You may think that using the term ‘Institutional Inhumanity’ is just to grab your attention but read on and you will, hopefully, understand that ‘institutional Inhumanity’ is something that we need to confront, challenge and conquer.
In 2017 the United Nations (UN) published a report which was highly critical of the UK Government’s treatment of disabled people and stated, “austerity and welfare reform measures were responsible for grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights.”
This condemnation of the UK may have, initially, appeared surprising, but the recently published book ‘The Department’ by John Pring provides the backdrop to this statement from the UN.
Let us be clear that these ‘grave and systematic violations of disabled people’s rights’ has been taking place over many years under Labour, Conservative and the Liberal Democrat/Conservative Coalition Government.
‘The Department’ – to quote the publisher, Pluto Press – is ‘A thoroughly researched exposé of bureaucratic violence and hostility of the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) over the last 30 years.
When you sit down and read ‘The Department’ do allow yourself time to take much-needed breaks, because you will not only be shocked and horrified by what you read, you will be appalled at the inhumanity of the DWP and Government ministers towards disabled people. You are left in no doubt that both civil servants and politicians believe that the lives of disabled people are dispensable and are of no real value.
So how did we get here?
In ‘The Department’ John Pring tries to give an historical perspective to this systematic abuse of disabled people and suggests a number of different options as to when this institutionalised inhumanity started. It could have started with the creation of the Welfare State in 1948; or the introduction of Invalidity Benefit in 1971, or even further back in history to the early welfare reforms of the Liberal Governments of the early 1900s.
The creation of the Welfare State based, on The Beveridge Report, was intended to be the start of moving towards the goal of providing all citizens with security from the cradle to the grave.
The Conservative election victory of 1979 with the onset of Thatcherism saw the start of the attack on the welfare. It took nearly 10 years before the Tories turned their attention to disabled people.
We would suggest that the introduction of Care in the Community was an important part of the process of vilifying disabled people. This transferred the cost of providing support to ‘disabled people’ from health and social services over to the Department of Social Security, responsible for managing the benefits system.
In early 1989 the then Secretary of State for Social Security, John Moore, sent a memo to John Major the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, saying:
“…I think it would be sensible to discuss the general approach to disability benefits.”
The memo from John Moore is important, because it set the policy direction of successive Governments which “lead to the deaths of hundreds, and probably thousands of people.”
Once the attack on disability benefits started, it became relentless and it appears that it is going to continue under the new Labour Government.
John Pring spent 10 years undertaking the research for this book which included interviewing former Government Ministers and issuing requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act. However, most importantly, he spoke to the families of some of those disabled people who had died due to what can be described as ‘Institutionalised Inhumanity. These personal stories are moving; they are deeply personal and cannot fail to both shock and appal you.
Running through ’The Department’ are the accounts of the life and death of 12 people, but there are many more accounts that could have been included but these accounts powerfully demonstrate the institutionalised inhumanity of the DWP and the predecessor Departments towards disabled people.
We can only agree with the Guardian journalist and author of Crippled: Austerity and the Demonisation of Disabled People, Dr Frances Ryan when she says that ‘The Department’ is:
‘A must read expose of one of Britain’s biggest hidden scandals. Every politician, civil servant and journalist in the country should have this on their bookshelf.’
If you need more reasons to order your copy of ‘The Department’ then let us conclude with the quote from Paul Lewis, freelance financial journalist and presenter of Money Box, BBC Radio 4:
‘John Pring’s indefatigable research has revealed how successive Conservative, Labour, and Coalition governments have not only failed to provide the money, help, resources, and understanding that disabled people need, they have gone to great lengths to hide the truth about what they have done. It would be a strong person who could read this disturbing book in a sitting. But it must be read.’
You can order your copy here:
If you have reached this far and have read the review in full we would ask you to contact your MP to confirm that they have received their copy of The Department – every MP was sent a copy
Ask them if they have read it or if not, will they or one of their staff read it and brief them on its contents
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