Tag Archives: analyse

How will Brexit affect people in poverty and on benefits – and why won’t the DWP say?

Food bank: Will Boris Johnson’s Brexit increase the length of the queue? And why won’t the DWP tell us what its research has revealed?

The Department for Work and Pensions has analysed the impact of Brexit on people in poverty, on low incomes and on benefits – but won’t publish the findings. Why not?

That is the question put by the Scottish National Party over the weekend, with a deafening silence as the DWP’s only response.

According to Welfare Weekly:

The call for the full publication of the findings comes after the Poverty Alliance used a Freedom of Information request to ask whether or not the DWP had carried out any assessments to look at the impact of different Brexit scenarios on levels of poverty and inequality in the UK, as well as analysis on the impact on low-income households, on wages, employment and costs of living.

The DWP replied to confirm that it does hold some of the analysis but that it would not publish any of the findings as it was not in the public interest to do so.

The call for the full publication of the findings comes after the Poverty Alliance used a Freedom of Information request to ask whether or not the DWP had carried out any assessments to look at the impact of different Brexit scenarios on levels of poverty and inequality in the UK, as well as analysis on the impact on low-income households, on wages, employment and costs of living.

The DWP replied to confirm that it does hold some of the analysis but that it would not publish any of the findings as it was not in the public interest to do so.

Why is it “not in the public interest”?

Neil Gray, the SNP’s Social Justice spokesperson, reckons he knows why – we have a “Tory government intent on inflicting a damaging policy no matter the price ordinary people and families will have to pay.

“It’s becoming increasingly clear that a Tory Brexit will push vulnerable people across Scotland and the UK into further poverty and hardship, yet the UK government callously carries on regardless.

“People are already suffering under a decade of Tory austerity, however analysis has shown time and time again that under all Brexit scenarios, jobs will be lost, wages will be hit and people’s living standards will be harmed.”

Rather than not being in the public interest for the expected impact to be known, then, isn’t it more accurate to say that it wouldn’t be in the Tories’ interest?

We won’t know until we see the report.

So let’s have it.

Source: DWP urged to publish ‘secret’ Brexit impact analysis

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The mainstream media’s ‘anti-Semitism’ assault on Labour – analysed

This is revealing – a series of articles analysing the press assault on Labour and Jeremy Corbyn.

Isn’t it interesting how the accusations spike during election campaigns?

During the three years of Corbyn’s Labour leadership, the association of antisemitism with the Labour Party has been a relentless media narrative. The 2,087 articles published in that time have come at an average of nearly two per day.

Yet in more than six and a half years prior to his election, just 178 articles were published associating the Party with antisemitism, at an average of one every fortnight. Is antisemitism 25 times more prevalent in the Party now?

Perhaps the most surprising trend is the recent drop in stories about antisemitism that don’t associate the problem with Labour. In the five years prior to Corbyn’s leadership such stories steadily grew in frequency, but the past two years have seen a progressive decline (despite the overall number spiking massively).

Source: The annual assault of antisemitism [PART 1] – Patrick Elliot – Medium

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UK benefit policy is to ‘save money by ensuring people die waiting for claims to be processed’

131010benefitdenier

The Conservative Government has been challenged to let experts analyse the effects of its policies on benefit claimants, following the publication of – extremely limited – mortality figures in August.

Disability studies specialist and disability activist Samuel Miller has written to Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith, and employment minister Priti Patel, asking whether they would co-operate if epidemiologists – experts in studying the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations such as benefit claimants – requested permission to conduct a thorough investigation of government policy.

In 2013, Duncan Smith turned down Mr Miller’s request to have his department hire an epidemiologist to conduct an independent study of the impact of the welfare reforms on the mortality of claimants on Incapacity Benefit and Employment and Support Allowance.

“The professionals most qualified to analyse the recent DWP statistical releases on benefit deaths are Professor David Stuckler and Dr Sanjay Basu, the co-authors of The Body Economic: Why Austerity Kills. Why haven’t you asked them to analyze the mortality releases?” wrote Mr Miller.

“In my opinion, thousands of sick and disabled benefit claimants died needlessly because of the benefits backlog, long waits for mandatory reconsideration decisions, and the failure of the DWP to implement a sensible Work and Pensions Committee recommendation: In 2014, that Committee called on the Government to pay sick and disabled people benefits while they appealed against incorrect ‘fit for work’ decisions.

Why didn’t you implement that recommendation, and if you would do so, how much more would it have cost your department in additional benefit expenditures?

“It’s a hard truth, but it must be stated: The purpose of a benefits backlog is to ensure that people die waiting for their claims to be processed, thus saving the Government money. The Government failed to set a reasonable timescale for the mandatory reconsideration process, leaving it open-ended. The human cost was enormous and thousands died.

“Why is your department so unwilling to implement sensible and humane mortality avoidance measures?”

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