Mark Hoban sitting on his velvet cushion
It is the oldest trick in the spin doctor’s book – wait until something big happens – and then use the cover that provides to slip out bad news.
For Mark Hoban, Minister at DWP the coincidence of the Westminster parliamentary recess and the royal birth was the perfect cover this week for disclosing shameful figures about the humiliating and degrading new testing process that people with disabilities have to endure to get benefits.
It emerges that a government review has concluded that Disability Benefit Assessments carried out by private contractors Atos are of an unacceptably poor quality, around 30% of cases refused support go to appeal and are subsequently granted benefits.
There have now been 600,000 appeals since the new process started, at a cost of £60 million a year.
The reason why these tests were introduced was because the government bowed to tabloid newspaper pressure about “scroungers” In 2010 Prime Minister David Cameron backed a Sun newspaper campaign “Help Us to Beat Cheats” which went to war on false benefit claims.
It featured a man on disability allowance riding Speedway bikes and a woman who goes to the gym.
“Our campaign has the backing of Prime Minister David Cameron and together we are determined to tackle those who fraudulently drain Britain’s resources,” it trumpeted.
The paper ran a hotline for readers to name and shame benefit cheats and subsequent coverage revealed people on disability benefits jive dancing, lap dancing and running a window cleaning business.
Fair enough, nobody can justify abuse of the system. But then things started to turn nasty. The Department of Work and Pensions went on to state that 75% claiming incapacity benefit were faking disability. This extraordinarily irresponsible claim has subsequently been disproved: just 0.3% of incapacity benefit is overspent due to fraud.
The result of this irresponsible verbal assault on disabled people was actual assault. Disability hate crimes are on the rise, according to Home Office statistics they now stand at 65,000 per year. Disability charities are all agreed that the deteriorating situation is a result of the “scrounger” rhetoric promoted by tabloid newspapers, and sadly, the government itself.
It is, of course, hugely irresponsible to suggest that a majority of disabled people are faking their disability and are therefore leeches on the State – and shameful when those claims are made despite evidence demonstrating that cheats and fakes constitute a tiny minority. It is no more and no less than an attack on the vulnerable.
And what makes the whole case so puzzling is that the man chosen to weed out the “scroungers” on disability, has something of a tarnished record himself.
Employment Minister Mark Hoban first came to prominence during the expenses scandal where it was revealed that he had claimed for a range of household items for his second home in London: these included an LCD TV at £749, silk cushion covers at £79 and a £35 toilet roll holder.
Last November he sold this same flat in Pimlico at a profit of £144,000.
He has only had to pay back £11,332 of this, because it is only since May 2010 that MPs have not been able to profit from increases in the value of their taxpayer funded second homes, and that is the estimate of how much the flat increased in value between then and when the property was sold. Over the same period Mr Hoban claimed £17,247 towards the cost of his mortgage.
Is it any wonder that so many people are getting disillusioned with politicians when a man who has benefitted so handsomely from taxpayers should be chosen to root out “scroungers” on incapacity benefit, many of whom are struggling to make ends meet?
nickgarbutt 
Leave a comment