CAMPAIGNERS reacted with fury today to the cancellation of the Westminster government’s only face-to-face consultation in Wales on changes to disabled benefits.

Disabled People Against Cuts said the consultation, which had been due to take place today in Cardiff, was always going to be unfair, with half the proposals excluded from discussion.

The group demanded that any House of Commons vote on the proposals must not go ahead until there had been a full and genuine public consultation in Wales.

An angry protest went ahead outside Cardiff Central railway station, with speakers queuing up to denounce the changes to the benefit system for people with disabilities.

Participant AJ Le Brun said that, as a disabled woman, she had been failed by successive Tory governments but thought Labour might be different.

“Removing financial support from disabled people will push more of them out of work, not into it,” she said.

“My wheelchair cost my family £14,000 — and that’s just to be able to leave my house.

“How do they expect us to get to work if they take away the funds that help us remain independent?” 

Plaid Cymru social justice spokeswoman Sioned Williams told the protest that the incomes of disabled people in Wales could be cut by £466 million if the Labour government’s welfare reforms went ahead.

“The Bevan Foundation has said the levels of poverty that people in Wales are living in could dramatically increase, with the number of households affected more than triple, from 24.5 per cent to 78.4 per cent,” Ms Williams pointed out.

The Senedd member for South West Wales pledged that all Plaid Cymru MPs will vote against the proposals.

“Every Welsh Labour MP must put their constituents first, their nation first and common humanity first and vote against them,” Ms Williams added.

Matthew Shephers, a social worker and carer for his partner, who is severely disabled with Parkinson’s disease and couldn’t leave the house to join the protest, said: “The Labour government is committing social murder through these cuts to welfare benefits.

“The stress to disabled people as they try and deal with cuts to their benefits will help kill people as they worry about making ends meet.”