Scope's reply to the governments planned concessions to the green paper.

I am not one of those idiots either if you don't mind... I have investigated the increases in benefit claims etc before I typed about it on this forum. I also know young people that claim LCWRA that train regularly in gyms and can lift colossal weight. They use steroids to build huge muscular frames. The benefits systems are being fleeced and the DWP know they are, hence more investigators have been employed and claimants bank accounts checked. You have a point about cost of living but would these people claim ill health benefits?

The increases in working age claiming ill health benefits since lockdown is costing £34 billion not Reeves so called £5 billion and is unsustainable. There is definitely something amiss as it has never been seen previously. There were 1/4m claims for PIP the first quarter of this year, when once it was no more than 45k.

I have read the article and the figures quoted are different to what I have read and investigated. The increases in working age claiming ill health benefits since lockdown has gone up by 2/3 and is costing £34 billion not the £5 billion Reeves is claiming back. This is why the Conservatives wanted to go further. I am not spreading misinformation, it is known by the DWP that benefits systems are being fleeced and they are employing more investigators to catch the perpetrators, even checking claimants bank accounts which has started and I thought was for UC but I have been informed PIP as well from the bank itself. Everything I type has been investigated. Thank you for your kind words.

we'll have to wait and see as liz kendall is giving all the details of the concessions on monday.hopefully we will get clarity on whats going to happen.

@Trevor_PIP You do seem to quite like quoting (as does @mawempathy) of all of the increases in benefits' claimants, particularly emphasising the increases since the Covid lockdown and asserting a link to fraudulent activity.

You do realise don't you [both of you], that as at c March 2023, there were c 1.9 million people suffering from Long Covid in this country - c 1.8 % of the population and 71% suffering from it over a year later. Why are you choosing to ignore that in your utterances of fraud and lockdown? I'll leave you to do your own research on that - Government has done so, as have the University of Oxford. The information/evidence is there for you to avail yourself of it. Or maybe just remain blinkered and ignorant of the facts. Your conscience, your call.

You might want to more fully inform yourself of the reasons for increases in benefits claimants instead of the usual claptrap that I expect to hear from Government, not the users of a disability support charity. Your comments, and your choice to be ignorant of facts are, I find, utterly offensive and repugnant.

I would bet my life on it you were out their, banging your pans in support of the NHS and carers. These same, dedicated, brave men and women (BTW, never thought of myself in that vein but yes, I was, and I will never regret it, in whatever life I have left, the care I gave the night I caught it, to seven who all tragically passed away) well we've all become a big part of those very statistics you're so ready to spout off about - ie the benefits claimants that you choose to ignore or castigate - many of whom will have been not only very severely affected, but find the damage never allows them to turn their health or life back round to any degree or semblance of normality.

Those, like I, whose health has been decimated by coronavirus for what will be five years in November, always thought would improve over time but the reality is far, far different. You can't be expected to have a clue that that's the reality for many people and that's fine. Be grateful you don't.

That reality which includes excruciating pain and, to spare you the graphics of it, bits and bobs of your body ending up in other areas it shouldn't be. It is beyond belief the horror of exactly what it does. You want to learn? Ask, I don't mind not sparing you the detail.

But please. Please use what facts are already widely available to be responsible and with a bit of humanity, instead of taking a simplistic view that lockdown has just caused everyone to sit on their a**es and become lazy and fraudulent.

Finally, before I'm told to 'play nicely' that needed saying so consider yourself told: sorry, but, most definitely, not sorry. It might suit Government to ignore/leave people behind, we all know of them whether it's the Post Office Subpostmaster's, the infected blood scandal or us, Long Covid sufferers including us, healthcare workers who were denied PPE, but it should be called out loud and clear. Be glad I didn’t lose my voice.

mate, sorry to say but you don’t know what you are talking about.
Why say lockdown rather than pandemic?

Why not mention the state of the NHS and other public services?

There were more than 2 million people affected with long Covid, a new disease that no one knows the long term effects of it for a start.

As a % of GDP, the UK government is spending the same amount on working-age benefits as it was in 2015. This stands at around 5% and is not projected to change by 2030. This is because we have seen deep cuts to benefits like Universal Credit alongside the increase in people claiming health and disability benefits.

Look at the facts rather than speak out based on your personal impressions or prejudices.