Plans to spy on Disabled people’s bank accounts show Labour isn’t for change

T he Labour government is barely 100 days into office and even its supporters have been reduced to half-hearted attempts at optimism. But this ‘it’s not all doom and gloom’ narrative rings hollow to many Disabled people.

Yet again, we are living under a government pursuing ever more surveillance of our lives. Another prime minister is happy to subject us to increased benefit sanctions and reduced rights.

So much for the party of change. Keir Starmer used his first Labour Party Conference in power last month to make clear that when it comes to Disabled people, his government’s priorities are the same as its predecessors – namely “getting the welfare bill down”.

To this end, the prime minister will continue plans set out by the previous Conservative government to monitor the bank accounts of the 6.3 million people claiming disability benefits without their knowledge. The proposals are expected to be included in the Fraud, Error and Debt Bill, which was announced by the government last month.

Kieran Lewis, rights and migration policy officer at National Survivor User Network (NSUN), told openDemocracy that he is “disappointed at Keir Starmer’s repackaging of invasive bank-spying powers that we and so many other groups pushed back against under the last government”.

The NSUN – which works with people who have lived experience of mental ill-health, distress, and trauma – was a core part of the coalition opposing these powers when the Tory government proposed them mere months ago.

Lewis continued: “Surveillance of this kind is a threat to everyone, and those of us who live with mental ill-health, distress and trauma will feel its effects particularly sharply.

“The harsh rhetoric espoused by Keir Starmer, a continuation of previous governments’ negative messaging, has had considerable impact on Disabled people and other groups of marginalised people.”

Starmer’s conference pledge to “legislate to stop benefit fraud” may be a familiar rhetoric – but it’s one built on shaky foundations. Some 75% of Universal Credit overpayments recorded by the Department for Work and Pension’s debt manager system in 2021 were due to an ‘official error’ – meaning the government miscalculated the amount to be paid – according to new research from the Public Law Project.

The research also found that the subsequent deductions that the DWP inflicts following such ‘overpayments’ led 26% of people to report resorting to food banks. Almost one in ten said they had slept rough due to a deduction.

Elsewhere in his conference speech, Starmer vowed to be “a great reforming government”. Disabled people have already lost an average of £1,200 a year thanks to the ‘reforms’ of the past 15 years, including the introduction of Employment and Support Allowance, the Work Capability Assessment, Personal Independence Payment, the bedroom tax, the benefit cap, the two-child limit, and Universal Credit.

All of these measures have combined to leave the UK with one of Western Europe’s least generous welfare systems. Staff at the Greater Manchester Disabled People's Panel, which runs regular peer-support group sessions for those navigating the social security system, told openDemocracy there is a serious risk that Starmer’s plans will lead to welfare payments for Disabled and working-class people being wrongfully suspended, forcing them to deal with burdensome appeals processes.

It is important to recognise that ‘benefits fraud’, which the Labour Party appears likely to dedicate so much time to, is a non-issue. The fraud rate for disability benefits is 0.2%. That’s far lower than the percentage of Labour ministers who took free Taylor Swift concert tickets this summer. When will there be a crackdown on that?

Ironically, Starmer closed his conference speech by saying that “every community” should have “the breathing space, the calm, the control to focus on the little things they love in life, not the anxiety and insecurity we have now.”

This is at odds with the experiences of the Greater Manchester Coalition, whose staff told openDemocracy: “We see Disabled people struggling to obtain much-needed benefits, and if obtained, struggling to keep those benefits.

“Having to already prove and then re-prove they're not fraudsters, being assessed, reassessed and reviewed is a relentless often degrading, soul-destroying experience that leads many to abandon the process.”

This dire situation will only be worsened by the Fraud, Error and Debt Bill, which will massively increase financial surveillance and create yet another punitive, disabling barrier for Disabled people to contend with.

It will put many of us under tremendous stress and, as the Greater Manchester Coalition noted, could leave even more of us “isolated and particularly vulnerable. For some, especially those in mental health crisis, this places them in great harm.”

In short, Disabled people know this bill is not the way forward. If only our community had more music festivals and football games to invite ministers to – imagine how our social security system could look then.

Sources:

▪ This piece was first published in openDemocracy and re-published in PUBLIC SQUARE UK on 8 October 2024 under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. | The author writes in a personal capacity.

▪ Cover: Flickr/Number 10. (Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.)