These new plans are built on a safety net that is fast eroding – and becoming an obstacle to people finding work

If you’re someone with a disability or a long-term health condition who loses their job, the system designed to help you find and stay in work isn’t working. Disabled people’s experience of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is often characterised by distrust, fear and negativity. Those who have tried to move into work have spoken of structural and cultural barriers built into the system. These can include stressful and demeaning assessments, the gnawing fear of being sanctioned, and a lack of positive engagement from the DWP, which offers a poorly tailored employment support.

The Labour government has promised to take a fundamentally different approach with its Get Britain Working white paper that was published earlier this week. Speaking about the paper, Keir Starmer said it was time to end the culture of “blaming and shaming” people who haven’t been getting the support they need. Then, in the same breath, he pledged to “slash” the country’s “spiralling” benefits bill as part of his government’s efforts to get more people into work. This harmful rhetoric threatens to sabotage the government’s attempts to reset its relationship with people who are sick or disabled. While the white paper signalled the government’s ambitions, the cuts to benefits it has pencilled in for next year undermine them.

Iain Porter is a senior policy adviser at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation