Azernews.Az

By Bloomberg

David Cameron got an early taste of the clashes to come against his welfare cuts when a group of protesters in wheelchairs tried to invade the House of Commons.

As the prime minister took his weekly questions session in Parliament on Wednesday, about 10 people in motorized wheelchairs attempted to get into the chamber. They were stopped by about 40 police officers, who blocked them into Central Lobby, one of the public parts of the building.

The protest was against the ending of the Independent Living Fund, which pays for full-time carers for more than 16,000 severely disabled people. Cameron’s government has pledged a further 12 billion pounds ($19 billion) of welfare cuts as it seeks to erase a budget deficit of almost 5 percent of economic output by 2018.

“We tried to get into the chamber,” said Robert Punton, 51, from Birmingham, central England. “We had, let’s call it, a civilized debate with the police about whether we could or not. But there were more of them than of us.”

Punton, who has cerebral palsy, said the fund had enabled him to live in his own apartment and get a job. He now owns a small business.

“We got to the first set of doors,” said Andy Greene, a 40-year-old wheelchair user from north London. “And then six of them lifted me up in the air and carried me back.”