She's Green, so if/when I do get a reply it will not be the standard Labour party line. You will recall from the election that the 'small but mighty Greens' were going to hold Labour to account. Indeed, yes. All 4 of them.
Dear Siân Berry.
I am a single woman of ****. I have spinal curvature and can only walk with a rollator and also the autoimmune disease polymyalgia rheumatica, then symptoms of which fluctuate. I live alone without carers. In current political discourse, dripping as fluidly from Kendall as it did from Stride, ‘the disabled’ are synonymous with those who may be returned to work or sometimes with the mentally ill: I am a non-person.
This is both a denial of fact – the number of disabled people who are under 18 or over 66 (it should surprise no-one that the percentage of disabled people in the population rises with age), and an offensive trivialization of conditions that cannot be rectified - never mind, dear, a few sessions with a physio/psychotherapist and you’ll be right as rain, off to work you go.
PIP (Personal Independence Payment) is not means-tested and has nothing to do with fitness for work. However, as a rule it is only available to those of working age. I get it because I applied shortly before I reached pension age, in which situation it is continued.
You will be aware the DWP is under investigation by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. You may not be aware of the fine print of relatively trivial stupidity and incompetence
A five-year-old would look at me and lisp, “Mummy, that lady can’t walk properly.” Let us dwell on the name ‘personal independence’ and ask what limits my personal independence. According to PIP criteria I have no mobility problems.
- Can stand and then move more than 200 metres, either aided or unaided. 0 points
PIP - table of activities, descriptors and points (citizensadvice.org.uk)
The last government produced a Green Paper suggesting the cash payment of PIP be replaced by catalogues, vouchers and reimbursement for receipts. This has not been ditched.
Catalogues and vouchers
1.Have they ever looked at the site of a disability aids company or indeed Amazon. How can a catalogue possibly encompass it all? Try going to essentialaids.com (one of many) and searching on ‘cutlery’.
2. My first thought was Michelle Mone. Oh really, and what criminal backroom deals will select cheap substandard and untested and therefore dangerous aids for inclusion in this catalogue.. There is a large gulf in trust between the disability community and government and the Labour Party should not do anything to feed it.
3. Have the energy companies agreed to accept vouchers?
4.What are the administrative costs of production and distribution of catalogues and vouchers. What for that matter is the cost to the environment in paper? Some disabled people whether because of age or infirmity are not computer literate. A cash payment is of course set it and forget it from the POV of the DWP.
5. When my last rollator died I wanted a immediate replacement of the item I wanted from Amazon not the item the government thought it could fob me off with. This is a matter of critical importance to me. Otherwise I can’t get to the kitchen to make a cup of tea or go to the lavatory. Do these people understand simple facts? Why should I be bothered by them? In fact for this reason I have a spare 3 wheeler to enable me to exist; it has no seat and therefore no means of transporting anything. People in such situations do not want to be and should not be messed around by bureaucracy.
Vouchers:
Retailers will wish to be bothered with reclaiming from the DWP when they could have cash in hand? How is change to be negotiated if a £20 voucher is submitted for an item costing £11.99. If a voucher for £11.99 is solemnly issued, what if the price of the item has risen or fallen? Every Amazon shopper knows prices are constantly fluctuating. Supposing one needs two of something, or even three, one for each room, three incontinence pads when some bureaucrat cannot understand things dry slowly indoors in flats where there is no choice and only permits one.
Receipts – so every time someone buys a adapted fork or a urinal, any one of the hundreds of small items that improve life we have to send off the receipt? You cannot be serious.
The insolence, the contempt, or possibly just the stupidity, underlying all this cannot be over-estimated. Some unqualified jumped-up little pipsqueak of a bureaucrat is to decide what I need and when I need it.
Virtual reality is a wonderful thing. It can simulate many conditions, sensory impairment, difficulty walking, difficulty processing information. It seems to me it would be an excellent thing if all able-bodied persons engaged in pronouncing on the lives of the disabled had first to undergo induction in which they found out what it was like. It is little short of intolerable to have people who can stand up without thinking about it, run for a bus, climb stairs, bend down and readily mop up spills on the kitchen floor, cut up vegetables, who do not sometimes sit in wet beds, being unable to move fast enough to reach a receptacle, pronouncing on what I need to have as good a life as possible Let Stride, Coffey and their ilk sit in their own urine working themselves up to being able to stand up.
Yours sincerely
