Dear Kate Green – Where do Disabled People fit in Labour’s ‘Tough on Welfare’?

Dear Kate Green MP,

You wrote in LabourList.org on Oct 18 you’d spent a week “ at home with a bad back, unable to make it into Parliament“, you then talk at length about the ineffectivenesses of ATOS and how the Labour Party needs “ to think about whether we can we develop an assessment process that looks at people’s real lives, at what they would really need to be able to do to hold down a job, and what support they’d need to do it.“

I’d like to ask you to now consider those people who live with your ‘bad back’ every day of their lives; those of us who struggle through with a disability that causes sickening  pain, so bad we can’t sleep, move, or even think, What are Labours plans for us? We’ll never be able to hold down a job when it takes an hour to write a short, simple email because of pain, or confusion from lack of sleep. We are people who live in fear of a brown envelop, for fear it’s another ATOS appointment or another form from the DWP; where do we fit in Labour’s Welfare Policy?

It is all very well and good for you and your senior Minister Rachel Reeves to ‘think’ about Welfare Reform, and how you might make it work around supporting people into work; but in order for Labour to be a truly One Nation Party, you must recognise their are a proportion of us who will never (in my case ever again) be in employment.

I and thousands of others like me do exist and whilst we may not contribute via PAYE we have a role in Society; we are parents, grandparents, children, volunteers, bloggers  etc and are worth far more than to be ignored aside from the vicious media campaign of Scrounging Parasitical individuals who’s only aim is to bleed the Country dry.

You were incapacitated for one week, I hope this has given you a small understanding of our lives.

In anticipation of your thoughts.