2021 – always assuming someone isn’t leaned upon to move the goalposts before the field work is conducted.

It’s worth meditating on this at a time when people like May are telling us that we should be proud of our country, and that we should see the recent announcement of the re-introduction of a passport in Tory blue as part of that.

Some of the disabled people who have attempted suicide have succeeded. Actually, “some” isn’t quite the right word. Previously released Department for Work & Pensions statistics, for example, put the number of people declared “fit for work” and thus ineligible for ESA, who died between December 2011 and February 2014, at 2,380. Not all of them were, of course, suicides, but the figure, which amounts to more than 90 a month, is still telling.

Again, please tell me how I am expected to be proud of a “Christian” nation that treats some of its most vulnerable people with a cruelty that is so at odds with the message of love we keep being told is at the core of its holy book?

Dare I ask: what would Jesus make of this? Would our vicar’s daughter of a Prime Minister care to offer me an answer?

Is this really a Christian nation as most people would understand the concept? Or is it one that more closely resembles a Christmas Carol Goes Wrong, in which a female Ebenezer Scrooge kicks Tiny Tim’s crutch away, spits on him and then says, “Get you down to the workhouse in double quick time because you’re not really disabled, cripple.”

Despite the mounting weight of criticism, data, and that appalling death toll, May’s “Christian” Cabinet just ploughs on, and ploughs through every disabled person who has the misfortune of living here in the process.

Those noxious blue passports we’re supposed to be cheering from the rooftops? Thousands of disabled Britons will be dead before they ever get the chance to apply for the bloody things as a result of this Government’s policies.

What good are “compassion” and “Christian values” when set against that?

As for Pride? I’d invite our Prime Minister to put a sock in it.