Damian Green’s silly money-based argument on disability falls apart when questioned
Once you find a flaw in an argument, it becomes easy to punch holes right through it.
This Blog just published an article demonstrating that Damian Green’s response to the UN’s report on systematic violations of the rights of people with disabilities is wrong.
His claim that the report is out of date is inaccurate – the report refers to measures brought into practice this year (2016).
And Sue Jones deftly rubbishes his comment about spending (following up on my own point, made a couple of days ago, that he is claiming the UN is out of date for using 2015 as a reference point but feels perfectly justified in quoting figures from 2010).
Damian Green: “Their [UN and stakeholder’s] evidence period runs up until the end of 2015, so it is already out of date. We intend to point out that the UK spends around £50 billion a year on benefits to support disabled people and people with health conditions, which is over £6 billion more than in 2010.”
Sue Jones: “Exactly how much of that spending has gone to those people needing essential support, and how much has been spent on contracting private companies, ironically to save money and cut support for disabled people, in order to “target” the ever-shrinking category of “those most in need”?
And given that the government’s track record up until the end of last year indicates that ministers have been atrociously negligent in observing the human rights of disabled people, how do the more recent cuts to ESA, and proposals set out in the work, health and disability green paper remedy that, precisely?”
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