Upcoming changes to benefits
Comments
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No, the Tories didn't stop anything but ramped up their persecution of sick and disabled claimants through their 2012 Welfare Reform Act. The 2016 reforms to the WCA process were delayed by the calamitous UC Programme and the pandemic not compassion.
In 2011, IDS distorted the qualifying criteria of the 2008 ESA regulations but we failed to notice (most of us)
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Even Jeremy Hunt increased LHA after listening to the rowntree foundation. He chose that over buffing UC taper rate for people in employment. One of Labour's first actions, frozen again. Remember Labour were promising to be on the side of renters. If Sunak left LHA frozen, and same with Hunt later, I think my entire TP would have been absorbed on rent costs.
The period of very high inflation, was honoured for all state benefits. Now LCWRA is to be reduced, and PIP frozen.0 -
Mr Timms signed off the WCA in March 2008. The same Mr Timms knew exactly what the 2015 reforms would mean for sick and disabled people in the future.
IDS could not have got away with his plans without Labour's support back then. They are all in this together and desperately don't want the facts to come out!
That's where John McDonnell and Ellen Clifford come in - they will not let this be buried while scary announcements of 'new' plans to harass sick and disabled claimants are all over the media and holding our attention.
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I'm scared to death. Imagine someone in a well paid job being told they were going to lose, say, £100 per month. There'd be Hell to pay.
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@secretsquirrel1 According to Bloomberg Cabinet ministers were objecting to cuts in "welfare and spending". The ministers were probably seeking reprieves from Reeves hacking expenditure in their own departments…. rather than just DWP spending. Bloomberg reads:
"More than half of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s cabinet have urged his chancellor, Rachel Reeves, to rethink her plans to scale back welfare and spending, in an extraordinary sign of growing concern within the governing Labour Party over the scale of looming cuts.
The ministers voiced their concerns at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that Starmer allowed to run long because of the strength of feeling, according to people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity disclosing confidential discussions. Unusually, almost every minister — 27 attend cabinet — spoke, with many expressing disquiet about controversial welfare cuts due to be announced next week, spending reductions expected later in the year and the fiscal straitjacket posed by Reeves’ self-imposed budgetary rules."
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Something I remember back from when Labour was last in power a ex cabinet member mentioned everything was decided between Blair, Brown and I cant remember the 3rd person around a kitchen table in one of their homes, and the cabinet meeting was simply everyone else being informed of what had been decided.
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Alot of people have only just been given that increase and the way things are going we will end up losing £20 a month overall compared to Nov 2024-Jan 2025.
To me it looks like there just taking back the higher money they promised and now lied..
And still no one in the media or Scope have been asking why has the government over the last 3 months wanted the rest of the income related ESA moved over to UC ( 500'000 people?) with promises of over £100 extra a month only to be turned around to say you now going to lose over £120 instead???
Something very fishy going on.
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What we know is that Labour cannot bar people with mental disabilities to claim incapacity benefits unless they alter their own 2010 Equalities Act which would have terrible optics.
My view is that although Mental disabilities/illnesses are negatively viewed in the press and media, Labour will look to have such issues scrutinized further, more evidence, more input from medical professionals.
Labour don't like the 18-30 cohort not working or in training aka "Neets", they want them doing something, I agree with that but if you're disabled or incapacitated what can you do?
The view that cuts will incentivise disabled people to look for work is completely ludicrous, like it's a holiday to be disabled. If you can't work, you can't work, it's like asking a Fox to act like a Cat or an Eagle to take up Veganism, it ain't happening.
We're all in the same boat, yes we have varying degrees of disability, some are physically disabled, some are mentally disabled, some are both and I know it's hard not to be insular about this situation but a little tact and compassion goes far.
I don't like this downplaying of depression in the media, I was diagnosed with CPTSD yet depression has similar symptoms, one is trauma based and the other can come in a variety of ways but the end result is often the same. I've lost two people who took their lives due to depression, in 2008 and in 2021 and so when Tony Blair, Mel Stride, Labour minsters and the Media take the mick out of depression it really grates me.
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I just saw this, the dwp exaggerating the benefit claimant figures... doesn't surprise me that they would do that to push their agenda.
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There's a new press release preparing us for announcement of Green Paper:
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Work, work, work, work, the government are obsessed with it.
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Just from reading this, it won't work this government are insane
Liz Kendal says 200,000 of those in LCWRA are crying out for work.
But in reality they would love to work but their disablity prevents them from doing so,
They really need to watch what they are saying here.
wasted taxpayers money if this does go ahead!
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I hate their wording. It sounds like they are doing us a favour with benefits cuts. 😡
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I've got a response from my MP Apsana Begum (suspended Labour MP). She's on our side.
I do not agree with the Government making savings by cutting welfare support, and I share the serious concerns of campaigners regarding Government plans to reform disability benefits.
For this reason, in a debate on Parliament on 4th November 2024, I said:
"The commitment to delivering the previously planned savings is more than alarming. The truth is that the way disabled people have been treated by the Department for Work and Pensions since 2010 will go down in history as a terrible and inexcusable crime. There is extensive evidence about the serious harm caused to people subjected to dehumanising assessments and sanctions, including reports of deaths directly related to the social security regime. We need a long-term overhaul of the social security system. It is not fit for purpose. I urge the Government to really look at that in detail going forward.”
I understand that under one option reportedly being considered, the Universal Credit (UC) “limited capability for work or work-related activity” category would be abolished, which would require often severely disabled or ill people to make preparations for work. That could see claimants lose about £5,000 a year.
It has also been widely reported that Ministers intend to scrap the work capability assessment used to approve incapacity benefits and align the system more closely with assessments for personal independence payments (PIP), separate disability benefits that are paid whether or not someone can work.
I am aware that in January 2025, a high court judge found that an official consultation regarding changes to the WCA was ruled unlawful, following a legal challenge by disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) campaigner Ellen Clifford. The high court said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) had presented UK-wide incapacity benefit assessment reforms as a way to support disabled people into work without making clear the “primary rationale” of the proposals was cost savings.
The consultation, which was carried out by the previous Government in Autumn 2023, failed to mention that 424,000 disabled people would see their benefits cut, many losing £416 a month, the judge found.
I am conscious that documents released to the court also revealed that internal DWP estimates suggested the reforms to the WCA would push 100,000 highly vulnerable disabled people into absolute poverty.
I do not agree with making welfare savings by cutting welfare support.
I am only too aware that 14 years of austerity has had a brutal impact on the lives of many disabled people. Research by the Trussell Trust suggests that most food bank users now live in households where somebody is disabled.
I would have liked the new Government to use the Autumn Budget 2024 to ensure that our social security system works for everyone when they need it.
It has therefore been clear to me that for many years that the current social security system is not fit for purpose and in many cases actively damaging.
I note the high proportion of Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) decisions that are overturned at tribunal and am all too conscious that each of the many thousands of incorrect decisions about what support a disabled person should be getting causes real suffering to that person and to their family and friends. There is extensive evidence about the serious harm caused to people subjected to dehumanising assessments and sanctions – and that there are reports of deaths directly related to the social security regime. I support the growing calls for a full transparent independent inquiry into these deaths and for all the information to be released to the public accordingly.
I strongly believe that it should be the new Government’s priority to address these wrongs.
It is my view that protecting access to benefits ensures that society maintains a basic standard of living for everyone.
I pay tribute to disabled activists – such as of Z2K, Black Triangle, WOW campaign, disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), and others – who have spent years campaigning for disabled people’s rights.
Thank you again for raising this important issue with me.
Yours sincerely,
Apsana
Office of Apsana Begum MP
Member of Parliament for Poplar and Limehouse11 -
True, i hate when they say it is unfair on those on it! i mean that makes no logic sense.. why can't the goverment leave those on LCWRA alone it is their for a reason.
This won't happened fast, may take years and court cases i feel strongly won't win and will get watered down before any off these become law.
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From Disability news service, John Mcdonald is supporting them
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I’ve read that Ian Duncan Smith has said there’s no way they’ll get this through, George Osborne saying it’s going too far, Rayner and Cooper the deputy PM and Home Secretary respectively disagreeing with the cuts. If they don’t back down on this they’ll not only harm 700,000 disabled people it’ll damage their leadership and honestly I’m wondering whether it’ll split the party and end up in a vote of no confidence. I’m glad at least there is so much opposition and this is before even a green paper has been released, this is Reeves and Kendall and their hatred for the sick vulnerable and disabled and they need to go.
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This will be the start of starmer downfall.
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