James Windsor-Clive: Renewing the Conservative approach to disability and welfare

James Windsor-Clive was the Conservative candidate for the Ealing Central and Acton at the 2024 general election.

My journey with disability began in 2016. During a routine eye examination, a doctor told me that I would be unable to drive in five years and unable to read in ten. News that – on reflection – could have been delivered more tactfully.

I was working as a management consultant at the time, spending long days hunched over a laptop in a forgotten corner of a client’s office. A job I might struggle to do in a matter of years.

While it was a complete shock, it caused me to totally re-evaluate my life. A silver lining I am thankful for now. Time was of the essence. I did not want to be sitting behind a desk in a job that I did not love. I wanted to be doing something that mattered, where I could have a tangible impact. I followed my heart into politics.

Fortunately, the doctor’s predictions were somewhat alarmist. The rate of deterioration in my eyesight has been slower than many other sufferers with my condition – Stargardt’s Disease. Although the slow march to legal blindness is inevitable barring a medical miracle.

My journey with disability and politics led me to the Conservative Disability Group (CDG), where I became Chair this year.

The CDG has a storied history. Founded in the late 1980s by Jonathan Day and Peter Thurnham MP, the CDG has long been a significant part of the Conservative Party’s effort to champion independence and opportunity for disabled people. It even attracted a 20-minute visit from Margaret Thatcher at our first conference stand!

The CDG has continued to work alongside the Party ever since. It reached new heights during the coalition years, with the promise of ‘hugging hoodies’ and compassionate conservatism improving relations with disability charities and advocacy groups.

The CDG was then expertly steered through Covid by Barry Ginley, the previous Chair, and has continued to lobby the Party behind the scenes to improve accessibility. Like our own Party, the CDG is now going through a period of renewal and it is time to begin a new chapter.

It comes at a time when disability and welfare are truly in the spotlight. Health-related benefits are projected to rise to over £100 billion by the fiscal year 2029/30 – more than we spend on education and justice combined.

The increasing spend is being driven by an increasing number of disability claimants, accelerating since Covid – a uniquely British phenomenon compared to our European peers. Many of those new claimants for harder to test conditions, including mental health issues like anxiety and depression and various musculoskeletal conditions like back problems.

The rising case load means that one in ten working age adults now identify as having a disability. This figure masks staggering regional differences. In some areas of Wales and the North East almost one in five working age adults are claiming disability benefits compared to one in twenty in some areas of the South East.

Most alarmingly, claims for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) have tripled in 5 years amongst those under-25. There is now a conveyor belt of young adults from school into welfare. It is creating individuals who are likely to be dependent on the state their whole life, devoid of the experience that will make them employable.

We can’t go on like this. We must find the courage to fix a welfare system that traps too many in dependency while failing those who genuinely need support. The need for reform, and putting welfare on a sustainable path is recognised by parties across the political spectrum.

Recently, we had Lee Anderson discussing the removal of PIP for non-serious anxiety disorders, and the suggestion to bring back Invacars for disabled people – an unserious idea that detracts from real reform. Kemi Badenoch has spoken about her desire to tighten eligibility criteria and reduce overall welfare spending at our conference.

Even Labour have attempted to tackle the burgeoning welfare bill only to see their efforts thwarted by their own MPs, a staggering retreat for a party with a majority of 177 MPs). They have fallen back to their favourite default position: run away from a tough decision and order an enquiry (Steven Tims is due to report back in Autumn 2026). This position that is all the more surprising given the ever-increasing fiscal black hole they need to fill.

I have serious doubts about their stomach for impactful reform. Labour’s appetite for tackling welfare is correlated with their popularity, and that only seems to be going in one direction; their mishandling of the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill has left too many scars and demonstrates a fundamental lack of political will for change.

The can will be kicked down the road and it will be up to us to do something about it. My ambition is for the Conservative Disability Group to be at the heart of forming the Conservatives’ welfare reform agenda.

We need to learn from Labour’s mistakes, which were twofold. Firstly, they lacked a cohesive narrative about why welfare reform was necessary. They had not taken their MPs from an opposition mindset that blindly opposed welfare reform to one of a party of Government required to make difficult decisions. Secondly, they had not consulted disability groups about the changes they were going to make, which meant they did not build trust and achieve some kind of consensus.

While putting welfare spending on a more sustainable footing is clearly part of the answer, we need to have a more nuanced position than to simply cut spending. We’ve had our fingers burnt before in 2013 when George Osborne transitioned us from the Disability Living Allowance to PIP to cut spending. We’ve now seen the cost rocket in subsequent years.

True reform is not just about balancing the books. It is about renewing a system that too often fails both taxpayers and those it is meant to help. The CDG will be the bridge between policymakers and the real-world experiences of disabled people.

We will seek to find answers to societal questions involving disability. What will happen to individuals who lose their benefits? How do we tackle the mental health epidemic? How do we encourage people to live healthier lives?

We want to build a community that our Party can draw on to test ideas and learn from first-hand experience. We have policy roundtables in the pipeline, events to build the community, and plans to host an annual get together of Conservative policy makers and disability organisations.

Aside from policy, the CDG will seek to drive awareness and accessibility across the Party from CCHQ to our local associations. There are also plans to assist disability candidates seeking elected office. We would love to get to a point where we offer training sessions to both associations and candidates.

We need people with energy and enthusiasm to join us on this journey. Come and get involved, whether you have a disability yourself, have a friend or family member with a disability, or you just want to be an able ally.

How we help those who need our support will be one of the enduring questions of our generation. We need a system that safeguards public finances, rewards effort, and ensures that every disabled person has the opportunity to live a fulfilling life.