Disabled people who rely on vital monies for mobility, that enables them to have an active life and go about their daily business, are facing an uncertain future. Many thousands of disabled people rely on high rate Disability Living Allowance (DLA) to enable them to access a car via the Motability scheme to enable them to get around. Thousands are being reassessed as being fit and able to get around and are having this vital money withdrawn from them.
The issue came into the news this week when a woman with cerebral palsy, who relies on a Motability car to get around, has been told she will have to give up her car and is no longer entitled to it under the new Personal Independence Payment, or PIP. The woman, who can walk with the aid of calipers but struggles to walk without pain, can’t walk any more than 20 meters unaided. This is just another example of the attacks that disabled have endured over recent years since the conservatives came into power in 2010.
Is this the society we want to live in? There are indeed cuts to be made, money to be saved, spending priorities to be changed. But when it comes to someones very basic needs to function, in what can be an already difficult life for many, surly there is a line somewhere in the sand? How can it be that people must rely on the good will, or not, of legislators for the very basic ability to get around and function in society. Many communities already are not level playing fields for many thousands of disabled people. So for anybody to make things more difficulty but taking away their ability to get around seems nothing short of barbaric.
Why are people not campaigning harder and holding the government to account over this and showing them up to be the barbarians that they are? Disabled people are of course an easy target. Its difficult to mobilize themselves on to the streets of London or for them to generally make a nuance of themselves. But until there is suitable opposition, the government will continue to squeeze disabled people and attack some of the poorest in society.