Disability advocate JO COLE, from Thornaby, says disabled people are being made the scapegoats in a society "thirsty for blame".

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures show by April 2016, seven in 10 disabled people who were previously claiming DLA are ‘eligible’ for Personal Independence Payment (PIP). However, social media and websites that highlight disability issues are full of narrative on experiences of undergoing appalling assessment processes for PIP and their claim being refused. Claimants feel ‘blamed’ for claiming as opposed to feeling enabled to lead independent lives. The emphasis here is whether ‘eligible’ turns into being awarded PIP and, awarded somehow means deserved. It is this that politicians and the able bodied community seem to resent.

The campaign to make anyone on benefits feel a burden was exclusively the ploy of the coalition government after the 2010 election. Margaret Thatcher designed Disability Living Allowance not as a benefit, but as recognition that there was an underlying level of chronically sick and disabled people who were unlikely to work or had to leave work early through ill health. Bearing in mind that the UK ratified the UN Convention on rights of the disabled in 2009, by the 2010 election, the UK had still not developed a structured social policy to protect the vulnerability of the chronically sick and disabled. The Coalition Government developed a set of tactics to undermine the much publicised fraudsters. The chronically sick and disabled became collateral damage.

Frank Gardner, the BBC reporter paralysed by a sniper in the middle east gave the third annual Jack Ashley Memorial Lecture recently and said he would like to see “the sharp edges of difference” between disabled and non-disabled people “sand-papered down so people don’t make a big deal about it anymore”. He also spoke of his frustration at non-disabled people who use accessible toilets, and the abuse of accessible parking bays by non-disabled drivers. Political criticism of the Motability car scheme has fuelled a sanctimonious attitude and perverse jealousy towards disabled people. Disabled people have no enforceable rights in the UK. Abuse of Blue Badge parking bays is common. Occasionally, someone patrols supermarket car parks to restrict the use of parent and toddler parking bays but no-one cares if the disabled can park or not. The disabled come second to parents with pushchairs on public transport because the bus companies are not sanctioned. The cost of the Blue Badge rose from £2 to £10 because of fraudsters as Borough Councils had to take steps to add mechanisms that could not be copied. Disability hate crime has increased 40% through abuse or theft. Where does the idea come from that somehow the disabled benefit more than others during austerity?

PIP has come about because of the much publicised fraud in DLA applications, largely due to people getting better from short-term injury or ill health but not declaring it. This has led to the idea that everyone can get better.

Austerity has brought a new culture to the UK which has thrown away historical cultural empathy and is now driving chronically sick and disabled people back into the shadows. People are scared. Scared of public ridicule because of their impairment, scared of being seen as a ‘scrounger’, scared of losing what they have even if they have deteriorated and their needs have changed. Disabled people have been made the scapegoat for a society thirsty for gossip, thirsty to blame. The able bodied feel they have a right to be judgemental. The NHS is in trouble, blame sick people and the disabled for a being a burden on society.

Is this really the way to conduct social policy in the UK?

The disastrous PIP assessment process is punishing genuine disabled people. But, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy, designed for a cost-cutting exercise and motivated by greed, a bonus for every Motability car repossessed and stringent time limits regardless of life-long disability. This would not have got through Parliament in the current form had we had a structured social policy and regard for the UN Convention on rights of the disabled.

So, don’t blame chronically sick and disabled people for a highly flawed system. Task the new Government with creating a social policy that softens the sharp edges of indifference toward disabled people.