Green Paper Discussion (from 24th March, 2025)

Seen a charity I think was rowntree foundation, started talking the cuts down now, saying people with autism have nothing to worry about as usually mental health involves a high scoring descriptor as well as those with the most extreme needs for doing daily tasks. It read like they have given up or the government has got to them.

My daughter came over she was very upset she's gone to university worked hard to save for deposit bought own flat got good job and can't afford anything after bills it's becoming reality starmer following plans The Who convention

And ego driven imagine the pats on the back he will be getting

If reforms to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) are passed as a Money Bill, it limits the ability of the House of Lords to block or amend them. However, legal challenges in the courts are still possible under certain circumstances.

Judicial Review Possibilities

Even if a PIP reform is passed as a Money Bill, it could still be challenged in court if there are legal grounds, such as:

1. Human Rights Violations – If the changes disproportionately affect disabled people and violate the Equality Act 2010 or Human Rights Act 1998 (e.g., discrimination under Article 14 of the ECHR).
2. Breach of Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) – Under the Equality Act 2010, the government must assess the impact of policy changes on disabled people. If this duty isn't met properly, the reforms could be challenged.
3. Unlawful Process – If the government fails to follow the proper procedures (e.g., inadequate consultation or failing to justify changes properly), a judicial review could argue the reforms are procedurally unfair.
4. Ultra Vires (Beyond Legal Power) – If the reforms exceed the government's legal powers or contradict existing legislation without proper repeal, they could be struck down.

Limits of a Legal Challenge

• Courts cannot overturn a Money Bill itself, but they can declare specific aspects of the policy unlawful if they breach legal duties.
• Parliamentary Sovereignty means courts cannot challenge laws just because they are unfair—only if they are legally defective.

Iv'e put some information about the money bill on here somewhere in this thread, it would be difficult for them to try it as the reforms are mainly about changing eligibility for pip and not the actual financial aspects of it, like making changes to payments to certain groups etc, which is not in their green paper. They could do a seperate one for a money bill and include stuff in that, but that would take time too!! I think it's unlikely to pass at the moment with what they are are wanting to do to pip, and anyway this stupid reform policy will be taken to court and either stopped or slowed down for months, probably even years.

I've joined DAPAC.

Is the rise in basic rate UC not their way of attempting to avoid certain challenges ie disability discrimination? If everyone is affected, albeit to vastly differing degrees, they'll argue it IS only a money bill - winners and losers and all that!

The social contract seems so easily cast aside, and disposable, when they decide money needs to be saved. 😕

Not really. It's just people leaping from one form of ignorance to another. Autism is not a disease, it can't be medicated (although some of it's co-occurring conditions can), it cannot be cured, it is with us from birth and most of us struggle to see a GP even when we are ill, much less work out how to explain what we need from them - so the majority of us have very little involvement with medical professionals post-diagnosis.

The ignorance problem is that "if it isn't medical, it doesn't exist".

I have no idea how this correlates to the experiences of other people with inborn disabilities that are not strictly medical - for example, someone born Deaf or with a visual impairment - and whether the same gaps in the 'medical evidence' are there for them or not.

The biggest problem is that we continue to use words that NT people understand in a different way, meaning you get people who think it's a spectrum that everyone is on somewhere (which ofc it isn't) and people who think that you're making a big fuss out of nothing.

Autism is not a disease. Can't do anything much about that.

On another subject, today an article in the Times talking about how many more people will be out of work as a result of the cuts proposed. I am wondering how many of those are PIP claimants who will lose their ability to work from losing their gateway services.

There's a parallel here though. The same ignorance is still insisting that cutting PIP will get people into work, when of course, it won't.

The Govt, yes. But I'm talking about the wider public, who have been bombarded by articles conflating benefits and creating misconceptions about 'overdiagnosis', or disabilities not being real/being diagnosed online/used to 'avoid going to work'.

If you sway public opinion, then even if there's opposition to unfair policy, it's easier to push it through.