Lords overturn “catastrophic” government plan to cut sickness benefit payments

Last Updated: January 27, 2016By


Yet again, the Lords have restored sanity to Conservative Government legislation.

The claim that cutting £30 per week from Employment and Support Allowance will encourage claimants to return to work completely misinterprets the meaning of the benefit and the reason people claim it.

It also attempts to treat a symptom, rather than what causes people to claim ESA.

They claim it because they are ill, cannot go to work, and cannot afford to live without it.

Cutting the amount available won’t stop that being true; it will simply make it even harder for claimants to survive than it is already.

Now – this is very important:

The Tories know this.

They know cutting the amount of benefit won’t encourage anybody to sign off, because they know their underlying assumption – that fit people are signing on because they can’t, or won’t, look for work – is wrong.

They don’t care.

They just want to take money away from poor people. They are perverted that way.

Arch-pervert David Freud as good as said so in the debate, when he stated that ESA needed ‘reform’ because only one per cent of claimants in the work-related activity group moved off-benefit every month.

He tried to hide what the government wanted to do by saying the £55 million (per year) saving would be offset by £60 million invested in helping disabled people find work, but here’s the catch:

The disabled would not receive any of the £60 million.

It would go to private contractors working for the Conservative Government.

Once again, we see the Tory plan – to take from the poor and give to their friends.

The government has been defeated in the Lords over plans to cut the benefits of people with illness and disabilities.

Ministers want to cut Employment Support Allowance by £30 a week to spur some new claimants to return to work.

But Labour, Lib Dem and independent peers joined forces to block the move, arguing it would make it harder for those affected to pay for the support that might allow them to find work.

The government may try to overturn it at a later date in the Commons.

Ministers lost the vote on an amendment to the Welfare Reform and Work Bill by 283 votes to 198, a majority of 85.

The vote was welcomed by disability campaigners, who say there is “deep unease” about the cuts to ESA and other benefits.

Source: Lords defeat for ministers over disability benefit cuts – BBC News

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No Comments

  1. Michael Broadhurst January 27, 2016 at 10:12 pm - Reply

    good,another defeat for this stupid,idiotic,uncaring, govt.

  2. MarkG January 27, 2016 at 11:43 pm - Reply

    2 in 1 day. Vlad Smith must be choking on his daily pint of baby blood after hearing this.

  3. Mr.Angry January 28, 2016 at 5:21 am - Reply

    Common sense and compassion prevails, wonderful news, let’s hope IDS has locked himself in his garage and is probably self flagellating at his failure to pour more suffering on sick and disabled beings.

  4. Jeffery Davies January 28, 2016 at 6:07 am - Reply

    Rtu ids fuming fraudulent freud tamping but one wonders now whot this pair will do next jeff3

  5. George Peckham January 28, 2016 at 12:11 pm - Reply

    the house of lords are the only safety valve against this crazy government! tories want their own way just like spoilt kids? and without the house of Lords we would be at the mercy of all these ‘chinless wonders’ and they would simply walk all over us without any way of fighting back>”KEEP THE HOUSE OF LORDS AS THEY KEEP THIS SHOWER OF RICH KIDS IN ORDER FOR OUR FUTURE!”

  6. mohandeer January 28, 2016 at 3:05 pm - Reply

    You do realize Mike, that this is a kind of pyrrhic victory. The loathsome Minister for Welfare will simply instruct the DWP to remove even more disabled and vulnerable people from the ESA they should be entitled to.

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