Spring Statement Discussion (link to documents here)
Comments
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I agree, it's so dehumanising having our living just put down to points of what we can do that determines whether or not we're allowed support. I'm so sorry you have all of those issues are going on and added on the fact that they lied on your report. I hope MacMillan helps you summarise all of your difficulties for your PIP review x
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Bless you , we need to try and keep the fear away and rise our vibration , love over fear x
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The Government are floundering around, not really knowing how they are going to achieve the random figures.
In just a week its become clear they wouldn't be able to get the 5b from welfare cuts Kendallsaid they'd get.
They're going for welfare because it's the only place they can rip money out of.
If they taxed their rich mates there would be an absolute outcry.
I worked for forty years and loved it, therefore I support that people should havd the opportunity to experience it.
But the Government is simply using this as an opportunity to penalise anyone who needs support.
If they particularly go for the young people they know there will be an outcry and if will also be considered discriminatory.
They are chomping at the bit to try and prove they are being fair. They know they are persecuting the vulnerable and theyre scratching around to try and make it sound better .
Hope this makes sense!
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Are you legally trained? No need to reply specifically..
My comment was a statement rather than a question 🙂
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This is what I expected, but this provides more info than I found in the green paper, the way I interpret this is that this will be the priority to reassess people who got LCWRA via something deemed as a short term problem or regulation 35. Substantial risk for a while has been eating ministers. As they see it as a soft way to get LCWRA. My understanding is that because of the court case victory over the WCA consultation, that the rules should be the same as previous WCA although the DWP are so sly, there is always the possibility of new guidance been issued to assessors.
This suggests those with long term conditions who managed to get LCWRA via 15 points will be low priority and might not be reassessed.
Originally regulation 35 was a lot tighter as designed by the previous Labour government, the Tories made a lot of changes to it to allow people to be awarded LCWRA.2 -
I am not aware of any charities saying anything else to dispute this, instead they are been quiet about the legal reality. The only group I have seen indicate that its something else is that facebook group of which I think they have it wrong telling people there is nothing to worry about for 18 months, but they also stated they are preparing legal action behind the scenes. Benefits and work as an example have made it clear, that once this is ratified in parliament its done. Sadly Labour know what they doing here. I think its the wrong thing to sit there thinking this wont be much of a problem, it will take years, it can be challenged later etc. Labour have said they will make the PIP change legislated in this parliament session, the page I linked to clearly states parliament is supreme over the courts. In short everything possible needs to be done to stop this going through, after that point its about trying to get a lower rate of daily living or TP for those who lose out.
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I am LCWRA substantial risk with Bipolar Disorder. I have been hospitalized with it. My paper work says medium term. I am worried I am going to get caught up in this reassessment. Unless the fact I have got a psychiatric condition that has had me in hospital I am someone they intended to protect in the first place.
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Sadly it isnt looking good. I also cant help but feel they seem confident a specific amount are going to lose LCWRA, we going to need to keep an eye on the first people who get reassessed to see if the old regulation is applied or they play games.
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They are bound to play games. I tactically voted to get this lot in I feel absolutely shafted. I do qualify LCWRA on continence as well, so we will see. I will appeal them too.
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The Tories and Labour alike have been shafting young people for decades now. The overt backlash is minimal outside of activist circles, but has left deep generational trauma and hatred. A lot of young people are either leaving the country or dropping out of the workforce entirely because they know their life chances in the UK are fucked (whether by choice, disability or parenthood). Brexit has made this harder, but not impossible. Yet because convervatives of all stripes know young people don't vote for them (and prior to Corbyn's Labour, not at all), they will ignore what they want.
tactical voting is a sham that benefits nobody other than opportunists. Best vote with your heart next time. At least then your conscience is clear.
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The bigger problem is that so many of the papers are either ignoring that or are genuinely confused by the difference. The misinformation in the press of late has been so intense, in order to turn public opinion against those claiming.
It happened in 2011 right before the government austerity closed my workplace. There was a concerted campaign against public sector workers, quoting the salaries of chief executives and claiming that we had all these extra privileges and higher pay rises and so on (I think the phrase was pigs in the trough, actually). At that time public sector workers had been under a pay rise freeze for years, and in my case, I was working 25 hours a week (the maximum I can manage with my disability, factoring in transport as an extra as well), and the amount I earned in a year was less than the cost of a new car at the time.
The people who lost their jobs in austerity were those of us who were patching up the frontline services after years of cuts and not the ones who were earning the big money.
Just like the people who are going to lose their benefits are the most vulnerable, not the (alleged) fraudsters (who probably don't exist anyway).I did notice with distaste the suggestion that people will just 'claim for more severe disabilities' to keep PIP. The implication being we all just lie on our PIP forms to get more money. Even though the DWP's own official fraud figure is 0%.
Feeding the media misinformation is a surefire way to get the gullible on board with cuts that will doubtless lead to loss of life. The abuse against disabled people on social media lately (most of it from people who haven't the first clue and have just copy pasted opinions from the Mail or some other right wing paper) has been really disgusting.
It isn't rocket science, either, that the 3.2million who are going to lose out are those at the poor end of the spectrum. The ones who will benefit will be in the upper wage brackets. The ones who can actually get working from home jobs, or who can relocate at a moment's notice to take a better job - or the ones who are employed because recruitment favours those who can babble about themselves for hours rather than do the job they're interviewing for.
Adding in a few thoughts before I finally go to bed…
Firstly - they might take the PIP and other stuff to primary legislation, the Lords kicked about and kicked out the monitoring of bank accounts because they saw it as prompting potential legal action. They highlighted this as an issue even if it became law. So even if they made it law in a ridiculous "Rwanda law" way, that doesn't mean the fight is necessarily done. The actual qualification thing might be put into law, but there is the potential to challenge what the assessment criteria are (and we know they discriminate against invisible disabilities) and also how the DWP are awarding them (to ensure they are not downgrading people to save money).
We actually have a sort of precedent for this, when Cameron et al tried to remove 'psychological distress' from PIP to reduce the number of claimants and was forced to back down because it discriminated against certain disabilities. It's not quite the same but it does mean that if their suggestions disproportionately impact certain disabilities, it could be harder to get it through without amendments.So there are still areas they can contest, even if the 4 points becomes fixed. Plus, if the monitoring bank accounts law could have been challenged legally even after becoming law, I am not sure why this one could not be too. I think maybe in the case of the other law it was the potential for individual claimants bringing legal action - which would also be an option, if several individual claimants took the DWP to court over points not being allocated correctly, or whatever. But I'm not a lawyer. So. Onto my other point…
Government keeps talking about severe disabilities, but the Equalities Act mentions a substantial and long-term impact. It does not use the term 'severe'. This is a government opinion, or assumption, but with regard to equality, they surely have to prove that having many criteria at 2 points each is not commensurate with a disability that has a 'substantial and long term' impact. This is not the same thing as the 'severe' disability argument they keep painting. Nobody knows what a severe disability is, not really - afaik there's no official definition :/
I do miss the DDA, though. At least then we had an act that was designed to protect us, whereas right now we're the afterthoughts of the Equalities Act, and govt policy indicates they don't think our rights matter very much.8 -
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I don't want to laugh, but I will.
I said as much to my partner yesterday after Rachel From Accounts' (RFA) hour in the limelight, of which, btw, she appeared to enjoy every nanosecond.
I told him I reckon, for me at least, it's the soup pot or the munitions factory in RFA's bright, new world. Those seem to be the choices facing me.
In a more serious conversation, I genuinely believe people will need to form households with others in similar circumstances to survive.
The idea of attempting to live independently, as a disabled person, in RFA's bright, new world is for the birds I'm afraid.
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That's me on the streets then , not only am I politically homeless I'll literally be homeless as well
I'm going to be one of the suicide statistics becauee this has broken me
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I'm sorry to hear you are having so much trouble. Don't know if this helps but stick to your guns with them. I declared an amount from small pensions pot around £300. Heard nothing about it until a year later when they decided I had to pay it back . I challenged this as I had not had money deducted from previous one and had confirmation on my posts from a decision maker it would not affect my benefit. They took money bsck from me but then eventually when people started reading and acting on messages I was told I didn't owe them. They have just refunded me 6 months later . Take screen shots of everything in your journal. I went months without responses and did mention if I hadn't responded to them I'd be sanctioned. Wish you all best.
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completely agree with you my son is 22 and off in August out of this country.He’s fed up with it here
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