#Disability Benefits

By Mel

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The UK government has proposed significant reforms to disability benefits, aiming to reduce welfare expenditure and encourage employment among individuals with disabilities.

These measures have sparked considerable debate regarding their potential impact on the disabled community.

At first, when you read that, you think this could be a good thing, that it might encourage more young people who don't claim benefits. They might think it's encouraging rather than claiming benefits.

But, what about the other side of it? People who have disabilities that stop them from working? Did they ask to have these struggles? I think not!

I can understand that the possible purpose of this could be to stop people who are not disabled from claiming benefits. But why should the people who are disabled have to suffer anymore? There are many other ways to go about doing this, such as having a more structured program to determine who needs these benefits to help them live. 

To understand more about why the government is making this decision, I decided to read some articles about it. The more I read, the more it pushed me to stick to my opinion that it was a bad idea. 

One of those reasons is a statement I read from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, “The necessity of overhauling the sickness benefit system to prevent a wasted generation of young people”. 

When I read that, my first thought was, do they think that the current generation is a waste? If that’s true, then why don’t they provide more support for people and then we can resolve two issues in one. 

Charities and backbenchers express concerns about the potential adverse effects on disabled individuals. Sixteen disability and poverty charities have warned that cutting disability benefits could have "catastrophic" consequences, urging the government to prioritise meaningful reforms over arbitrary spending cuts. - Source from The Times.

This is where I wanted to add in how I will be affected, just to give some insight into one of the millions of people’s lives that are going to be affected by this choice if it goes ahead. 

I suffer from non-epileptic seizures, also known as functional seizures or dissociative seizures. This is NOT epilepsy as many would think or assume it to be. And because of that, they assume that because it’s not epilepsy, it isn’t a disability and won’t stop you from working.

In my eyes and many others, it is a disability, and yes, it can stop you from working. For example, I cannot drive as my seizures cannot be helped by medication like they can help people with epilepsy. 

My brother was diagnosed with epilepsy a few years before my seizures started, and he went forward to get the medication, and now he is out living his life, has a job and can drive and travel. 

That’s what I long to have, just to be able to go out for a drive and get away from reality for a bit. Going to unique places that you can’t get to with a bus or train, or having to rely on family and friends to give you lifts. 

One of the many reasons people with functional seizures cannot work is that the seizures occur suddenly and without warning, making it difficult to maintain a stable work routine. Jobs that involve driving, operating machinery, or working at heights become especially dangerous.

As the government moves forward with these reforms, it faces the critical challenge of ensuring that efforts to reduce welfare expenditures do not disproportionately harm some of society's most vulnerable members.

To help this, we can write to our local MPs to help open up a conversation about the current problems we face as a nation. We can engage with community organizations, advocacy groups, and representatives of vulnerable populations to gather their input and insights. This can help in designing reforms that are more inclusive and less likely to cause harm.​