Disabled and mentally ill people feel 'broken and without hope' over Labour's plans for benefits

As reports continue to emerge about the government’s rumoured plans to cut disability benefits, readers have written to the Big Issue to share their fears for the future.

Nothing has been officially announced yet. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has not released its green paper which will set out its proposals for the welfare system. The Big Issue understands that it will be published next week, ahead of the chancellor’s Spring Statement which will reveal details of spending cuts on 26 March.

However, ministers have repeatedly said that they want to slash the benefits bill and push more people – particularly those who are out of work due to long-term sickness – into employment.

• ‘Being alive is utterly exhausting’: How Covid forced people out of work and onto benefits
• Working from home vital for disabled people to keep a job, DWP told ahead of benefit cuts
• Why are so many people off work sick? Labour told not to forget the pandemic ahead of benefit cuts

A spokesperson for the DWP has told the Big Issue: “Millions of people have been trapped out of work which is why we’re bringing forward reforms to health and disability benefits in the spring, so sick and disabled people are genuinely supported back into work, while being fairer on the taxpayer.”

The DWP has pledged to invest £240m on “the biggest employment reforms in a generation”, with proposals to empower mayors to tackle inactivity, an overhaul of Jobcentres so they focus on skills and careers, and a youth guarantee to ensure young people are either earning or learning.

Benefit claimants and readers of the Big Issue have told us they would “love to work” but that support is “inadequate”. They say the government must first “ensure access to timely and adequate healthcare”, rather than threatening to take away their financial support. Here are their stories.

Distressed people are having to buy into a lie that ‘work will set them free’

Anonymous benefit claimant

I find your piece about impending benefits cuts interesting, not least because I am struggling to understand which employers are actively seeking to employ long-term sick and/or disabled and/or elderly workers. I know that these days no one rules out this type of candidate, but that is not quite the same thing, is it?

I am 65 in May. My total years in work are approximately 42 (started work at 16, time off for study and caring for elderly father and, over the last five years, spouse). My husband died at home at the end of 2023 after two years with terminal oesophageal cancer. I am claiming universal credit and living in social housing. I am subject to deduction for bedroom subsidy but I do get a single person’s reduction on council tax. A small occupational pension is also fully deducted. 

I live simply and can cover most costs. My heating is timed to come on twice a day for a total of four hours at 14 degrees so pipes don’t freeze, my food budget is £20 per week. I consider myself fortunate to receive help via universal credit, which is just about enough to get by. Bus fares to and from interviews and Jobcentre come out of the food budget so I am grateful that my work coach mostly allows me to have my appointments via video link.

I have had several falls, once involving a hospital visit, since my husband’s death. I do not class myself as ill, just a bit wobbly and in a certain amount of pain with legs, feet, knees, hips and lower back most days. I have had three jobs in the last year, two in care and one in an office; all three were highly undesirable jobs in terms of hours, pay and working conditions. Balance and mobility problems and memory issues meant that these jobs did not work out. 

Luckily, my work coach realises that I am doing my best and is happy to let me try jobs until I find the right one, without being sanctioned (so far). I apply for retail, admin and working from home jobs these days for part time work.  I doubt I am physically capable of most retail jobs because of the standing, but I am mandated to apply for 10 jobs per week, so I apply anyway. Sometimes I get interviews. At a recent interview, there was a group of approximately 30 candidates. I was the only one over 35 years old.  We were told that there were 100 jobs to fill and that they had already interviewed 700 candidates. 

We are constantly told that employers are desperate to fill vacancies. Are they truly desperate to fill them with depressed, old, sick, mentally ill, long-term disabled people? Seriously? If the official answer is “yes” we need to dig deeper because this can only be regarded as the truth if the statistics back it up and show that these employers have been actively seeking to employ from these groups.

I suspect that many jobseekers do not want work but have to say they do in order to receive benefits and I also suspect that many employers do not want to employ a high percentage of benefits claimants but also cannot say so because, after all, age is just a number and everyone should look at what people can do, not at their disability.  This would be fine and dandy if jobs were tailored to candidates and disability employment quotas were mandated to employers.  That is unlikely (and possibly undesirable).  Meanwhile, a lot of distressed people are having to buy into the lie that “work will set them free”.

It is another chance for accusations against people on benefits

James

The news that we are having cuts to welfare benefits and getting disabled back to work is another chance for accusations against people on benefits as being lazy and scroungers. The amount of people who are so hateful to people on benefits is shocking. I am shocked by the working class and poorest peoples who come out with these negative stories about others on benefits.

Being heard would be something

Carrie

It is odd to think that, what seems like a handful of years ago, I was voting for Jeremy Corbyn‘s Labour, filled with a (somewhat tentative, somewhat this-seems-too-good-to-be-true) sense of hope. It did turn out to be too good to be true, and a sense of deflation is gradually turning to a sense of horror as Keir Starmer’s Labour pushes through what I was not surprised were Conservative policies, but I feel very let down to discover are Labour policies too. Corbyn did at least mean well. He did at least have integrity, and that seems to be breathtakingly lacking under Starmer.

I am autistic. I can’t stand the word, it seems to imply a lot of things about me that aren’t true. It’s loaded with baggage. It almost seems like a slur. But it’s a useful shorthand, an official diagnosis, a helpful passport to some level of support, however inadequate. I also have a number of mental health conditions.

I want benefits reforms, but the benefits reforms I envisage would look very different. For one thing, they would give me enough to live on. They would meet my basic needs. I am one of the lucky ones. I am on the higher rate of universal credit. This means that, while I still have a lot less money than someone on the minimum wage (about £800 a month less), I am able, by being very careful, to cover my basic needs – a rented room in someone else’s house as a lodger, clothes, books and music subscriptions, going to the gym on rare occasions when my social anxiety and sensitivity to noise and light allow me to summon up the ability. I am trying to live a happy, healthy, full life.

I tried to volunteer four hours a week and when I did, sometimes I’d be sent home, pale as a sheet, utterly overwhelmed. In a paid job I’d have ended up going off sick, or being fired. Just expecting me to get a job, any job, isn’t realistic. Just expecting me to get a job that would involve enough hours for me to support myself financially is a breathtaking level of unrealistic. 

Ideally I’d like to be able to participate more. If I had more money, I could go out more, attend more cultural events, and be more “included”. In short, a less than ideal situation is set to get worse, and I’m worried. I’d love it if people could read what I think and feel about this. Being heard would be something.

I don’t need help with a CV. I need a cheerleader who has my back

Deborah

I am a person in receipt of adult disability payment (previously PIP in Scotland). I am diagnosed with ME/CFS (15 years) which has become worse since Covid and Covid vaccinations. I also suffer from degenerative disc disease and arthritis as well as an autoimmune disease. I am a highly-qualified person with a first class honours degree and three postgraduate qualifications. I want to work. I could work but the nature of my health issues means that my functional capacity to work is limited. 

Flexible working from an understanding employer as well as not having to begin the process of applying for help every time I must leave a job because of a period of sickness would help. I suggest a ‘pause’ button rather than dismissing us from the system so it’s easier to negotiate help when you need it and not having to reapply, or fight to get help every time. I am a qualified counsellor. I would love to work flexibly and also the opportunity for hybrid working. I don’t need help with a CV or interviewing techniques. I need a cheerleader who has my back and can negotiate with employers and learning institutions.

Labour needs to ensure access to timely and adequate healthcare

Mary 

The government needs to first and foremost ensure access to timely and adequate healthcare. People often end up with physical problems compounded by anxiety and depression due to extensive wait for NHS treatment.

I had a breakdown when I started to work full time

David

My mental illness regularly destroyed every attempt to better myself before diagnosis and treatment. I subsequently spent years unemployed. Eventually, after having to go through tribunals, I got support via DLA [disability living allowance]. After years of voluntary work in the local psychiatric unit a friend offered me a part-time job which I took because of the support available from the tax credit system.

Within a year my DLA was reduced and I had to go full time only to suffer another breakdown and was advised by my psychiatrist to go part-time again and my PIP rate was increased again. Covid leads to liquidation and redundancy then a new job. This employer however feels they cannot make adaptations for me due to other staff pressures. With being moved to universal credit, I lost £90 a week support and my eligibility to NHS costs.

It is disgraceful the way the government treats people on benefits

Sarah

The courses that I have been on made me ill and the work programme I was on led me to breakdown, depression and suicidal tendencies. It is disgraceful the way the government treats people. It’s sad that the truth every time someone gets to be the government, they lie. A few years ago, I had breast cancer and still I suffer from the surgery. It is unfair.

It has left me feeling distraught, broken, terrified

Anonymous benefit claimant

I am a survivor of child abuse. I was just about coping before the government decided to threaten my survival and trigger every single one of my earlier traumas by threatening to take my only possible income away-and by using language that is clearly intended to make people like me feel that we are completely without value. I’ve fought to survive so much and for what? Just so that the government can leave me feeling distraught, broken, terrified, worthless and completely without hope in the most cruel, irresponsible and unnecessary ways.

If you are struggling with your mental health, call Samaritans for free on 116 123, email jo@samaritans.org or visit samaritans.org for useful resources and advice on coping.

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