During a parliamentary debate on benefit sanctions the following case was highlighted: a learning disabled man was sanctioned for being 4 minutes late for an appointment. He cannot tell the time because he has learning disabilities but was sanctioned which meant he was left with no power and no food for 5 days.
That this happened in Britain in 2015 is shocking enough, but the response from Conservative MP Mark Spencer really had me fuming. He said people like him needed to learn “the discipline of timekeeping”, and suggested that the education system needed to improve to cure learning disability. Surprising then that during an interview on the Andrew Marr show, Ian Duncan Smith the Secretary of State said that no-one would be sanctioned just for being late for an appointment and that safeguards existed to protect the vulnerable.
The Conservative party are planning a further £9 billion of cuts to the welfare budget and with pensioner benefits ringfenced it is hard to see how anyone outside of the ringfence isn’t going to be adversely affected. 90% of learning disabled adults find it nigh on impossible to find paid work that provides a living wage, so what is the answer. Candidates of all political persuasions will be contacting you over the next few months to ask for your vote, please ask what they intend to do for the learning disabled, and remind them that learning disability can be helped but not cured.