UK: Disabled People Should Work From Home or Lose Benefits

Critics slam 'nasty' Conservative Party
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 22, 2023 2:18 PM CST
UK: Disabled People Should Work From Home or Lose Benefits
Britain's Chancellor of the Exchequer Jeremy Hunt walks to his car holding the Autumn Statement booklet outside No 11 Downing Street, in London, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 2023.   (Stefan Rousseau/Pool Photo via AP)

Critics of the UK's ruling Conservative Party say welfare reforms unveiled Wednesday show why it is nicknamed the "nasty party." Under the new plan, disabled people, including people with mobility or mental health issues, will be instructed to look for work they can do from home or face having their benefits cut by almost $6,000 per year, the Guardian reports. Jeremy Hunt, the country's Treasury chief, said it was "wrong economically and wrong morally" for more than 100,000 people a year with illness or disability to be placed on benefits with no requirement to look for a job, reports the Times of London.

Official say they plan to use digital tools to track attendance at interviews and careers fairs. Critics, including charities for people with disabilities, criticized the plan as ill thought-out, noting that the number of work-from-home jobs has dropped sharply since the end of the pandemic. "Everyone should be able to work if they want to and can, but this latest government move looks sets to punish disabled people, adding more anxiety on to disabled households that are already struggling," said Sarah White, the head of policy at disability charity Sense, per the Guardian.

Rachel Reeves of the opposition Labour Party accused the government of ignoring the "wider problem" of high rates of long-term illness and long National Health Service waiting lists, reports Sky News. "Britain is the only country in the G7 where the employment rate still has not returned to pre-pandemic levels," she said. Hunt said Wednesday that the British economy has "turned a corner" and the government is bringing in the biggest tax cuts since the 1980s, the AP reports. But despite the cuts, taxation is still on course to reach its highest level since World War II, with more people moving into tax brackets that have been frozen for years. (More United Kingdom stories.)

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