Not content with spreading malicious lies that thousands of disabled people are fraudulently claiming benefits, the DWP is now spending more money hiring ‘covert surveillance officers’ to work within 20 locations around the UK to crack down on these so-called fraudulent claims.
I’ve lost count of the number of times that John Pring from Disability News Service, Mo Stewart Research Lead on the Preventable Harm Project and myself have published corroborated facts that contradict this harmful rhetoric that the DWP continue to pump out to a gullible public through the national press.
One such article in the Torygraph [sic] included using the ‘welfare calculator’ to “reveal how much of your salary bankrolls the welfare state” whilst also claiming that millions, including disabled people were claiming benefits “without ever having to look for work”.
Disability Rights UK describing its coverage as “an incitement of hatred” towards disabled people and claiming the aim was “to vilify people who are too sick to work by angering those who are paying taxes that go towards Disability benefits”.
This rhetoric, which will be familiar to those who remember the propaganda used by the German Nazi Party back in the 1930 – 40’s when thousands of disabled people were identified as ‘useless eaters’ and exterminated, has created a massive increase in disability hate crime in the UK.
New stats from the Home Office reveals that disability hate crime has more than doubled in the last four years. In the last year alone, disability hate crime has risen by 43%. It doesn’t take much of a leap to connect this to the vitriol being pumped out by the DWP.
Even the United Nations have stated that:
“Reforms within social welfare benefits in the UK are premised on a notion that disabled people are undeserving and skiving off and defrauding the system. This has resulted in hate speech and hostility towards disabled people.”
Another voice from the international community has spoken out in defence of disabled benefit claimants in the UK. Rosemary Kayess, Australia’s new disability discrimination commissioner, stated recently:
“We see a reform agenda [in the UK] that is framed in a political narrative that demonises disabled people, including proposals to cut disability benefits to reward working people by cutting taxes, which tells disabled people they are undeserving citizens.”
I recently ran an article which claimed that the DWP were deliberately feeding false information to the mainstream press. Again, Disability News Service was instrumental in bringing in the Information Commissioner John Edwards around to their belief that that DWP were “engaged in a campaign to stir up hostility towards disabled claimants of benefits” to act as cover for its planned cuts and reforms which had recently been announced, which “could have fatal consequences”.
I could go on, but returning to this latest ploy by the DWP who are now claiming to need more ‘covert surveillance officers’ to stem this flood of non-existent benefit fraud, it’s just another part of this concentrated attack against disabled people in the UK.
To conclude, Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman has joined the ranks of those speaking out against the DWP and its policies. She is reported as stating:
“It is as if the DWP is desperate to cement its reputation as one of the harshest, cruellest and most punishing government departments. The sanctions regime it oversees has ruined lives and hounded people to early graves. It’s rotten to the core and has no place in the compassionate society we want to build.”
Well said Maggie.
The government’s own accounting system Hansard – Fraud and Error National Statistics state that the annual statistics for fraud and error in the benefit system for the financial year ending 2023 confirm that fraud and error in 2022-23 fell to 3.6% of welfare expenditure.
Description of cartoon for those people using screen reading software
This Crippen cartoon is a complex panorama showing the chain of hate that originates from a group of DWP officials and government ministers on the right to a group of disabled people on the left. Large red arrows between the four groups portrayed provide the direction that the chain is progressing (from right to left). The DWP/Gov representatives are handing to a group of newspaper owners’ misinformation about disability benefits fraud. The press in turn are handing out newspapers with anti-disability slogans printed on them, blaming disabled people etc. A third group representing the general public are reading the newspapers and pointing at the final group of disabled people on the left of the picture whilst shouting “They’re taking our taxes” and “They don’t even try to find work” and “They’re all scroungers” and “they’re the ones to blame”. Between the group of disabled people and the group of the general public is a large card with ‘Disability Hate Crime up by 43%’. The disabled people are looking on with fearful expressions on their faces whilst behind them lurks a covert DWP benefits officer holding a copy of the proposed Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill.
Crippen Cartoons 