So British ministers want to cheat disabled people out of vouchers? It’s like the government by Groupon | Frances Ryan

There’s a scene from The Simpsons in which the villain Mr Burns enlists a team of monkeys to cheaply reproduce a Charles Dickens novel. Hunched over a row of typewriters, the monkeys can’t get the job done without a series of clumsy typos.

I thought of this as I watched Mel Stride, the Work and Pensions Secretary, on Monday make so-called cost-saving changes to the main disability benefit, the Personal Independence Allowance (Pip), in what he described as ‘probably the most fundamental issue’. reforms in one generation”.

At a time when the NHS is crumbling, councils are going bankrupt and infrastructure is on its knees, listening to the Conservative Party’s promise to fix the welfare system feels like the equivalent of relying on a monkey to win the Nobel Prize for Literature .

The plans, which will be consulted on in the coming months, are based on two main ideas. Firstly, there is the suggestion that some people with mental health problems should not necessarily receive regular benefits, but could instead receive treatment, from talking therapies and social care packages to respite care.

Secondly, there is a desire to “move away from a system of fixed benefits”. Reports suggest this could mean that people with disabilities will have to provide vouchers for the additional costs associated with their disability in order to claim money back from the state, or that they will be given vouchers instead of cash. This is social policy if it’s run by Groupon: use code TORYWIPEOUT24 for 25% off an oxygen cylinder.

It is not just that such ideas are unethical or demeaning; they are also completely unworkable. If even a small fraction of the up to three million disabled people who receive Pip have to send their receipts for “approval” every time they need to buy specialized food or pay for a taxi, officials would have to wade through tens of millions of invoices a year. month. If you believe the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is capable of managing that level of bureaucracy, consider that Pip is already dealing with massive backlogs and ‘inexcusable’ errors of judgement. Relying on the DWP to sort out the paperwork for your new wheelchair would be like relying on your bad friend to book the group holiday. Sorry, but no one’s going anywhere.

Furthermore, a cash register system fundamentally misunderstands how poverty and disease affect people’s lives. Those who need disability benefits typically don’t have the extra money to spend and wait for the state to pay them back – which is why they need benefits in the first place. Contrary to what wealthy ministers may think, expecting a cancer patient to write a receipt on the electricity meter is not the same as adding a bottle of Chablis to their expenses at a work dinner.

Personally, I would like to send in my receipts to show what I spend my disability benefits on, if the government returns the favor and shows me the receipts of what it spends my taxes on. We can stop such humiliation once it becomes clear that public resources will not be wasted on unreliable PPE from its partners or on botched deportations to Rwanda. It’s not that I think she of course taking the lead, but some politicians just give the rest a bad name.

Like the idea of ​​vouchers, the proposal to give people with disabilities vouchers instead of cash is intended to perpetuate the long-standing myth that welfare recipients cannot be trusted with taxpayers’ money, as if they were naughty schoolchildren who have to monitor their pocket money. Stop me if you’ve heard this before: rather than ‘really’ needing help, it implies that hordes of disabled people are faking it and spending their inflated benefits on widescreen TVs and crates of booze.

Stride has spent the last 24 hours misleading the major broadcasters to do just that, from suggesting that ‘work is the answer’ to some mental health problems (Pip is not unemployment benefit) to claiming that the benefit is worth it. “thousands of pounds a month” (the Pip’s highest rate is £798 per monthwith most claimants receiving significantly less).

And yet to find facts or meaning in all this is the ultimate folly. As I wrote last week, when the government launched a crackdown on “sick note” workers, it’s not so much about tackling rising unemployment or an increasingly sick population, but about making the right noises in the run-up to the election – all while trying to trap Labor and push its agenda further to the right. Or to put it another way: the only job Conservative ministers are really interested in is trying to keep their own jobs.

Every time the government announces a new cut in benefits, I find out not only because of the headlines, but also because I receive messages from disabled readers who feel suicidal. Behind every toxic policy are real people, people already in poverty and pain, demonized year after year by those with privilege and power.

In the coming months, in the final days of this Tory government, ministers will continue to scapegoat those who are least fortunate in order to save their own skin. Note Rishi Sunak’s words during this period, but also whether Keir Starmer challenges them. There are millions of people in this country who need not only to improve their material conditions but also to raise their hopes, and that will require a new government willing to offer more than the same old misery and division. Personally, I’ll pop the champagne when the Tories are finally kicked out of office – and maybe use my Pip to pay for it.