What a difference just one little word can make. For instance ‘I love you’ or just ‘I like you’. But they’re obvious. How about the words ‘want’ and ‘need’?

I ‘want’ a new car is very different to I ‘need’ a new car, so I hope it is easy for you to see why disabled people and organisations working on their behalf use the word ‘need’ instead of ‘want’.

Yet how about the Government? Does its actions show that it agrees? If you think so then maybe, by the time you have read this column, I will have helped you understand what will happen to a great many disabled people next year.

You see, needs don’t seem to matter.

Benefits for disabled people are being cut. Well, yes you say, we know that, but I wonder if you really understand the impact that will have on thousands of lives.

It is not just a case of going without the occasional cinema visit or having a cheaper holiday; it is about a whole lifestyle that will have to be changed and which, in many cases, may lead people into poverty.

Haven’t we already got enough people living below the poverty line without adding thousands more?

One of the benefits that will disappear is Disability Living Allowance that is given to help people buy the special equipment they need to live normal and independent lives and to contribute personally and economically to society.

Our country will be poorer without them. But does the Government agree? Oh, no. It is set to gain £2bn. Wow. Yes, £2bn when about two thirds of claimants lose this benefit.

‘Ah’ says the Government, but we are giving another benefit called Personal Independence Payment, so don’t worry. However, to receive this, claimants must pass strict criteria. Sounds sensible so far doesn’t it, but read on.

Anyone who can move themselves 50 metres unaided will lose the payment, unless they can earn points in some other way. Still sounds sensible? Consider this then – if you are in an electric wheelchair you could lose it because you can move unaided, but without the payment you lose the wheelchair.

Talk about a Catch 22 situation. Thousands would have to give up work and be forced to seek other benefits.

Indeed, the advice going around at the moment is “go to your assessment in a manual wheelchair”.

Housing benefit cuts for disabled people will cost the country even more but I won’t go into that because I am sure that, by now, you’ll have got the picture.

The reforms are pushing disabled people back into the lives they led several decades ago; all the progress made by campaigners and lobbyists will be lost and the country will lose out on the contributions being made by talented people.

What does the Government think it is doing?