"The high court in London has this week heard a legal challenge that aims to expose how the last Conservative government used a “sham consultation” to try to push through “cataclysmic” cuts to disability benefits of nearly £3 billion over four years.

The plans to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA) were announced in the 2023 autumn budget, and they would see more than 400,000 disabled people losing out on £416 a month by 2028-29, with many claimants facing strict new conditions and the risk of sanctions.

The new Labour government has promised to make the same overall level of savings but has yet to say how it will do this and if it will implement the WCA cuts.

The judicial review case is being taken by disabled activist and author Ellen Clifford, who is challenging the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over a “rushed and disingenuous” consultation that was held last year before the reforms were announced in the budget.

Before the two-day hearing began on Tuesday, disabled activists and allies from groups including Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Inclusion London, WinVisible, Black Triangle Campaign and Changing Perspectives joined representatives from unions Unite, Equity and PCS in a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London.

Clifford, who is supported by solicitors from Public Law Project, said before the hearing: “More than 400,000 people will be worse off by £416 a month if the changes proposed in this consultation go ahead.

“And then there is the risk that people will lose even more money if they are sanctioned for not being able to comply with conditions they will now need to fulfil in order to receive their benefits.

“To be blunt, this would be cataclysmic for Deaf and disabled people in the UK and would push many into destitution.”

Clifford believes the true motive of the consultation was to cut spending on disability benefits, rather than trying to get more disabled people into work, while the consultation document failed to provide any “meaningful information about the likely impact of the proposals”.

She said on Tuesday: “I am very glad that we will finally be heard in court today.

“This is a necessary first step in Deaf and disabled people working towards a system that prioritises our lives, rather than cuts or savings.

“Going forwards, we hope there is real co-production in designing a social security system that is a benefit to society and which prevents rather than causes harm.”

John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor but currently sitting as an independent MP, who attended the vigil, said he believed the judicial review was “one of the most significant cases for disabled people that I have seen in the last couple of decades”.

He told Disability News Service (DNS): “I think if we are successful, which I think we will be, it could force a whole rethink both in terms of the cuts themselves and also future policy.”

He later told the vigil that The Department*, written by DNS editor John Pring and published in August, had exposed the “brutality” of the work capability assessment and its impact on disabled people, and how it caused many deaths (see separate story).

McDonnell said the last government had been aware of these fatal links and so “you would have expected them to take seriously the discussions and consultations that they had with wider society but also in particular disabled people.

“This legal action demonstrates that they had a complete disregard for consultations, discussions, engagement.

“They had a disregard for the implications of the work capability assessment.”

He said the last government had also shown “a complete disregard for the human suffering that took place and the many lives that were lost”.

Clifford’s case, he said, would “demonstrate just how callous that government measure was, but also their complete disrespect for the very people this policy hurts”.

The proposed cuts will make it more difficult for disabled people to use the protection of the WCA’s “substantial risk” safety net and will make changes to the assessment’s “getting about” and “mobilising” activities.

Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said last year’s “inadequate” consultation was “insulting to the thousands of Deaf and disabled people who the changes will harm” and “misrepresented the proposals as a move to support more benefit claimants into employment, without giving us all the information on how we will be affected”.

Andy Mitchell, co-founder of Unite’s Cut Sanctions Not Incomes campaign, said: “The fact that disabled people have been forced to go to court to challenge a misleading consultation on a policy that will have a devastating impact on so many of us is yet more evidence of how our voices, needs and lives are ignored.”

Austin Harney, from PCS, a member of the TUC disabled workers’ committee, said his union – which represents many frontline DWP workers – was pushing for there to be a “major campaign” to address how disabled people are treated in jobcentres and how DWP is “attacking” disabled benefit claimants.

He told the vigil that it was “cowardly and inhumane, not only by the previous government, but this current government’s not showing any sign that they’ll do something about it”.

Claire Glasman, from the disabled women’s organisation WinVisible, said the substantial risk rule helped many of the women in their network who were survivors of violence, including refugees, those who have fled domestic violence, and women who were abused as children.

And Adam Gabsi, chair of Inclusion London, said the proposed changes to the WCA send “a dangerous message that the government is willing to ignore the lived realities of disabled people in favour of reducing costs.

“I strongly urge decision-makers to reconsider these proposed changes and engage meaningfully with disabled people and their representative organisations.”

A DWP spokesperson said: “We can’t comment on live legal proceedings.”

The department claims it has been clear that the WCA is not working, which it says is why it plans to publish a green paper in the spring on reforming the disability benefits system.

It claims that its plans to support more disabled people into work – including through its Get Britain Working white paper – will reduce spending on benefits, and it claims it will work closely with disabled people and their organisations as it develops its proposals.

It also claims that the secret internal process reviews it carries out into deaths linked to its actions allow it to learn how to improve its processes, and it claims it is cooperating with the Commons work and pensions committee’s inquiry into its safeguarding failures, and that it is looking forward to receiving and responding to the committee’s report.

Picture: John McDonnell (left), Ellen Clifford (second from left), Andy Mitchell from Unite (centre right) and Emma Cotton (right), from Equity

*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press": https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/court-hears-disabled-activists-challenge-to-cataclysmic-cuts-to-out-of-work-disability-benefits/