TUC says no to government’s new disability alliance

Disabled trade unionists have refused to join the government’s new “alliance” of organisations interested in disability, because they say it will restrict their ability to campaign against coalition policies.

The Office for Disability Issues claims that about 90 disability, public, voluntary and private sector organisations have joined its Disability Action Alliance (DAA), which aims to identify actions and activities that can “make a difference to the lives of disabled people” at local and national level.

Disability Rights UK, which is convening DAA, says the alliance will advise on “implementation” of government policy and focus on how existing policies could be improved at a local level.

Disabled people’s organisations signed up so far include Equalities National Council, People First (Self Advocacy) and the National Survivor User Network. The government has yet to publish a full list.

But the TUC’s Disabled Workers’ Committee (DWC) said this week that it had decided not to accept a government invitation to join DAA.

DWC said that joining the alliance would restrict the TUC’s ability to campaign against government policies that were affecting disabled people.

Sean McGovern, DWC’s chair, said unions had been working with disabled people to challenge the government’s “brutal and inhumane cuts”, including the closure of the Independent Living Fund, the replacement of working-age disability living allowance with personal independence payment, and the “bedroom tax”.

He said: “Every single one of these changes is punishing and impoverishing disabled people and their families.

“Joining this government-inspired alliance now would be to pretend that none of this is happening.”

He added: “We want to see all disabled people and the organisations that represent them continuing to oppose government policy and not conned into becoming part of the problem rather than part of the solution.”

A Department for Work and Pensions spokeswoman said: “It’s disappointing that the TUC have chosen not to join around 90 other organisations that make up the alliance so far, and who want to work together to make a real difference to the lives of disabled people.

“The membership agreement that we ask organisations to read before they sign up states very clearly that, although organisations should not campaign or lobby ‘in the name of the alliance’, this would not affect them campaigning or lobbying in their own right.”

27 March 2013

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Just three Remploy factories could be left when the dust settles

Plans to remove all government funding from Remploy’s sheltered factories could leave just three of them operating in the private sector or as social enterprises, with the loss of hundreds more jobs.

Only four years ago, there were 83 factories spread across the UK, but Remploy announced today that staff at nearly all of those still left were now at risk of redundancy.

Remploy said in a company statement that another 875 employees – 682 of them disabled people – had been told they faced losing their jobs.

The unions attacked the announcement, with Unite describing it as “cruel, callous and calculated”, and the TUC calling it “heartless”.

The last government closed 29 Remploy factories in 2008, while the coalition announced in March that it was closing a further 36 by the end of 2012 – with the funds used to subsidise the factories to be ploughed instead into more personalised forms of employment support – although it said some of the other 18 could be saved.

But Remploy said in today’s statement that only three of the remaining 18 factories – the automotive business operating in Coventry, Birmingham and Derby – were “viable” and had the potential to move out of government control as a going concern.

Factories in Huddersfield, Porth, Heywood, Dundee, Stirling, Clydebank, Norwich, Portsmouth, Burnley and Sunderland have all been found “not viable” and have been “proposed for closure”, with all their staff now at risk of redundancy.

Furniture factories in Neath, Sheffield and Blackburn, and marine textiles factories in Leven and Cowdenbeath could still be sold, but Remploy suggested that they could struggle to find buyers.

These changes could leave just the three automotive factories in operation by next October, although negotiations are also continuing with bidders for two of the first 36 factories originally earmarked for closure.

In addition, Remploy is hoping to sell its CCTV business – and its 27 current contracts – but these staff have also been told they are at risk of redundancy.

Esther McVey, the Conservative minister for disabled people, told MPs today that the government had committed £8 million in support for those disabled Remploy employees made redundant.

She said the government was working with Remploy’s own Employment Services division, as well as local and national employers, and the Business Disability Forum, to offer “targeted work opportunities for disabled people”.

This could include guaranteed job interviews, work trials, training, mock interviews, and training for employers in how to make adjustments for staff with particular impairments.

McVey said that of the 1,349 disabled people made redundant so far through the closure programme, 875 had “expressed an interest in returning to work” and were using the government support package, with just under 15 per cent – about 130 – of them now in work.

She said: “It is one of our top priorities to maximise employment opportunities for the Remploy factory-leavers.”

But Len McCluskey, Unite’s general secretary, said the process of selling off the factories had been “a shambles”, while his members were not receiving the support they had been promised to help them back into work.

He said: “Once again, this reveals a heartless and calculating government, putting cost-cutting before the real needs and employment prospects of disabled workers. It is a national disgrace.”

Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, added: “This is a heartless decision by a government that has shown very little interest in protecting the livelihoods of severely disabled people who need support both in and out of work.”

6 December 2012

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Labour conference: Members hear support call for the ‘Hardest Hit’

Labour party members have been urged to support protest events being led by disabled people who are “fighting back” against the government cuts and reforms that will push them deeper into poverty and exclusion.

The call from the party conference platform came from Dave Allan, general secretary of Labour’s disabled members group and a member of the union Unite.

He praised the thousands of disabled activists who took part in the TUC’s anti-cuts protest in March, and the national Hardest Hit demonstration in Westminster in May, and called for party members to “support disabled people and carry on the fight-back” against welfare reforms, and cuts to benefits and services for disabled people.

A series of regional anti-cuts protests, organised by disabled people’s organisations and disability charities as part of the Hardest Hit campaign, will take place across the UK on Saturday 22 October.

During a short equalities debate, held on the final morning of the conference, Allan attacked the coalition’s “empty promises” to disabled people.

And he attacked cuts such as closing the Independent Living Fund to new claimants, reducing support that helps disabled people with their mortgage interest payments, and new restrictions to the Access to Work scheme.

Allan said planned cuts to spending on disability living allowance, and proposals to replace it with a new benefit – included in the government’s welfare reform bill – were “particularly pernicious”, and would lead to many disabled people losing their jobs.

He said the “real barriers” facing disabled people were in “access to decent and well-paid employment, transport, education, care and health and social services”, and that discrimination was “the main barrier for disabled people to find work”.

Earlier in the debate, the shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper briefly mentioned disabled people.

She pointed to the government’s decisions to block implementation of key parts of Labour’s Equality Act and to target disabled people for “hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts… not through helping them into work, but through Treasury-driven targets against the vital support they need to live their lives.”

The regional Hardest Hit protests on 22 October have been planned for nine English regions, as well as Belfast, Cardiff and Edinburgh, and are being organised by the UK Disabled People’s Council and members of the Disability Benefits Consortium.

The English events will take place in Birmingham, Brighton, Bristol, Leeds, London, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich and Nottingham.

The previous day, disabled people and other activists across the country will be lobbying their MPs at their weekly constituency surgeries.

The protests have been timed to coincide with the progress of the welfare reform bill through the House of Lords.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Sayce employment support review: Access to Work scheme ‘is key’

The government should double the number of people receiving support through the Access to Work (ATW) scheme, according to the author of a major review of disabled people’s employment support programmes.

Liz Sayce, chief executive of RADAR, said ATW – which provides funding for adaptations and equipment at work – was “highly cost-effective” and a key part of helping disabled people to find, keep and stay in jobs.

And she called at the review’s launch in north London for efforts to increase awareness of ATW among disabled people and employers, so it becomes a “well-recognised passport to successful employment”.

Sayce said: “We want to see ATW turn from government’s best-kept secret into something that is really well-known.”

But her recommendations come as there are increasing concerns over reports of disabled people facing tighter eligibility criteria when they try to claim ATW.

Last month, the TUC’s disability conference heard that ATW was under serious threat as a result of the financial crisis and government spending cuts.

Also last month, Disability News Service revealed that government statistics showed the number of “new customers” granted ATW funding fell sharply in the first three quarters of 2010-11.

Sayce told Disability News Service: “RADAR have certainly picked up concerns about eligibility being tightened.”

She said she believed there should be a focus on “driving down the costs of products and services” obtained through ATW, and the costs of assessments.

Mike Adams, chief executive of Essex Coalition of Disabled People, who was a member of the review’s scrutiny panel, said his organisation had surveyed members about ATW and found that “when it worked it worked really well and when it didn’t work it was terrible”.

He said there were real concerns over tightening eligibility, with new claimants finding it tougher to claim but also evidence of disabled people having their existing ATW packages reduced when they were reviewed.

He added: “We are finding that people are saying it is harder to access Access to Work.”

But he said he also agreed with the need to drive down the cost of services and equipment obtained through ATW funding.

And he said he particularly welcomed Sayce’s call for the government to work with user-led organisations to provide peer support and services – including assessments – for people using ATW.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

TUC disability conference: Cuts are ‘threatening disabled people’s work support’

The future of the support that allows disabled people to find and keep work is under serious threat as a result of the financial crisis and government spending cuts, disabled trade unionists have heard.

The TUC’s annual disability conference heard from a string of activists who attacked the cuts to public sector spending and the government’s planned welfare reforms.

But one activist warned that threats to the Access to Work (ATW) scheme had so far not received enough attention from campaigners, who had focused instead on cuts to benefits such as disability living allowance (DLA).

Peter Milliken, from the education union ATL, claimed the government wanted to “decimate” ATW.

He said his own ability to work full-time, through a support worker part-funded by ATW, could be at risk.

He said: “If I lose that support I will not be able to work full-time. I know DLA is getting a huge amount of publicity but it is important for people to be very aware that ATW is at very great risk.”

The conference also heard that employers – both in the private and public sectors – were increasingly flouting their legal duties to make reasonable adjustments for their disabled staff.

Saraka Keating, from the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, said there appeared to be an “increased willingness by some NHS and other employers to ignore their obligations to make reasonable adjustments”.

She said one disabled physiotherapist had been told he could not bring his guide dog to work, even though as a patient he was allowed to bring it onto the same premises.

She added: “They said if he couldn’t adapt they would sack him. This employer’s attitude is they would be perfectly happy to face a case at tribunal and take the hit if they lose it rather than make the necessary adjustments and keep the physio in employment.”

Michelle Williams, of the NASUWT teaching union, said she detected “a new selfishness” among employers, who were beginning to “challenge reasonable adjustments”.

She said unions must “protect disabled employees and their employment rights” and “end this new selfishness before it takes hold”.

Roland Zollner, from FDA, the public service union, said employers were targeting the workplace support that disabled employees needed to keep their jobs now that the “hard times” had begun to bite.

One after another, delegates to the conference attacked the government’s spending cuts and their disproportionate impact on disabled people.

Berni McCrea, from Unite, Britain’s biggest union, called on the TUC to produce a report on the impact of the cuts on disabled people, and for protest action later this year on or around the International Day of Disabled People in early December.

She said: “We have to stop these devastating cuts and show this government that we will not stand for their bullying tactics.”

Earlier, the conference had heard from the disabled Labour MP Dame Anne Begg, who said that the government’s suggestion – on its Red Tape Challenge website – that the Equality Act could be scrapped had “sent chills down my body”.

She said that to even contemplate scrapping the act and to realise that it was now “perceived as a burden to business, as a piece of tape” was “fairly frightening”.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

TUC disability conference: Activists draw parallels with Nazi Germany

Union activists have drawn disturbing parallels between the hostility being experienced by disabled benefits claimants and the events that led to the murder of tens of thousands of disabled people in Nazi Germany.

Delegates to the TUC’s annual disability conference were told how disabled people in Nazi concentration camps had been forced to wear black triangles “because they couldn’t produce anything” and were “useless eaters”.

The Nazi Aktion-T4 programme is believed to have led to the targeted killing of as many as 200,000 disabled people, and possibly many more, and became the blueprint for the “Final Solution”, through which the Nazis hoped to wipe out Jews, gay people and other minority groups.

Sasha Callaghan, from the University and College Union, a founder member of Black Triangle, which campaigns against the government’s cuts to disability benefits, said headlines in UK newspapers about “benefit cheats” and “work-shy” disabled people had echoes of Nazi Germany.

She showed delegates a series of negative headlines in newspapers gathered over just a few days last autumn.

Only last month, disabled activists demonstrated outside the offices of the Daily Mail to protest about the newspaper’s “disablist” and “defamatory” coverage of the government’s push to force people off incapacity benefits.

They claimed the stories and their “lurid” and “sensationalist” headlines – such as “76 % of those who say they’re sick ‘can work’” – labelled disabled people as cheats and scroungers and fuelled hate crime.

Berni McCrea, from Unite, Britain’s biggest union, said she believed the attitude towards disabled people demonstrated by the headlines shown by Callaghan “suits the government very nicely”, and added: “It is very evident that there is a softening-up process.”

She said Callaghan had described “very well what happens when people are softened up and hated… What happened in Germany in the early 30s. I do think we must take it very, very seriously.”

Stephen Brookes, a coordinator of the Disability Hate Crime Network and an NUJ delegate and member of the TUC disability committee, said the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s inquiry into disability-related harassment had produced so much evidence – 15,000 pages – that its completion had been delayed.

Brookes said the inquiry had shown a “systematic failure in all areas”, including by housing organisations and citizens advice bureaux, which showed the need to “work together”.

He said there was a need for better training around disability hate crime, as well as efforts to tackle complacency, such as the tolerance of abuse in care homes and hospitals.

He called for disabled people to work together to increase the reporting of hate crime. And he attacked the government over its commitment to tackling the issue.

He said: “It was a government priority and Maria Miller [the minister for disabled people] still says that disability hate crime is a priority and goes round visiting projects… before pulling the money from them.”

Meanwhile, a new report by Essex Coalition of Disabled People identifies key areas that need to be addressed in tackling disability hate crime.

The report calls for greater understanding, with education focused on disabled people, professionals and wider society; better services to support disabled victims; and improved reporting procedures.

But the coalition’s “primary recommendation” is that these areas can best be addressed by a user-led organisation working in partnership with the police and other agencies.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Equality 2025’s new chair pledges to keep disability ‘at top of agenda’

The new chair of the government’s advisory body of disabled people has pledged to ensure disability remains “at the top of the agenda” as public sector spending cuts begin to bite.

Dr Rachel Perkins said she was “delighted” to be appointed to chair Equality 2025, and said the advice body would need to “continually look at the implications for disabled people in all of the reforms”.

The clinical psychologist carried out a well-received review in 2009 for the Labour government on helping people with mental health conditions into work.

Last summer, she was Mind’s “champion of the year” in its mental health awards, and also received an OBE for services to mental health.

Perkins said the role of Equality 2025 was to examine the implications of policies for disabled people and “maybe suggest alternatives that are less damaging” and “ways that things could be changed”.

She added: “We do have to make sure that issues facing disabled people… remain at the forefront of people’s agenda.”

But she stressed that she did not believe that ministers in the coalition government were any more guilty of failing to recognise the implications of their policies on disabled people than those in previous governments.

When asked whether she had joined the TUC’s mass march and rally against the cuts, she said she had spent the weekend writing, away from London, although her partner had taken part.

But she added: “I would have been there if I had been in London. I do think there are concerns.”

Shortly afterwards, she added: “I don’t know whether I would have been there.”

She made it clear that Equality 2025 was now – following changes made last year which reduced membership from a maximum of 25 disabled people to just eight – a “strategic advisory group”, providing advice to ministers and senior officials “at the very early stages of policy development”.

She said it was no longer an “outward-facing” group that provided a “conduit” for disabled people to feed their opinions to the government.

And she repeated the views of her predecessor, Rowen Jade, who told Disability News Service last year – following criticism of the body’s low profile – that its advice to government had to remain private and confidential.

But Perkins added: “There is no way that Equality 2025 replaces the role of disabled people’s organisations. It has a different role and that is providing that early confidential advice that means it cannot be public.

“If you want impact on policy at that early stage it is confidential and… has to remain that way.”

Perkins pointed to the significance of someone living with a mental health condition securing such a prominent role and said she was “absolutely convinced” that the disability movement needed to encompass the “full range of disabled people”, which was “something I have been writing and speaking about for a long time”.

She also said that too much of the dialogue about mental health centred on “treatment and needs” rather than “rights and access”.

She said: “I really do feel the social model rights to citizenship is absolutely the way we have to look at people facing the full range of impairments.

“We have to help government to see that they have to look at the full range of our experiences.”

She also paid tribute to Rowen Jade, who was much mourned across the disability movement when she died last September.

She said Jade was “an amazing woman” and would be an “incredibly difficult act to follow”, but that she hoped to build on her work.

Perkins said her first task as chair was to work with her fellow members on a work plan for the next year, but she said she could not yet say what those priorities might be.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

TUC protest: Disabled people play part in march and rally

Disabled people came from all over the UK to play their part in a mass protest organised by the TUC against the government’s spending cuts.

Many were there to protest against cuts to disability benefits and other aspects of the government’s welfare reforms, while others were angry about the impact on inclusive education, and cuts to local services and support.

Leading figures in the disability movement joined representatives of the new disabled people’s anti-cuts movement, individual disabled people, trade union members and carers.

The many disabled people’s organisations represented included Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Black Triangle, People First (Self Advocacy), Disability History Month and the London Autistic Rights Movement.

Estimates for the number of protesters who took part in the march from London’s Embankment to Hyde Park ranged from 250,000 to 500,000. Although it is impossible to guess how many of them were disabled, scores of people joined a “safe” area for disabled people near the front of the march.

Tara Flood, director of the Alliance for Inclusive Education, said she was on the march to “tell the government that we are not going to accept the cuts that they are imposing on us or the return to the bad old days of segregation”.

She added: “People are not going to just sit back and let our services be destroyed and let disabled people’s lives be damaged beyond repair.”

Youcef Bey-Zekkoub, who was representing the accessible transport charity Transport for All, said he was on the march to show that accessible transport “is really important for disabled people like myself. My message to the government is they have to think again about these cuts. Especially about access for disabled people.”

The writer and performer Penny Pepper said she had taken part “because we have to be counted against the savage attacks against disabled people’s lives”.

She said: “We are seen as easy to target. We have to show that we are not easy and that we have a voice.”

Peter Purton, the TUC’s disability policy officer, said disabled people were the “worst affected” by the cuts, including disability benefit reforms, the loss of public sector jobs, and cuts to legal aid. He said he was “delighted” that so many disability groups had taken part in the protest.

The Labour MP Dame Anne Begg said she had taken part in the protest to show “solidarity” and that “there is an alternative and we know that the priorities of this government are wrong”.

She said: “It seems to me that those who have least seem to be losing the most and that is simply not fair. Disabled people in particular feel very strongly because they seem to be in the forefront of many of the cuts.”

There were criticisms of the TUC’s access arrangements, with some complaining that they had had to fight through crowds to reach the allocated “safe space” for disabled people near the front of the march.

The TUC had also said that the disabled people at the front would be able to set their own pace, but they were soon swamped and separated from each other by thousands of marchers who overtook them soon after the march began.

Kirsten Hearn, chair of Inclusion London and a member of the Metropolitan Police Authority, blogged after the event that the experience of having to fight her way to the front had been “very frightening” and that she had been “put in danger”.

Linda Burnip, one of DPAC’s founders, said the access arrangements had been “total chaos” and had certainly put disabled people at risk.

A TUC spokeswoman said it had made “extensive efforts” to make the event as accessible as possible, but was now carrying out an assessment of the access arrangements.

She said: “We would not pretend that everything was perfect or could not be improved, but we are pretty sure that this was the most accessible demonstration of its size ever organised in London.”

She added: “Some reported issues were simply due to the greater than expected numbers.”

There was some disappointment that the Labour leader Ed Miliband failed to mention disabled people in his speech in Hyde Park, even though he mentioned maternity services, Sure Start centres, small business owners, teachers, students, “families struggling to get by”, libraries, Citizens Advice Bureaux, community centres and the NHS.

His spokeswoman said later that other groups had also not been mentioned, and that Miliband had raised the government’s plans to remove the mobility component of disability living allowance from people in residential care at that week’s prime minister’s questions.

She said: “It is an issue he cares about and it is an issue the Labour Party cares about. He is actually aware of the deep concerns and anxieties that disabled people have about the effect of the cuts.”

Meanwhile, DPAC’s online protest for those unable to attend the march or rally saw an estimated 200 people email messages of support, which were “pinned” to an online map of the UK. The map, embedded on the DPAC website and other sites, received more than a quarter of a million views.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

TUC protest: Disabled people send powerful messages to government

Disabled people who took part in the huge TUC protest march and rally in London have sent a series of powerful messages to the government about the impact of the cuts on their lives.

They told Disability News Service during Saturday’s event why they had joined the hundreds of thousands of other protesters who took part in the March for the Alternative.

Linda Burnip, a founder of Disabled People Against Cuts, which played a big role in supporting disabled people to take part, said: “I am hoping to send a really powerful message to all politicians, including Ed Miliband [the Labour leader], that we are not going to be messed around with.”

Stuart Bracking, a member of the Unison union, said he was demonstrating to protect services and to protest about cuts to disability benefits.

He said: “I have been on demonstrations over the last 20 years and the visibility of disabled people is much higher on this demonstration than it has been over the last 20 years.”

Doug Whalley, who lives in a residential home, said he believed disabled people were being “unfairly punished” for “something that wasn’t our fault”.

He said the proposal to stop paying the mobility component of disability living allowance (DLA) to people in residential care was “really sick”.

And he appealed to the government to “stop making up stuff about disabled people and tax the bankers, not the people who can afford it least”.

Deborah Sowerby said she felt as if she was “among friends” on the protest, and added: “There has not been enough of this coming together. There are a lot of us and we are not going anywhere and that is why we are here today.”

Adrian Whyatt, from the London Autistic Rights Movement, said: “We need to try and get them to see these cuts are not working.”

He said disabled people were being “targeted” by the government, and pointed to the mobility component decision, and problems with the notorious work capability assessment.

Sian Vasey, director of Ealing Centre for Independent Living, said she was worried about cuts to social services, and added: “If they dismantle everything they are only going to have to rebuild it again.”

Marian O’Brien, coordinator of Ealing User Involvement Service, said her message to the government was to not privatise services.

She said: “We want to keep our welfare state. The ‘big society’ will not happen because they are cutting back on funding. They are dismantling the welfare state bit by bit.”

Anne Pridmore, chair of Being the Boss, which supports disabled people who employ personal assistants, said she believed the cuts had put disabled people’s rights back 20 years, while the government’s reforms were about “trying to get big businesses rich”.

She said: “I am so angry. In three years’ time it looks like I will end up in an old people’s home. Without support, people will not be able to get up in the morning. If disabled people have not got the support packages they will not be able to go to work anymore.”

Her colleague Jan Turner said: “I am here because of the service cuts, because of all of the money they are spending on the census and the Afghan war and the Gaddafi war and all the tax evasion.

“I think they are doing unnecessary cuts to people who are vulnerable. I am doing it for other people who can’t protest.”

Sheila Blair, also from Being the Boss, said: “I volunteer with a lot of organisations. What I don’t want is for a lot of organisations like the ones I volunteer for to get to a position where they have no staff and everything is done by volunteers in the name of the ‘big society’, which is a lot of shit. I just get very angry about it all.”

Frank Lerner, a retired head teacher, said: “Everything I have ever worked for in my life is being destroyed. I just think that this government is out to destroy the infrastructure of our society for their own easy ends.

“The cuts are nothing to do with what is needed, they are to do with what they want to achieve. It is dogma rather than necessity.”

Raymond Johnson, from People First (Self Advocacy), said he believed the banks should be forced to make cuts rather than disabled people.

He said: “Obviously there are lots of people here against the stupid cutbacks. Saying ‘we are all in this together’, I don’t think so. There are a hell of a lot of people here.”

Sandy Marks said she was protesting “because I can and because when they have finished with us I will not be able to”.

Sarah Fisher, from Knutsford, Cheshire, said: “The banks got us into this mess but it is the ones who are least able to cope with cuts who are going to be paying for it. There is no fairness in what is happening.”

She added: “I am hoping that this will help. I think if nothing else it will give a wake-up call to the government in that not everybody is behind this ‘we are all in this together’.”

Lisa Egan, co-founder of the Where’s the Benefit? blog, said she was there “to protest against the cuts, because I need the welfare state and the NHS in order not to die”.

Louise Hickman, from Hackney, said she had joined the protest because of the “vulnerability of support for disabled people in further education”.

Olcay Lee said: “We are here to stop the cuts if we can.”

Her husband, Andrew, director of People First (Self Advocacy), said: “Disabled people didn’t actively put us in this mess.

“We are very concerned that cutting services for disabled people, there is no logic to where the cuts are actually being made.

“Yes, we need to get the country into a better shape but disabled people need the right support. Without the right support there will be more money [needed] to clear up the mess.”

Andrew Hart said he was at the protest as a disabled trade union member, the trustee of a voluntary organisation that was suffering from the cuts, and the father of a son with autism, who was facing the loss of education maintenance allowance (EMA) as he prepared to start sixth form college.

Riven Vincent, from Bristol, the disabled mother who caused a media storm after saying she had asked her council to take her disabled child into care because of a lack of respite, called on the government to rethink its DLA reforms, and its plans to remove the mobility component from those in residential care.

She said: “I am marching because of the cuts that will affect disabled people, including my daughter Celyn (Williams).

“I have met David Cameron and he promised none of his cuts would affect disabled people and he has lied.”

Dean Thomas, from Nottingham, said he was on the march “because I can be here. For other people who can’t be here. The cutbacks are focused on the most vulnerable people in society. They are completely wrong.”

John, who asked not to give his surname, said he had joined the march because services were under threat.

He was scornful of David Cameron’s “big society”, and said: “The expectation that there will be all these volunteers to do the jobs is a bit false. There are already volunteers in society. How many more are there going to be?”

Margie Hill, from Knowsley, Merseyside, a member of the Unison union who works in local government, said she believed the government wanted to target disabled people, and was going to “try to pick them off, get rid of them” and “scupper our benefits”, while any new jobs would go to non-disabled people.

Catherine Callaghan, also from Knowsley, has been made redundant from her job with Greater Merseyside Connexions Partnership, which she said had cut more than 40 per cent of its workforce.

She had worked there with disabled young people, and said the loss of EMA meant young people would be “dropping out in their droves from education, hanging round the streets and there will not be people like us to interact with them to get them back on track”.

Jonathan Bartley, who is not disabled but cornered David Cameron in front of TV cameras before last year’s general election about his battle to secure a mainstream school place for his disabled son, Samuel, said his wife had lost her job at Sure Start.

He added: “Clearly it is affecting our family, our whole community, and it is very important that the government understands that this is not what the country voted for.

“What seems to be happening is the poorest and the most vulnerable are paying the price for the financial crisis they didn’t get us into.”

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Virtual protest ‘will help send message to government’ on cuts

Disabled people unable to attend the TUC’s mass march and rally over government spending cuts will be able to take part instead in a “virtual” protest online.

Disabled campaigners will be at the front of the protest march on Saturday 26 March, which will start at London’s Victoria Embankment and end with a rally in Hyde Park.

But those unable to attend the March for the Alternative because of access issues, lack of support or impairment-related reasons will be able to back the fight against spending cuts by taking part in an online protest.

The campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is encouraging disabled people who will not be able to attend the protest to email a short message of support, their photograph and the first half of their postcode.

Each message will be added to an online map of the UK to show the scale of support across the country. Messages should be emailed to dpac26march@gmail.com.

Linda Burnip, a founding member of DPAC, said: “I think this is a really important opportunity for us to show that disabled people are not just going to sit back and be attacked over and over again.

“It is really important to show people who may feel hopeless and that they can’t do anything that together we can do something.”

She said the protest would send the government the message that “we can fight back, we will fight back and we are stronger together”.

For disabled people who can take part in the London protest, there will be a shorter route for those not able to cover the whole route.

The TUC is also hoping to organise a “static demonstration point” near Hyde Park Corner for those unable to join the march. There will also be a wheelchair-accessible area for the rally in Hyde Park.

The user-led arts mental health charity CoolTan Arts and Disability LIB are organising a “history walk” at the same time as the TUC protest, which will give people with experience of mental distress and others uncomfortable with large crowds the chance to make their voices heard against the cuts.

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com