Hi, my name is Cicero!

Cicero

I too, as a disabled person, have once lived and worked in USA and Canada where laws protecting the disabled mean something and are enforced. Everything a new member has said is true about how we disabled Brits have to suffer things that would not be tolerated in the EU, Canada, USA and beyond. We need the British equivalent of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) civil rights legislation which is updated yearly. And on this basis, as a once expat British investigative journalist I have to say that it really horrifies me when I see and hear about so many abuses to our disability benefits. The government tried in vain to cut the benefits to truly deserving persons but was let down by Labour MP’s en masse. As merely one example, take the Working Tax Credit system which is a joke. For the so-called disabled, they are given a lovely payout if they work no more than 14 hours a week. They can then use their generous DLA or PIP Higher Rate allowance to go shopping in their nice upmarket Motability cars on the days they don’t work and come back, laden down with groceries, walking easily and carrying their shopping bags, despite being classed as severely disabled, not in wheelchairs or on mobility scooters. There are so many more chronic abusers of our welfare system and it’s about time they were stopped. No one wants to see the truly medically certified severely disabled people suffer but the miscreants need to have all their benefits stopped completely and be required to refund

Kimi87

I'm surprised you seem unaware that Working Tax Credits have now been entirely replaced by Universal Credit.

Further anyone migrating from Disability Tax Credit had to go through a Work Capability Assessment under UC, as only ESA awards give automatic entitlement to LCW/LCWRA elements.

Not PIP, not Income Support, not WTC.

Cicero

Universal Credit is still in the process of replacing Working Tax Credit. It seems the UC’s main objective is to pay the benefit monthly instead of weekly or fortnightly and to increase, not decrease, the payout. But your comment does not address the problem of the cheaters that I mentioned.

Kimi87

Working Tax Credits ended four months ago.

https://www.gov.uk/tax-credits-have-ended

There are a few who gain on UC, but others get less which is why Transitional Protection is added so they aren't worse off at the time of transfer. TP erodes over time, eventually they and a claim in identical circumstances who got UC without TP will be on the same money.

I myself was awarded PIP last year. Zero extra on UC. On legacy benefits I would have qualified for £81.50 a week extra, an extra someone migrating with would get Transitional Protection for.

That to me doesn't align with your view that UC's aim is to make people better off.