DR UK calls for more coordinated and flexible support for disabled entrepreneurs

Tue,2 May 2017
News Education

"Gig economy" companies free-riding on the welfare state.

Read report

View our response to the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy consultation “Building our Industrial Strategy”

In its report the Work and Pensions Committee says Government must close the loopholes that are currently allowing "bogus" self-employment practices, which are potentially creating an extra burden on the welfare state while simultaneously reducing the tax contributions that sustain it.

The report finds that

  • The DWP needs to ensure that its programmes and resources reflect the positive contribution that self-employment can make to society and the economy. This may require an expansion of specialist support in JCP.
  • DWP is seeking to support entrepreneurship without subsidising unprofitable self-employment. The existing Minimum Income Floor in Universal Credit does not get this balance right and risks stifling viable new businesses. The incoming Government should urgently review the MIF with a view to improving its sensitivity to the realities of self-employment. Until this is complete, the MIF should not apply to self-employed UC claimants.

Disability Rights UK says that a high number of disabled are likely to be self-employed and are often affected by the above criticised actions of the DWP highlighted in the report. We would like to see a system which provides co-ordinated and flexible support to self-employed disabled people as outlined in our response to industrial strategy consultation