Does Jeremy Hunt want to work the disabled to death?

What would the late Stephen Smith have made of reports that the government plans to save £4bn for the nation by threatening to cut the support given to some of Britain’s most ill and disabled people?

Smith – a 64-year-old with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, osteoarthritis and an enlarged prostate that left him in chronic pain – made headlines in 2019 after a workplace capability assessment judged him fit to work. As a result, his employment support allowance (ESA) payments were stopped, and he was required to sign on to receive a £67-a-week jobseeker’s allowance. To qualify for that, he needed to visit a JobCentrePlus in person every week, to prove he was indeed looking for work.

Horrifying pictures emerged of Smith emaciated in hospital with a bout of pneumonia. His weight had dropped to six stone and he was barely able to walk, let alone attend an appointment with his job coach to discuss what work he should do. He died before the year was out.

Smith’s case was even more bleak than the storyline of Ken Loach’s award-winning film, I, Daniel Blake, in which a hard-working builder recovering from a severe heart attack struggles to negotiate a callous and unfeeling benefits system, and gets it badly wrong.

Now, it seems, Jeremy Hunt wants to make things even worse.

As part of next week’s autumn statement, the chancellor is set to reveal plans to penalise people who “coast” on benefits – his word – if they refuse to get a job. That includes the disabled.

He wants claimants who have been deemed fit to work to accept a job or undertake relevant work experience – or else be hit with an “immediate sanction”. Such measures include stopping free prescriptions and dental treatment, cheaper mobile phone packages and help with energy bills, all of which are currently available to the long-term sick.

According to the government’s own promotional video issued ahead of the autumn statement, this is all about “fairness for the taxpayer”. But to many, this is not a fiscal matter concerned with clawing back money for the Treasury; sanctioning those individuals who pocketed billions for unusable PPE, and properly taxing non-doms, would raise several times the cash of a clampdown on the disabled during a cost-of-living crisis.

At heart, this is a chance for the government to shine a light on the “extras” given to the needy, and creating another wedge issue ahead of the coming election. On the doorstep, it would be divisive stuff. (Have you heard about all the things your disabled neighbour gets for free? Vote for us, we’ll put an end to it…)

And where would Hunt’s cost-cutting drive leave a Stephen Smith? You may say that case was at the extreme end. But there are plenty of people who are still very sick and/or disabled who may suddenly find themselves caught by thanks thanks to another of the government’s benefits reform. Read on and you will say why I would use the word “vicious” to describe it.

Tucked away within the benefits system overhaul is, at least, a smidgen of good news: the hated fitness-for-work test that Smith and the fictional Blake both “passed” is now slated to be scrapped.

Clearly, it hasn’t worked well. Per the latest Ministry of Justice statistics for January to March 2023, one in every two ESA appeals are upheld.

Mel Stride, who retained his position as work and pensions secretary in the recent reshuffle, has put the figure for the number on benefits and inactive due to a long-term condition at 2.5 million. He is formulating plans to not just scrap the test, but to scrap ESA altogether. In future, job coaches will be asked to assess what people can do, rather than what they can’t.

In the meantime, the stream of horror stories such as Smith’s keep coming. There was the student from Ormesby St Michael, near Great Yarmouth, with a severe form of cystic fibrosis, who reported that his ability to use a satnav saw him stripped of his Motability car. Or how about the Deeside woman receiving chemotherapy for stage-four Hodgkin’s lymphoma who was denied jobseeker’s allowance? Countless tales abound on the internet.

Louise Rubin, head of policy at disability charity Scope, is concerned that, with the government’s policy shift to encourage more disabled people into work, there will be more coming. “We’re worried these proposals will end up forcing huge numbers of disabled people to look for work when they aren’t well enough, making them more ill. If they don’t meet strict conditions, they’ll have their benefits stopped.

“While the flawed work-capability assessment should be scrapped, the government must not replace one out-of-touch test with another. Rushing these proposals through during a cost of living crisis is deeply unhelpful.”

Rubin does not deny that some people on ESA are actually keen to work and might benefit from “tailored, flexible employment support”. Apparently, there are people within the DWP who are sharp enough to see the potential problems with the proposed new set-up, and who have been making that case. But support costs money, and that will inevitably reduce the savings that Stride – and the Treasury – is hoping to make. Savings that would help provide the fiscal headroom needed for the government to offer a pre-election tax cut, which is what this is really all about, isn’t it?

With the government’s proposals likely to be phased in, any new system set to be imposed on new claimants first. However, it will probably be for a future administration to deal with the inevitable rash of stories, like that of Smith’s, that it throws up. There will be many. Some might be as horrifying as his.

Perhaps this is not just about creating fiscal headroom on the backs of some of Britain’s most vulnerable people. There is, lurking within this, the seeds of a very nasty political trap.