Senedd candidate challenges rivals over disability cuts

Plans to cut £200 a month from new Universal Credit claims for those unable to work came into force the start of April. This has sparked a fierce challenge from a Gŵyr Abertawe (Swansea West & Gower) Senedd candidate.

Ben Golightly, the lead candidate for the Welsh Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) and a disability activist, claims the outgoing Welsh government has allowed Westminster to “turn the clock back” on disability rights by failing to stand up for disabled people:

These cuts are biting now, and they were voted for by 25 out of 26 Welsh Labour MPs. It was not good enough for the first minister, as leader of the Welsh Labour party, to say ‘it’s up to them’. The next Welsh government must do better.

That inability to stand up to Keir Starmer undermines the outgoing Welsh government’s ambitions and achievements – some of it world-leading in fact, like the Disability Rights Taskforce – and turns the clock backwards on disabled people’s quality of life.

The TUSC candidate also exposed a “black hole” in local planning, citing documents presented to Swansea Council’s budget meeting last month. These reveal the authority had made “no provision” for:

any increased costs or reductions in income arising from changes to welfare reform.

Golightly explained that welfare cuts would lead to increasing demand for services, while simultaneously reducing the council’s ability to charge for them, as residents’ incomes tumble.

He concluded:

I challenged the councillors on this at public questions. Some of those councillors – who either voted in favour of the budget or merely abstained – are now Senedd candidates: Labour, Green and Lib-Dem. I am standing to hold their feet to the fire and keep the fight for disabled people’s rights firmly on the agenda as a socialist voice for the Senedd.

Featured image via Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru