Far from reassured

From the outset, this government has been demonising disabled people, to the extent where most disabled people now suffer regular and daily abuse and disdain from other people who assume that all wheelchair users are benefit scroungers.

In her letter to the Gazette, Ms Miller suggests that the higher rate of DLA is routinely paid to drug and alcohol abusers. This is absolute nonsense, as the higher rate of DLA is available only to those disabled people with long-term conditions who are unable, or virtually unable, to walk.

Many people who receive DLA do in fact work, and the payment of this allowance enables them to have use of an adapted vehicle, without which they would be unable to get to work.

What Ms Miller has not revealed is that the Welfare Reform Bill proposes to stop payment of any such allowance at the age of 65, at the same time her government colleagues are increasing the retirement age to 67 and possibly later. The result of this will be that the most severely disabled in work will probably have to stop working at 65. They will then have to claim out of work benefits. And, of course, most will be trapped in their own homes unable to get out at all.

Some of the most severely disabled people in West Sussex have already been hit by the county council’s cuts in care provision. So far from being reassured, myself and many other local disabled people find her statement that she is “committed to supporting disabled people” nothing more than political spin.

Mike Dunne, chairman of

Arun Access Group and secretary of Littlehampton branch of Voice for Disability

Dove Lodge

Beach Road

Littlehampton