Anthony Painter

by Eugene Grant

Few have summed up the somewhat uneasy coexistence between liberal, individual freedoms and intervention by state institutions as well as the world-renowned economist and political philosopher, Amartya Sen. In Development as Freedom, the Nobel prize-winner writes:

“Responsible adults must be in charge of their own wellbeing; it is for them to decide how to use their capabilities. But the capabilities that a person does actually have depend on the nature of social arrangements, which can be crucial for individual freedoms. And there society and the state cannot avoid responsibility.”

Sen’s ‘capability approach’ focuses on capabilities: people’s abilities – or ‘substantive freedoms’, as he puts it – to lead lives they value. Needless to say the measures included in last week’s Emergency Budget will affect the capabilities and substantive freedoms of us all, but to different degrees. Following serious scrutiny and a statement from Robert Chote, Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies, the budget has been officially declared ‘regressive’. Its tax rises and benefits cuts will hit the poorest hardest. To paraphrase Georges Osborne and Orwell: “we’re all in this together, but some are more in it than others”.

However, as the Guardian highlights, the analysis by IFS excluded, among others, cuts to disability benefits – in particular, Disability Living Allowance. In his speech, Osborne proposed to reassess all new and existing DLA claimants, while “improving incentives for work” for others. In terms of value, DLA is to be cut by 20 per cent, as part of the Treasury’s scheme to save £1.75 billion by 2014-15. (The amount of this money that will then be spent on reassessments, expensive appeal processes and benefits for ex-claimants who then go on to other forms of state support remains to be seen.)

To depict DLA as an out-of-work benefit is highly misleading, as it isn’t. DLA is a non-means-tested benefit that helps with the extra costs of living with a disability. Claimants can claim and work at the same time. In fact, around 40 per cent of people with disabilities are working. And yet, as rightly pointed out by Radar, the disability network: “the Budget statement seems to confuse DLA with employment.”

The process of claiming DLA is extremely complex. Applicants must provide extensive, highly detailed information about issues with bodily functions, mobility and personal hygiene. Many recipients require daytime care; others will need supervision during the night; some will be in need of both. Almost half of all claims are refused; recipients can be reassessed at any time.

Studies show that disabled people are twice as likely to live in poverty as their non-disabled counterparts. Indeed, when the costs of living with their impairment are factored in, it is thought that over half of all disabled people in the country could be living in poverty. Being disabled, Sen states, doubles disadvantage: first, it reduces a person’s ability to earn an income – the earning handicap; second, it then diminishes their ability to convert income into good living – the conversion handicap. Those disabled people who have children – especially children who are disabled themselves – struggle with even higher costs: a 2009 survey for Leonard Cheshire Disability showed 75% of disabled people with dependent children live below the poverty line. And yet, current poverty thresholds do not take additional costs or the ‘conversion factor’ into account.

DLA acts as something of a personal budget – people can spend in accordance with their needs – which makes cutting it all the more surprising given the Coalition’s supposed support for them. Such budgets are a perfect example of liberalism in action: they empower citizens, tacitly acknowledging that they know how to spend their money more efficiently and effectively than state professionals acting on their behalf.

In an age of austerity, the most disadvantaged warrant the most protection. The state is responsible for helping those with significantly less power and freedom to use their capabilities in pursuit of their own vision of a good life. There is no easy way to reduce spending on disability benefits; medical reassessments are often ineffective (already there’s a 40% success rate for appeals for another disability benefit: ESA). As noted by the think tank IPPR: “this kind of measure only works if attached to effective support for this group, as well as the availability of suitable jobs to improve employment prospects.”

TH Green, the English philosopher and radical, outlined a basic but powerful progressive test for policy. For any action by government, it should be considered: “Does it liberate individuals by increasing their self-reliance or their ability to add to human progress?” In the case of cutting support for those who need it most: no, it doesn’t.

Eugene Grant is a regular commentator on disability welfare issues and works in public policy.