Channel 4 documentary on benefits was ‘atrocity’ and ‘insult’ to disabled people in poverty, say activists

A Channel 4 documentary that claimed to expose the “scandal” of the disability benefits system has been described as an “atrocity” and an “insult” to the millions of disabled people in poverty.

The film for Channel 4’s Dispatches, presented by Fraser Nelson – former editor of the right-wing magazine The Spectator – caused outrage among many disabled people who watched it.

It claimed to show that the social security system can “drive people towards benefits rather than work”, and that the costs of supporting disabled people who cannot work “threaten to derail the government’s hopes of economic growth”, and it asked the question: “Are we getting sicker? Or lazier?”

It came only three days after The Mirror newspaper backed a veteran columnist who claimed that “millions” of disabled people were dishonestly claiming out-of-work benefits (see separate story).

They are just the latest in a stream of articles and programmes across the mainstream media that have made un-evidenced, hostile claims about disabled people on out-of-work benefits in the last year, and they come as the new government prepares its own reforms of the disability benefits system, which are set to be published in a green paper in the spring.

There were multiple concerns about accuracy and unevidenced claims in the Dispatches programme, while the radical working-class media organisation The Canary pointed out that Nelson had failed to state he was on the advisory board of the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), the right-wing thinktank that devised universal credit and whose policy director Edward Davies was interviewed in the programme.   

The documentary came just two years after a Dispatches programme produced in association with Disability News Service (DNS) won an award at the British Journalism Awards after exposing the “cruel and inhuman” disability assessment system.

The grassroots, user-led mental health group Recovery in the Bin (RiTB) described the new documentary, Britain’s Benefits Scandal, as an “atrocity”.

Rick Burgess, an RiTB spokesperson, said: “We see what this is, it is a cycle repeated endlessly of government working with media to ready the way for another round of DWP abuse.  

“Shame on everyone involved.”

The documentary was described by Disability Rights UK as “an insult to the millions of disabled people on the poverty line”.

The Benefits and Work information and advice website suggested that the “shamefully inaccurate and prejudicial” documentary was part of attempts at “softening up British public opinion” before the green paper was published. 

Many disabled people on social media were even more scathing and angry, describing the programme as “quietly hateful”, “dehumanising”, “scapegoating”, “distressing” and “demonising”.

John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle Campaign, said he believed the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was “emphatically” behind the “false narrative” displayed in the string of recent articles and programmes.

He said the last 14 years had shown that this hostile rhetoric – stirred up by DWP – always increased before major disability benefit reforms were announced.

He said: “They are trying to say the benefits bill is bankrupting the country and it’s simply not the case.”

A Channel 4 spokesperson failed to address concerns raised by DNS about the documentary, including inaccuracies and misleading statements made in the programme, and its failure to mention Dispatches’ own award-winning documentary that had exposed the assessment system.

The executive producer of the documentary, Eamonn Matthews, chief executive of Quicksilver Media, which made the documentary for Dispatches, insisted yesterday (Wednesday) that the documentary was “factually accurate” and claimed that Nelson “was on the [CSJ] advisory board which is no longer active”.

When DNS pointed out that Nelson had described himself as a member of the CSJ advisory board in an article he had written for the Glasgow Herald, which was published on the same day as the documentary, Matthews declined to comment further.

The Channel 4 spokesperson said that Dispatches had “a history of investigating serious issues with the benefits system and holding the government to account on this” and he claimed that Nelson’s “investigation” had “revealed problems recognised by experts and politicians across the political spectrum”. 

He claimed it was “based on deep and meticulous research”, and was told “through those affected: claimants, assessors and ministers all reflecting on a failing system. 

“We wanted to give voice to claimants, place them at the centre of the film, as they are too often erased from the debate. 

“Throughout the film Fraser emphasised that this is a story of good people caught in a bad system.  

“Hearing from them directly we are hoping to tackle damaging stereotypes into which this debate too often descends.  

“Part of the purpose of the film was to highlight the difficulties and stigma that some people can face and to give them their voice in the discussions around the benefits system that they are rarely given.”

Credit for this article goes to the Disability News Service