Category Archives: Benefits

UK’s Tory government to explain to the UN why it violates disabled people’s rights

A cartoonist’s view of government sickness and disability assessments [Illustration: Andrzej Krauze].

This is a heads-up – and a diary marker:

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The bigger Budget picture – that British politics is glossing over – is terrifying

Jeremy Hunt: he was all smiles when delivering his Budget but the underlying implications will harm almost everybody in the UK who has to earn a living or draws a pension.

They’re trying to hide something from you, you know.

According to Torsten Bell, over at the Resolution Foundation, there’s more to it than the winners – National Insurance payers – and losers – pensioners, landlords and pensioner-landlords.

Jeremy Hunt’s speech, he wrote, paints a picture of “a country that is somehow managing to combine higher taxes, crumbling public services and debt levels that are struggling to fall”.

He warned that “British politics is trying to generally gloss over this bigger picture pre-polling day, not least given the tax rises and spending cuts pencilled in to follow”.

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Apparently the tax rises and spending cuts will be necessitated by the fact that Hunt has now splurged on two sets of tax cuts – now, and back in the Autumn.

Hidden in the details are the consequences: “ÂŁ14 billion a year of lower debt interest was eaten up by lower tax receipts,” meaning Hunt – or any new Chancellor coming in after an election – will want to find a way to make up for that loss, probably with more taxes.

But they’ll then run into the problem of how to pay. The population is increasing rapidly – a fact that he didn’t dwell on in his speech, but one that may mean a million more people living here by the end of the decade and, yes, it’s due to immigration. This will mean more income for the Treasury, sure – but not an improvement in living standards as the amount people keep for themselves will not increase.

And there’s gloom over the number of us who are going to be too sick to work – due, again, to Tory political policies. “This knocks 0.5 per cent off employment, unwinding the GDP boost from a bigger population.” And it seems likely that a Tory or Labour government will simply try to deny sick people any state benefits in the hope that they’ll die off, as so many others have over the last 14 years.

With the economy in the doldrums, Hunt should have held off on more tax cuts – his whole package will cost ÂŁ65 billion over the next five years. Instead, he picked Labour’s pocket – using two of the income streams Keir Starmer’s party intended to use to fund its own policies, if it wins an election.

So he scrapped the non-dom tax regime and extended the windfall tax on energy firms. That accounts for one-third of the tax cuts. The rest is being funded by borrowing, meaning that the Tories are once again marking themselves out as the party of financial IRresponsibility.

The National Insurance cuts may seem nice for employees – at the moment. But “ÂŁ8 billion is being raised by the freezes to thresholds for employer NI… In time this will feed through into lower pay levels for employees.

“And then we come to the biggest group of losers: pensioners, who are already exempt from NI but affected by freezes to Income Tax thresholds. All eight million taxpaying pensioners will see their taxes increase, by an average of ÂŁ1,000 – an ÂŁ8 billion collective hit.”

Pensioners contain the largest remaining group of Conservative voters. This Writer wonders whether those Tories will continue to vote tribally in the face of this betrayal.

So does Torsten Bell: “This is the Conservative core vote losing out, as the next chart spells out. Whether this is an intentional choice to pivot towards those the Tories are struggling to win over, or a bit of an accident, is far from clear… It’s one hell of a political gamble.”

In fairness, though: “The focus on working-age employees reflects that they already pay higher rates of tax than pensioners or landlords. Furthermore, pensioners’ income growth has outstripped that of working households for some time.”

Now comes the burn.

“Personal tax increases combine with chunky rises in the corporation tax take (which is being sustained at its highest level this century) and wider economic changes to ensure this will be the greatest tax-raising Parliament since the Second World War. Tax relative to GDP is rising from 33.1 per cent in 2019-20 to 36.5 per cent in 2024-25 even with the pre-election tax cut rush.“But the tax rises don’t stop on polling day. Highly unusually, ÂŁ19 billion of tax rises have already been announced that will  come into effect after the election. So the tax take is set to rise further to 37.1 per cent in 2028-29 (the highest since 1948). The increase since 2019-20 amounts to ÂŁ3,900 per household.“Further tax rises are not all that is coming after the election. Even with loose fiscal rules, the tax cuts announced by Jeremy Hunt are only affordable by pencilling in major spending cuts to come. Real per-capita day-to-day spending for unprotected departments (think prisons, courts, FE colleges and local government) is set to fall by 13 per cent between 2024-25 and 2028-29 – equivalent to cuts of ÂŁ19 billion and three-quarters (71 per cent) of the cuts inflicted on these departments in the first austerity parliament (2010-2015). The idea that such cuts can be delivered in the face of faltering public services is a fiscal fiction.

“More plausible, but deeply undesirable and damaging for growth, are plans to cut Public Sector Net Investment from 2.5 per cent today to 1.7 per cent of GDP by 2028-29 (a ÂŁ26 billion decline). For too long Britain has been living off its past, rather than investing in its future. On current plans, we risk repeating this mistake in the decade ahead.”

The conclusion is scathing:

“The big picture for Britain has not changed at all. It remains a country where taxes are heading up not down, and one where incomes are stagnating. In fact, they are set to remain below their level at the last general election when voters return to the polls – the first time this has happened on record.

“Big tax cuts may or may not affect the outcome of that election, but the task for whoever wins is huge.

“Not only will they have to wrestle with implausible spending cuts, but they’ll also need to restart sustained economic growth – the only route to ending Britain’s stagnation.”


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Hunt’s Budget cold-shoulders society’s poorest, says disability organisation

Jeremy Hunt’s Budget failed to offer support to millions of disabled people, despite mountains of evidence on their economic and social hardship, according to Disability Rights UK.

Perhaps he hadn’t been lobbied for it by Conservative MPs who had in turn been lobbied by groups (possibly of Tory donors).

The only exception – described as “meagre” by the organisation – was a six-month continuation of the Household Support Fund, money that allows local authorities to make discretionary payments to people in need. It is now set to close when next winter starts.

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The Disability Poverty Campaign Group (DPCG), of which Disability Rights UK is a member, had called on the Chancellor to help Disabled citizens struggling with household bills and inadequate social support.

In a statement, the organisation said:

DPCG asked that action was taken to increase social security to meet the essentials of life including food, energy and medication and the extra costs of disability; invest in public services to enable Disabled people to receive health services, educational support, and social care; and to ensure that housing and transport were accessible and affordable.

We were, alongside others representing the poorest and most excluded in society, deeply concerned by the Government’s failure to acknowledge or address growing levels of poverty and to invest in grossly underfunded public services such as social care and educational support to Disabled children and young people.

With the Government set to be questioned by the United Nations on 18 March on its record on achieving equality for Disabled people, this Budget is yet more evidence of its lack of commitment to improving our life chances.

Source: DR UK Statement on Spring Budget: ‘Government Turns its Back on the Poorest in Society’ | Disability Rights UK


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#NoMoreBenefitDeaths day of action March 4 – and EVERYONE can get involved

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DWP secretly weakened guidance on suicides after public pledge | Disability News Service

Why would a government organisation secretly weaken its own rules on when to investigate deaths on its watch?

Doesn’t that imply a guilty conscience?

Here’s Disability News Service:

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has secretly weakened its own rules on when it should investigate the deaths of benefit claimants who take their own lives.

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Four years ago, the department told the National Audit Office (NAO) that it would always carry out one of its secret reviews when it heard of a claimant’s death if they had died by suicide, even if there were no allegations that DWP’s actions had contributed to that death.

New figures obtained by DNS through a freedom of information (FoI) request show that on at least four occasions in 2022-23, the department failed to investigate when told of the suicide of a claimant.

When asked by DNS why these four suicides had not led to an investigation, a DWP spokesperson said the criteria [were] changed in April 2021, a year after it informed NAO that all suicides of claimants it heard about should lead to an internal process review (IPR) “regardless of whether there are allegations of Department activity contributing to the claimant’s suicide”.

This week’s admission suggests that DWP has taken a significant backward step in addressing the serious and continuing risk to the lives of disabled people, particularly those who pass through its disability assessment systems.

Source: DWP secretly weakened guidance on suicides, one year after public pledge – Disability News Service


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Woman took her own life hours before DWP agreed long-delayed PIP claim | Disability News Service

It’s 11 years – possibly more – since This Site started campaigning for an end to the senseless deaths of sick and disabled benefit claimants… and they are still dying due to Tory ignorance and cruelty:

A young disabled woman took her own life nine months after submitting an application for a disability benefit, which was finally awarded just hours after she died, an inquiry by a committee of MPs has been told.

The Commons work and pensions committee has been told how the 24-year-old’s claim had been held up for months because of flaws within the application process.

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Her mother has told the committee that the “mental health impact” of the “hurdles” in the application process “should not be underestimated”.

Her evidence again raises serious concerns about flaws and delays within the personal independence payment (PIP) system.

Following her death, DWP identified numerous errors in how her claim had been dealt with, according to the statement.

Disability Rights UK [has] called for a public inquiry to “learn the truth about what has happened in cases of benefit related deaths and serious harm”.

Source: Young woman took her own life hours before DWP finally agreed long-delayed PIP claim – Disability News Service


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Disability Action Plan is launched – and nobody believes a word of it

The verdict: but then, we always knew the Tories’ Disability Action Plan wouldn’t be worth the paper it was written on, didn’t we? [Image by Disability News Service, I believe.]

The Tory government launched its Disability Action Plan on Tuesday, after a 12-week consultation period.

Here is an eloquent response:

This Writer certainly doesn’t believe a Tory government has any interest in changing the lives of sick and/or disabled people for the better.

The Tories have killed far too many such people since 2010 for anybody ever to take such a bald-faced lie seriously.

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But let’s give the Tories the benefit of the doubt and see what other organisations connected with disabled people have to say. Here’s some more background courtesy of Disability News Service:

Disabled people’s organisations have dismissed the government’s new Disability Action Plan as a series of “empty promises” that fail to address the “dire situation” disabled people are facing.

The plan, and its 32 “practical actions”, was launched by disability minister Mims Davies on Tuesday… All 32 actions appear to be low or zero budget measures, and there are no striking new policies, and apparently no new legislation or spending commitments before the general election.

The plan is intended to run alongside the longer-term National Disability Strategy, which was heavily-criticised by a cross-party committee of MPs last year.

And here’s the commentary:

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) … described it as “weak” and said it failed to address key cost-of-living concerns, while ignoring the need for urgent action in areas such as social care, accessible housing and government reforms that are set to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA).

Rick Burgess, a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said: “This is a plan about what non-disabled political actors are willing to offer to disabled people, it is not based in our rights or the social model. It is not what we need, rather it is what a disablist government think they will grudgingly offer.”

(This Writer knows Rick of old; he knows what he’s talking about.)

Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice at Inclusion London, described the plan as “a list of research, evidence and engagement, either on issues which are not a priority or where solutions have been known for a while.

“At a time when disabled people are struggling to make ends meet, hate crime on the rise, the new punitive welfare reforms are looming, care packages are cut, employers’ attitudes are not improving, when there is a shortage of accessible housing and parents of disabled children have to spend months in arguments and complaints to get minimal support, it is hard to see how any actions in the plan would make a tangible difference where it is most needed.

“We want the government to recognise that making significant improvements in our lives needs ambition and funding. We don’t see any of that in the plan.”

One member of the steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) described the document as a “disability inaction plan”.

Linda Burnip, a DPAC co-founder, said it was hard to comment on the action plan because of how little it offered.

She said it offered a “plan for councils to build accessible playgrounds but apparently no extra money for that, nothing about housing, transport, social care, accessibility generally, healthcare, or aids and adaptations people need to live independently”.

Professor Peter Beresford, chair of Shaping Our Lives, said: “This is a government which … expects us to forget its terrible track record and sign up to the empty promises of its latest Disability Action Plan, to build up our hopes and get involved as if it is to be trusted.

“Shaping Our Lives will take the government’s disability prospectus seriously when and only when it begins seriously to address the DPO forum’s programme of demands to secure older and disabled people’s rights.

“Sadly, we seem as far away from that as ever.”

(I know Linda and Peter of old, too; these are the people you should trust when they say what needs to be done – not the Tory government).

Read the DNS article for more if you like; the main point is clear:

This “Disability Inaction Plan” is not worth the paper it was written on or the many weeks (beyond the 12 of the consultation) that it took to prepare. Disable people will continue to suffer.


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Since 2019: here’s how the Tories DIDN’T make the benefits system better

This didn’t happen: But you can bet the Tories would have wanted it.

Days after the Tories won their landslide in December 2019, Mrs Mike wrote the following:

“Basically now we are all buggered.

“No hope left for me as I’m disabled and they’ve messed me about so much already.

“I don’t see any compassion for people like myself and all the others like me out there – and to all the ones who have already taken their lives because of cuts cuts cuts cuts n more cuts.

“I’m so disappointed in people in general because of all the hatred towards different groups of people.

“And it’s now going to get worse. Thanks a bunch.”

She wrote it, and so it came to pass.

But at that point, all I did was point out what I thought the Tories would not do. Now I can modify that by telling you what they didn’t do.

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They didn’t

… give us reform of the Department for Work and Pensions. Labour would have scrapped the DWP because the culture of persecution had become so ingrained into it that the only responsible choice was to dissolve the entire department and replace it with a new Department of Social Security. That did not happen under the Conservatives and the culture of persecution continued to kill people – your relatives, maybe.

…reform the benefit system and scrap Universal Credit. UC had been a hugely-expensive ‘white elephant’ from the start – but it did exactly what the Conservatives wanted: It killed benefit claimants.

…reform the so-called “digital barrier” that obstructs people who have trouble coping with computers and the internet from claiming benefits. Telephone, face-to-face and outreach support cost money and might result in people actually being able to claim the benefits they deserve and no Tory MP wanted that.

…end the five-week wait for Universal Credit payments. This plunged people into crushing poverty which is exactly where the Tories wanted them.

…reintroduce fortnightly payments, to help people manage their money. Tories wanted benefit claimants to be in a permanent state of panic, poverty and – ultimately – despair. Look at what Mrs Mike said, above.

…end the evil sanction regime. It is unfair and harsh for a reason – to harm poor people.

…scrap the benefit cap. Tories are about denying money to the people who really need it.

…end the two-child limit on benefits and scrap the so-called ‘rape clause’. Despite being described as “immoral and outrageous”, Tories love it because it humiliates women.

…pay the child element of benefits to the primary carer, to ensure that women are no longer forced to stay in abusive relationships by the system. Tories like keeping women in abusive relationships.

…end the Bedroom Tax and increase the Local Housing Allowance to protect people against the threat of eviction. Tories wanted to pitch poor people into the street. Their homes could then be redeveloped into high-cost dwellings for the very rich, “gentrifying” – and socially-cleansing – whole towns.

…stop benefit assessments being contracted-out to private companies and ensure that all benefit assessments were carried out by government employees in future. Privatisation is a Tory mantra. While it encourages corruption, it also puts any harm caused to claimants at arms’-length from the Tory government itself.

In the run-up to the next election, be sure to check what each party and candidate has to say about the benefit system. You might think you’re perfectly healthy and will never need it – but accidents and illnesses happen by surprise all the time.

Think about what happens to people on the benefit system – what really happens; don’t listen to all the silly stories about scroungers and spongers because they are nonsense. I refer to the real horror stories about seriously ill people who were denied benefits and died – either because their very real conditions killed them or because they were pushed to despair and took their own lives.

You don’t want that to happen to you. So be sure to check those manifesto booklets and policy documents in the run-up to the next election and vote for your own protection.


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Why IS Labour backing banker bonuses so the children starve?

Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves’s decision that a Labour government will not reinstate a cap on bankers’ bonuses has stirred up a storm of opposition among left-wing organisations – and voters.

The cap limits yearly bonus payouts for bankers to twice their salary; it was introduced by the EU in 2014 when it was intended to prevent excessive risk-taking after the global financial crash of 2008.

Kwasi Kwarteng scrapped it in his 2022 mini-budget – sparking widespread outrage for rewarding bankers during a cost-of-living crisis and growing levels of poverty in Britain.

But Rishi Sunak maintained the policy, bringing it into force in October 2023.

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Talking to the BBC on January 31, Reeves said: “The cap on bankers’ bonuses was brought in in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and that was the right thing to do to rebuild the public finances.

“But that has gone now, and we don’t have any intention of bringing that back. And as chancellor of the exchequer, I would want to be a champion of a successful and thriving financial services industry in the UK.”

“Successful and thriving”? Or “Excessively risk-taking”? The latter seems more likely to This Writer and it seems Reeves and Labour leader Keir Starmer are deliberately planning to repeat New Labour’s worst mistakes.

That certainly seems to be the feeling among left-wing organisations and individuals, according to Left Foot Forward:

Labour’s grassroots left-wing organisation, Momentum, described it as a “terrible decision,” which is “totally out of touch with Labour’s values and public opinion.”

“For over 40 years our economic model has sucked wealth from the country and enriched a few in the City.

“It even crashed the economy in 2008. Yet instead of learning the lessons from New Labour’s failures, Starmer and Reeves seem determined to repeat them.”

The Peace & Justice Project, founded by the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, said:

“Labour’s latest U-turn, the refusal to reinstate the cap on bankers’ bonuses, shows it is unwilling to challenge the establishment status quo…”

In a post on X, Corbyn asked: “Where is the justification for letting the rich get richer while children starve and people sleep rough on the streets?

“We cannot afford these obscene levels of inequality. It’s our job to offer a real alternative – one that puts human need before corporate greed.”

On the social media, I found this:

And “MrsGee” posted on ‘X’: “What about ‘uncertainty’ in peoples lives, in a profiteer-driven cost of living crisis @LabourSJ? What about millions of children in poverty, families unable to afford to eat & heat their homes? You want them to continue to suffer when you could help with a wealth tax? Poor show.”

Labour’s inconsistency in boosting bankers while pushing families into poverty by keeping the two-child cap on child benefit was also widely pilloried:

Apparently a Labour spokesperson said, “We are not in the business of telling business what to do about pay and conditions.”

But this is nonsense. Telling businesses what to do about pay and conditions is precisely what governments – or in this case, possible governments-in-waiting – should be doing.

Source: Labour to back bankers’ bonuses: How the Left responded – Left Foot Forward: Leading the UK’s progressive debate


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Tories force disabled people into court for no reason (?) as 50,000 overturn PIP refusal with no new evidence

As seen on Twitter: but the Tory-run DWP may well praise such a move for achieving the end aim in the fastest possible way.

It is a common belief that under the Tories, the Department for Work and Pensions automatically refuses every new claim for Personal Independence Payment.

Now, that belief seems to have been borne out by the revelation that 50,000 disabled people who were forced to take the DWP to a tribunal managed to reverse the refusal decision without having to provide any new evidence at all:

Figures show 50,000 people seeking Personal Independence Payments (PIP) had an initial refusal overturned at tribunal without the need for new evidence.

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Just under 30,000 won their appeal based on oral evidence that could have been obtained by the DWP.

Fewer than 1,000 successful appeals were based primarily on new written evidence given to the Government.

Since PIP was introduced in 2013, almost three-quarters of all appeals lodged against DWP decisions have either been won at the hearing or “lapsed”, when the Government concedes prior to a hearing.

According to Government figures, 235,300 [decisions] have been overturned in favour of the claimant in tribunal, since 2013. A further 71,920 people were awarded the payment they wanted after the appeal “lapsed”.

The article (link below) seems to concentrate on the apparent fact that the government could avoid lengthy, expensive and pointless appeals if it handled applications properly in the first place – but This Writer doesn’t think that’s the problem.

No – I think there is an intention simply to cause applicants a hassle in the hope that they will give up and try to manage without the benefit.

And that creates an additional question, because people with disabilities are prone to mental illnesses like depression, making it hard to find work, claim other benefits, and make ends meet.

They are far more likely to fall into despair and suicide, or die due to complications connected with their disabilities.

Do the Tories – and by extension the DWP – want to drive people to their deaths in order to enjoy a false benefit saving?

Source: DWP under fire as 50,000 overturn disability benefit decisions without new evidence


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