Scrap Universal Credit!

By New Worker correspondent

Disabled People against the Cuts (DIPAC) and the Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group were out in force outside the headquarters of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in London last week. They leafleted passers-by and handed in thousands of Metro newspapers in big boxes addressed to Amber Rudd to complain about the lying advertisement on Universal Credit it ran for nine weeks.

The DWP advert claims to “set the record straight” on “myths” surrounding Universal Credit, stating: “A lot has been written about Universal Credit recently – not all of it correct, sadly.” But the four-page adverts in the Metro, a free tabloid newspaper largely given away on London’s bus and train services system, were dismissed as “propaganda” and an “insult to all disabled people” by campaign groups when they came out last month.

The Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC), a coalition of more than 80 disability charities, has now lodged a formal complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) about the ads, which they said were “deliberately misleading” and contained “obvious exaggerations”.

The government claim that Universal Credit supports you if you are on a low income or out of work. Given that disabled people are struggling to get by on Universal Credit, to claim it works is, at best, simply misleading.

The DBC recently surveyed around 500 disabled people about their experience of Universal Credit. The survey highlighted some serious concerns and deeply worrying findings. The majority of respondents who moved from Employment Support Allowance (ESA) onto Universal Credit said they now get less or a lot less money than they did previously. People told us that the impact of having less money includes struggling to pay for food (70 per cent), driving a significant number of people to food banks (35 per cent) and a worsening of people’s health, in particular their mental health (85 per cent), and most worryingly driving people to consider suicide.

The ads cane out at the same time as a report by UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty Philip Alston that said the scheme was “fast falling into Universal Discredit”.

Ann Galpin, chair of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) disabled members’ council, described the campaign as propaganda and said: “We are appalled that these misleading wraparounds and features have appeared in the Metro

today, coinciding with the release of Philip Alston’s report on poverty in the UK, which heavily criticises austerity and welfare reform.”

Kilburn Unemployed Workers believe that together we are stronger. By standing together we can defend our rights and win changes that everyone wants. They hold regular meetings and picket the Caxton House HQ of the DWP on the first Friday of every month from 12 noon. Their campaign is supported by Brent Trades Council, the representative body for trade unionists in Brent.