In its autumn statement, not exactly hidden, the government have announced their plans to extend sanctions against benefit recipients, included the mentally ill and the disabled, if they fail to look for work. The sanctions scandalously include the levying of prescription charges and prohibition on receipt of legal aid. Labour’s leadership is sadly relatively silent on these proposals. I remind myself that access to healthcare is a human right, as should be access to justice.
Here are some links I have discovered, they include the government’s boastful announcement, where they focus on the increase in expenditure from the low levels that previous statements have created. Rachel Reeves in her reply notes that the overall taxation level is as high as it’s ever been due to changes made in previous years, but her reply does not deal with the issue of sanctions; Liz Kendall’s words are deeply unassuring [and also here last month] for those who consider these sanctions to be a step too far. In the abstract it’s possible to argue that people who can work should work, but it is impossible to build the means by which this can be implemented without simulating the worst of labour conscription programmes from historic totalitarian regimes.
Not only are these rights, I remind myself that once upon a time many of these benefits were funded through National Insurance, and seen and conceived as an…
