Disability Benefit Cuts - Take action before July 9th.

Thank you Chiareds for posting the link to the Mayfield report.

What stuck out to me like a sore thumb was how little the report tended to touch on employee experiences. It was sympathetic to people's situations more than just assuming people didn't want to be in work, but the idea that most employers want to keep employees and support them in the workplace is highly subjective and doesn't really jive with the 50% of employers who apparently don't want them.

I remember reading a report a few years back about Disability Confident, where around 80% of organisations had not actually increased their disability employment. I wish I could find the report now (I think it was 2018, so before the pandemic, showing that this was an endemic problem even then) but it was eye-opening about how many Disability Confident employers were not actually making changes to their practices.

Mine is one that does take all that seriously - for example, they've just published a new disability strategy after consultation with disabled and neurodivergent staff groups - but although that acknowledges so many of the barriers disabled people face, and problems faced during recruitment, it still looks at employment from the perspective of interviewing and scoring candidates on points. No matter how much awareness training you have, you are never going to employ someone who can't present themselves coherently in an interview over someone who can. The playing field is never going to be level - if you make too many allowances for a disabled candidate, you discriminate against non disabled candidates, but if you are using a method that is known to discriminate against disabled candidates, then no matter how much you try and mitigate, it's still never going to be completely fair.

So how the government intend to mitigate that I don't know - if it's still a problem even in well-meaning and supportive workplaces.

As I've mentioned before, at department level I've had nothing but support from my management team. It was GETTING the job in the first place that was the barrier . And I think this is something the Mayfield report is missing - at least in any depth - because the barriers people face are so diverse.

(Meanwhile, I hope I misread a report in a paper headline yesterday in which it looked like the Chancellor referred to benefit cuts as 'low hanging fruit' - ie an easy financial target. Perhaps I just took it out of context).

You know people who are in a worse condition than me ? And how do you know what condition I’m in . You don’t know me or my full medical history and certainly not how it affects me . Is it because you don’t consider ME serious enough? Right now I have to suffer daily pain as pain killers are incompatible with other conditions and I’m barely out of bed let alone awake. Life’s impossible without energy.

I think it was just the bluntness in one paragraph that made it stand out that way . I’ve really had to fight the dwp , once for over 2, years up to higher tier . Not just for myself but for everyone who deserves their award but doesn’t have the strength to fight .

Yeah ....

Honestly I'm just tired of second guessing them , I'm not going to let them take my life ....

I don't think I'm short term as I've been on benefit for 15 years

I don't think I qualified through the serve criteria

Technically I've never been assessed for lcwra , as I always got assessed through incapacity benefit and then through ESA support group , so when I voullentatrlly moved over to UC I automatically got put into the lcwra group because of my support group status.... Although everyone that is migrateing over will be in that position , we still qualify as existing claimants....

My last time being reassessed was November 2019 , so nearly 6 years since a reasessment and nearly 4 overdue .... So I'm in line for one of think , although I've seen people with another two years on me so god knows

There's a massive back log aswell

So if there not going to start them again until April 2026 and it's only short term and serve criteria they will start with then who knows 🤦🤷

I would think in that case it could be anything from 2027 onwards ....

And when they scrap the WCA in April 2028 they will pilot it first and then start it for new claims

So you could be looking at short term and serve starting April 2026 and it could take them two years to get through them , just on time for the WCA to be scrapped and them starting to asses new claims .... Which means we would be put to one side again 🤷

The DWP is in chaos and they are so far behind , who knows how or what they will do .... But I'm 4 years overdue on November 2026 , it's definitely not out of the realm of possibility that people in our position may not get reassessed until 2029 .... But it will send you mad trying to guess ....

I do worry about what they mean by short term though , I know they mean pregnant , the dreaded C word that I can't bare to say , and I think illnesses that may get better makes up the short term group .... But I was thinking... I probably got a two year award last time I got reassessed , so I was supposed to have another November 2021 but because of COVID the rest is history.... But I was wondering if a two year award is " short term " and maybe I'm in the running for one come April 2026 🤔

I was awarded LCWRA in 2019, I'm sure it is substantial risk. Does anyone know how likely it is that I'll be reassessed soon after April 2026?

Lord Kinnock backs raid on the rich, as the Government’s union paymasters swing in behind the idea.

Labour is “willing to explore” bringing in a new wealth tax, Lord Kinnock has suggested.The party’s former leader said a 2 per cent tax on assets worth more than £10 million could help raise about £10 billion a year for the Treasury.His suggestion comes after Cabinet ministers were warned taxes would have to rise following Sir Keir Starmer’s capitulation on welfare reforms.On Sunday night, some of Labour’s biggest union paymasters, including Angela Rayner’s former employer Unison, backed the call for a wealth tax. One union source told The Telegraph they would raise the idea with the Prime Minister and lobby Labour MPs.But Downing Street is likely to resist the idea, after one of Sir Keir’s most senior advisers warned that recent levies on the rich may already be undermining economic growth.Economists have also said such a move would trigger a fresh exodus of the rich from Britain.

Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, needs to raise tens of billions of pounds this autumn to hit her borrowing rules after deteriorating economic forecasts and costly policy reversals.The gutting of the welfare cuts package last week has required the Treasury to find an extra £4.6 billion a year, but has emboldened hard-Left Labour backbenchers to push for more policy changes.Speaking on Sky News, Lord Kinnock, who led the Labour Party between 1983 and 1992, said of Sir Keir’s Government: “The appearance has been given that they are bogged down by their own imposed limitations. There are ways around that, ways out of it, pathways that I think people are willing to explore and actually would commend themselves to the great majority of the general public.“They include, for instance, asset taxes in a period in which for the last 20-odd years in the United Kingdom, like quite a lot of other Western economies, earned incomes have stagnated in real terms while asset values have zoomed. They’ve just gone through the roof and they’ve been barely touched.“Now, you wouldn’t have to touch assets of under £6 million or £7 million, so people’s houses would be secure, obviously. But even by going for an imposition of 2 per cent on asset values above £10 million, say, which is a very big fortune, the Government would be in a position to collect £10 billion or £11 billion a year.”

The rich ‘are going unscathed’

He said the public was “fed up” with the richest going “unscathed” and suggested the policy would be “a substantial gesture in the direction of equity”.A No 10 spokesman declined to endorse the policy, instead pointing to Sir Keir’s remark in March when he said: “We have raised money – the energy profits levy, taxing non-doms and air passenger duty on private jets – but this isn’t a bottomless pit and we must kick-start growth to get the economic stability that we need.”Last week, it emerged that Liz Lloyd, a senior policy figure in No 10, reportedly questioned whether existing wealth taxes were harming Sir Keir’s “mission” of growing the economy.But five trade unions have told The Telegraph that they will pressure the Prime Minister to pursue wealth taxes.Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison, said: “A wealth tax would be a much fairer way of raising revenue to invest in public services and grow the economy.”Ms Rayner rose to become Unison’s most senior elected official in the north-west of England before she became an MP.Paddy Lillis, the general secretary of Usdaw, said “those with the broadest shoulders” should pay, adding: “We know wealth in this country is with a small number of people. It is one way of raising money quickly.”Steve Wright, the general secretary of the FBU, said: “Introducing a wealth tax to fund public services, a generous welfare state, and workers’ pay must be a priority in the second year of a Labour government.“There’s overwhelming support for that approach within the Labour Party, trade unions and the electorate.“The Prime Minister and Chancellor must abandon the welfare cuts and instead tax the super-rich as an alternative to the Tory austerity that was so decisively rejected by the electorate a year ago.”

Do you support the introduction of a wealth tax?

Unite spokesman said: “Unite has led the campaign for a wealth tax inside and outside the Labour Party. A 1 per cent wealth tax on the richest 1 per cent would generate £25 billion.”Matt Wrack, the acting general secretary of Nasuwt, said: “People voted for change at the general election last year. They wanted to see a clear end to austerity, an improvement to living standards and an end to the undermining of public services.“Part of addressing these issues is the immediate introduction of a wealth tax, a measure which has very significant public support.”In the first quarter of 2025 alone, Unite, Unison, Usdaw and the FBU gave close to £800,000 to Labour.As well as political donations, the unions take part in regular meetings with Sir Keir and hold key influence over Labour’s ruling body, the National Executive Committee.Labour MPs made similar calls over the weekend. Rachael Maskell, the Labour MP who tried to kill off Sir Keir’s welfare reforms last week, and Jon Trickett, a former shadow minister under Jeremy Corbyn, both threw support behind a wealth tax in comments given to The Telegraph.

Labour ‘trying to magic up huge amounts of money’

But experts questioned whether it would raise as much revenue as claimed. Dan Neidle, the founder of Tax Policy Associates, said the proposal was “fantasy politics” and relied on “the idea that we can magic up huge amounts of money without real consequence”.He said: “A wealth tax of this kind has never been tried. It amounts to a bet that a small number of very wealthy, very international and very mobile people will stay put and pay up.” This idea did not seem “very plausible”, he added.Around 20,000 taxpayers would be eligible to pay the wealth tax if the threshold was set at £10 million, according to a report by the Wealth Tax Commission, compiled for the Government in 2020.The commission warned at the time that the policy would push many rich people to quit the UK. Up to 17 per cent of assets subject to the tax would be moved abroad, suggesting thousands of millionaires would leave.Sir Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, said of Lord Kinnock’s wealth tax idea: “I think it would be the worst thing to do.”He added: “We’ve also seen around 10 to 15,000 high net worth individuals leave our country as a result of this Government’s policies.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/07/06/lord-kinnock-urges-reeves-to-bring-in-wealth-tax/

So with LCW/LCWRA people in the substantial risk category will no longer be eligible for it? Does that also mean that people with mental illness no longer exist??

Surely this will make people in the substantial Risk category more at risk 😐