The official 2024 budget discussion.

That's true, just hope kendall dosent take it on what he said

Hell get his karma in this life or the next. I’ll be glad to see the back of him. Bizarre thing is his siblings are a clinical psychologist and his sister does work for the UN, you’d think he’d have found some empathy somewhere.

GB News and Mike Parry are hating the whole budget so imo it can't be all bad ✊️🙂

This is the old system and it might have continued to work if out of work sickness benefit levels had kept up with the cost of living. As it stands, basic UC is not enough to survive on short term, people who can't find work quickly go into debt, get behind with their rent and it's creating a cycle of people having to take part time insecure work just to keep their heads above water. In 2017, the Tory government slashed the LCW benefit so that anyone short term (2 years or less) sick from work would only recieve this inadequate basic rate. So hundreds and thousands of people were faced with months or years of increasing debt with no way to increase their income.

I think it's this that has led to the increase in LCWRA awards, because only then can people have sufficient income to actually feed themselves and pay their rent. LCW rates have made people much sicker, hence then eligible for LCWRA under substantial risk rules, because being so poor & under constant threat of being sanctioned makes you ill.

If you have any chance of managing a disability of any kind, LCWRA on it's own is not enough, hence people have been forced to make PIP claims when in previous times it might not have occurred to people. For example when I was last in work unbeknownst to me I could have been claiming DLA but I didn't know it. It was only when I became to ill to work that I researched what extra help I could get.

If we had adequate short term sickness benefits which properly supported people until they were ready to return to work, the PIP bill wouldn't be as high imo.

Am I right in thinking that esa is lcwra that I've been on for some years so therefore won't need a wca. Only my Dr of many years knows my situation yet bringing in health so called professionals who don't know you is terrible. A friend had a breakdown after an experience with an atos person

I can't recall what was in place prior to esa, but, if my memory serves me correctly that wasn't designed to live on either. I can recall being told by someone in housing that the sick and unemployed stay in bed all day and eat less!! I think each new system has been about saving money and spending cuts.

I don't think the benefit system is designed for longterm use. It's always been below the mimimum of any living standards even before the cost of living crisis.

The government has been conflating DLA and PIP into conversations on ESA and UC, but neither have any relationship to whether or not you can work. I worked while claiming DLA, I work now while claiming PIP. I've never claimed UC or ESA.

The changes to the assessment process may well bring them closer together, but I guess we'll see. At present, they're unconnected to whether a person is able to work.

This does raise the question whether the target will also be to move all DLA claimants (or not) onto PIP by the same deadline. DLA is another legacy benefit but unconnected to the WCA migration. I know there are a lot of people still on DLA, so if so that will be another long set of waiting lists to add to the existing ones they're creating. Maybe that will be in the white paper.

My transfer from DLA to PIP was also in 2017 and was not fun, but I think/hope the criteria are less unpleasant now than they were then. I had my last review in 2021 or 2022, and it was definitely less unfriendly than my original claim was.