The minister for disabled people has admitted to complete ignorance about the mo…

The minister for disabled people has admitted to complete ignorance about the model that lies at the heart of his governments programme of disability benefit reforms. Justin Tomlinson was asked what his thoughts were about the biopsychosocial (BPS) model of disability in a question-and-answer session at a meeting of the all-party parliamentary disability group on Tuesday. Ministers have repeatedly spoken of how the BPS model is central to their disability benefit reform programme and successive governments have relied on it to justify slashing disability benefits for more than a decade. Ellen Clifford from Inclusion London told the meeting while Tomlinson was out of the room voting that the BPS model would be underpinning the governments health and work green paper which will be published later this year. She said that comments by new work and pensions secretary Stephen Crabb earlier in the meeting about the need for closer integration between work and health showed that this green paper would also be based on the BPS model. She said BPS was a punitive approach which locates the problem within the individual and had been shown to be not an effective way of supporting disabled people into employment. In response to her question which was read to him on his return from voting Tomlinson said that the BPS name sounded really impressive and added: I will let somebody much greater than me decide whats the right thing. He then added: Im afraid I dont even know what it is. Earlier this month new research by three disabled academics concluded that the BPS model does not represent evidence-based policy and was riddled with inconsistencies misleading statements and unevidenced claims. BPS under-pinned Labours new out-of-work disability benefit employment and support allowance (ESA) and its work capability assessment (WCA) which was introduced in 2008 and has since been linked repeatedly to health relapses episodes of self-harm and even suicides and other deaths among those who have been assessed and found fit for work. It has also played a key role in the tightening of eligibility criteria for ESA and other disability benefits by the subsequent coalition and Tory governments and the introduction of the new personal independence payment and universal credit. The three academics said in their research that the BPS model argued that it was the negative attitudes of many ESA recipients that prevent them from working rather than their impairment or health condition essentially branding many benefit claimants scroungers. This allows supporters of BPS including a string of Labour and Tory government ministers to draw a distinction between real incapacity benefit claimants with long-term and incurable health conditions and fake benefit claimants with short-term illness. Clifford said after the meeting that the ministers ignorance about the BPS was really concerning because it had been pivotal to the governments policies on disability benefits and was the fundamental model on which welfare reform is based. She said: Since 2010 that model has not only failed disabled people but caused untold avoidable suffering and harm. His response suggests that he doesnt actually know what he is doing. News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynew… from DisabledGo News and Blog www.disabledgo.co… For The Wet Rooms Kitchen and home adaptations specialists visit Trinity Living www.trinityliving…