Ministers unveil ‘right to try’ plan to help disabled people find work | Disability
The government has unveiled a plan to allow disabled people to try working without fear of losing their benefits, but campaigners warn the policy does not go far enough in tackling hostile workplaces.
The legislation, tabled before parliament on Thursday, will mean that people starting work or volunteering will no longer automatically face a reassessment of benefits; potential disabled people said it kept them from trying to find work.
The government said people were “stranded on the benefits system” and afraid to try work for fear of losing their support.
Social Security and Disability Minister Sir Stephen Timms said: “We’re doing this as a reassurance to people, to ease their fears, because it’s become really clear that people want to work but the fear of losing benefits is holding them back.
“We’ve also applied this to volunteering because often that’s a very important first step in getting back to work, and people don’t do that because they’re anxious. But I think we need to do more beyond what we’ve put in this legislation.”
The new “right to try” policy, which will come into force at the end of the month, will apply to employment and support allowance, personal independence payment and universal credit health element claimants.
Disability campaigners welcomed the news but warned it would not be enough to solve the reasons why disabled people struggle to find work.
James Taylor, director of disability charity Scope, said the policy was “a step in the right direction and could remove a real barrier for disabled people wanting to start work”.
But he added: “From inaccessible workplaces to inflexible work, from inadequate support to negative attitudes from employers, people with disabilities are disadvantaged when it comes to finding suitable employment.
“The government must go further and invest in voluntary and personalized employment support for disabled people who are ready to try work, and ignore further cuts to benefits that push disabled people not into work but merely into poverty.”
Research by Timewise, a flexible working nonprofit, found that 2.5% of those economically inactive due to long-term illness or disability return to work each year, and more than half of those jobs last less than four months.
Mikey Erhardt, from Disability Rights UK, said: “These dire statistics show how important it is to have a safe right to try, where those trying to work are guaranteed the same support they had before if things don’t work out.”
He added that disabled people wanted greater assurance from the government that the right to try did not mean they had to return to the system as new claimants or be forced to re-apply.
The announcement comes at the same time as a controversial cut to the health element of universal credit; this cut is halved and frozen for new applicants unless they meet stricter criteria.
“The system, as before, was forcing people to aspire to be classed as too poor to work,” Timms said during a visit to a job center in Walthamstow, north-east London.
Staff there said people had to have a work capacity assessment done earlier to qualify for the higher amount.
Disability campaigners said the cut would penalize people at a time when they are struggling financially.
“In a time of great economic uncertainty, we are seeing a doubling down on ideas that fundamentally don’t work for people with disabilities,” Erhardt said. “For too long successive governments have viewed social security as a threat they could use to push disabled people into the job market, rather than as a safety net designed to support people in times of need. “This approach has always been absurd.
“These new changes to universal credit health mean that hundreds of thousands of disabled people will experience another cut to their standard of living.”
