Tag Archives: benefit cap

Coronavirus-prompted benefit boost won’t help families who are crushed by the Cap

We all thought it was so wonderful when Boris Johnson and his pals told us they were making the benefit system more generous because of the coronavirus.

It turns out the generosity went a very short distance.

For example, the 76,000 families who are subject to the Benefit Cap won’t get a penny more than £20,000 a year (if they’re outside Greater London) or £23,000 a year (if they’re within that boundary.

The Benefit Cap hasn’t been lifted, you see.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has raised this with the government, as reported by Rightsnet:

the IFS says that, due to the current benefit cap, some families are not reached by the temporary increase in the safety net, including most of the 76,000 families already subject to the cap, and those people who have moved from work without having been continuously employed for 12 months prior to that (and who therefore don’t qualify for a 39-week exemption from the cap).

Commenting on the issue, IFS deputy Director Robert Joyce said –

‘The government has implemented a substantial temporary increase in the generosity of the welfare safety net. But the overall cap on how much a working-age family can receive in benefits will mean that those increases will not benefit most of the around 76,000 families who were already capped on the eve of the crisis, as well as a small fraction of the large number who appear to have lost employment during the crisis. At the present time encouraging families to move into paid work, or to cheaper housing, is less of a priority. The government should therefore temporarily raise or remove the cap.’

For more information, see If the cap doesn’t fit? from ifs.org.uk

Will the government accede to the request? Don’t you believe it!

Source: Government should temporarily raise or remove the benefit cap, says Institute for Fiscal Studies – Rightsnet

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Suspend benefit cap to protect disabled people in coronavirus crisis? It’ll never happen under Tories!

She’ll never support it: Therese Coffey’s record suggests she is not sympathetic to disabled benefit claimants.

It’s a good, solid, practical suggestion: with disabled people most at risk of financial loss during the coronavirus crisis, the government should suspend the penalties it has imposed on them in the last 10 years.

These include the benefit cap and the “two-child policy” for benefits relating to children.

Also suggested by the Disability Benefits Consortium (DBC) is conversion of the Universal Credit advance loan into a non-repayable grant.

In fact, the DBC requests the suspension of all debt repayment deductions from UC.

And the organisation calls on the government to suspend work-related conditionality and associated sanctions for those receiving benefits.

Other proposals include a call to give higher priority to resolving technical and capacity issues in the benefits system, as well as providing clear guidance for making both a digital and non-digital claim for UC. This is practical as the Department for Work and Pensions has been swamped with claims after the coronavirus lockdown began.

And there is absolutely no hope that the government will grant – or even seriously consider – any of these requests.

The Tories have turned the benefit system into a very efficient device with which to persecute people with disabilities.

They seem to see the coronavirus as a handy aid to this cause, with hospitals already being told to ration ventilators to those with a better chance of surviving – which is prejudicial against the disabled.

In fact it would be easy to see the crisis as providing the Tories with an opportunity simply to continue their hate campaign by other means.

When the final figures are summed up, it will be interesting to see what proportion of the dead happen to be disabled.

Source: Coronavirus: Suspend the benefit cap during crisis to protect disabled people, charities ask – Mirror Online

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UN poverty expert has an uphill struggle – with DWP ministers who don’t even understand their own rules

“Ignorant”: Justin Tomlinson.

The United Nations’ special rapporteur on poverty, Professor Philip Alston, has hit back at Conservative government ministers over their refusal to acknowledge his report on the consequences of their austerity policies in the UK.

But it seems he is on a hiding to nothing as at least one Conservative MP at the Department for Work and Pensions has revealed he does not even understand the way his party’s own rules work.

Ignorant Tories including the new Work and Pensions Secretary, Amber Rudd, have been lining up to say they “do not recognise” the validity of Professor Alston’s report, or to suggest its tone is “inappropriate”.

In response, he told The Guardian: “I think that dismissing a report that is full of statistics and first-hand testimony on the grounds that the minister didn’t appreciate the tone of the report rather misses the point.”

The report relied on undisputed statistics, such as the fact that 14 million people in the UK are living in poverty and local authorities have seen a 49 per cent real-terms reduction in funding from 2011 to 2018, and highlighted the disproportionate impact of austerity on children, the disabled and women.

It stated: “There are a number of steps that could be taken simply through instructions provided by the minister to DWP that would make the system much more humane.”

It seems that his faith in Tory ministers to take the right actions has been misplaced – if the behaviour of family support, housing and child maintenance minister Justin Tomlinson is any yardstick.

Mr Tomlinson told members of the Commons Work and Pensions committee, of which he is a member, that families could cope with the poverty created by the Tory benefit cap that limits their income to £20,000 a year – by taking in a lodger.

There’s only one problem: Anybody in a council house or housing association property who takes in a lodger would be breaking the rules of their tenancy and may be evicted.

And most private landlords ban tenants from taking in a lodger, either because of mortgage restrictions or extra legal burdens on the landlord.

Most telling is the fact that this Tory is putting tenants in a vulnerable position, simply to cover a shortfall in rent created by his government.

Professor Alston ended his critique of the government by saying, “I’m hoping that actions will speak louder than words.”

Considering Mr Tomlinson’s words, that may be a forlorn hope.

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Tories sneak out continued benefit freeze behind announcement of royal engagement

It’s all right for some: The Tories chose the day Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced their engagement to reveal that benefit claimants won’t receive a penny more next year.

Oh, joyous day! (That’s unless you receive Universal Credit, Jobseekers’ Allowance, Employment and Support Allowance, Income Support, Housing Benefit, or have the amount of your payments limited under the Benefit Cap, of course.)

As the Royal Family announced the engagement of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle, the Department for Work and Pensions decided it would be a good day to release some bad news – so ministers quietly published their proposed benefit rates for 2018-19.

As you can see, in the cases of the above-named benefits, there is no change.

So people on zero-hours contracts, in part-time work or low-paid full-time employment, and the long-term sick or disabled will find it even harder to make ends meet next year – let alone celebrate the nuptials of a man whose own state benefits are far better-paying than theirs.


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Ministers won’t back down on benefit cap despite Brexit price rises – because they want to hurt you

Damian Green knows exactly what his benefit cap cut means. He simply doesn't care.

Damian Green knows exactly what his benefit cap cut means. He simply doesn’t care.

Someone should do one of those ‘list’ articles – “10 ways you know your government is victimising you”. This would be in it.

Of course we all know by now – don’t we? – that the Conservative Party is carrying out a decades-long policy to impoverish ordinary working people and deprive them of any power at all.

This deprivation of benefit payments is part of that policy. The fact that the cost of living is rising is neither here nor there to Damian Green.

This has nothing to do with money, with the cost of living, or with politics as you may understand it.

It is about hurting you.

And they will go on with these policies long after you are so badly hurt that it is too late to defend yourself.

Get it?

The Government is refusing to review a new cap on people’s benefits despite the soaring costs of goods in the wake of Brexit, a cabinet minister has confirmed.

Damian Green said he would not take into account rising prices in setting the level of the cap, which drops today from £26,000 to £23,000 in London and to £20,000 outside the capital.

The Work and Pensions Secretary’s admission came as major food producers confirmed struggling families could be hit by price rises due to the falling strength of the pound – it has plummeted 18 per cent against the US dollar since June’s Brexit vote.

Asked whether the cap could be adjusted if inflation jumped above two and a half per cent, for example, Mr Green said: “There’s no intention to reconsider the cap”.

He argued that the new cap is necessary to ensure that households on benefits do not earn more than those with individuals in work.

Source: Ministers refuse to backdown on benefits cut for poor families despite Brexit price rises | The Independent

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Benefit Cap Implementation Dates From 7 Nov to 23 January 2017 – SPeye Joe (Welfarewrites)

Powys (home of This Writer) gets it from today. Oh joy.

Still, it’s not as though Mrs Mike and I receive anything like enough to be affected.

The cuts to the overall benefit cap do not all begin today and the implementation is being staggered from today, 7 November until 23 January 2017. Below are the dates for each area and note the DWP…

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161107-bencap2

161107-bencap3

Source: Benefit Cap Implementation Dates From 7 Nov to 23 January 2017 – SPeye Joe (Welfarewrites)

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Tory Britain today: Benefit cap reduction will harm 116,000 of the poorest families

The extended cap will limit total household benefits to £20,000, or £385 a week, outside London [Image: Peter Byrne/PA].

The extended cap will limit total household benefits to £20,000, or £385 a week, outside London [Image: Peter Byrne/PA].


This is extremely poor economic planning by a Conservative Government that simply does not know how to govern.

Cutting the amount of money payable to the poorest households, across the UK, at a time when wages have suffered a 10 per cent cut due to the plummeting value of the pound, with worse on the way due to Brexit, is lunacy.

Yet the Tories intend to go ahead with it. They do not understand that the country will face far greater costs if poor families become homeless because they cannot afford the cost of living in the country these rich politicians have created.

No wonder Tory governments always cost the country more than Labour.

More than 116,000 of the poorest households in the UK will be hit by the extended benefit cap, putting many at risk of homelessness, housing experts have predicted.

Nearly 320,000 children live in households likely to be affected by the cap introduced from 7 November. In some cases families will lose up to £115 a week, pushing them into deeper poverty.

The cap rollout, which will be completed by the end of January 2017, limits total household benefits to £23,000 (£442 a week) in London and £20,000 outside the capital (£385 a week).

The lowering of the cap from the previous £26,000 level will mean a big rise in both the number of households hit by the cap penalty, as well as an increase in the types and locations of those affected, according to the CIH.

Unlike the benefit cap introduced in 2013, which mainly hit households in high-rent areas such as London and the handful of families with five or more children, the extended cap will have an impact on families in all areas of the country.

Source: Benefit cap will hit 116,000 of poorest families, say experts | Society | The Guardian

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Iain Duncan Smith suffers court defeat on benefits cap

Vindictive animal: Iain Duncan Smith.

This is a reprieve, not a victory, I fear.

Iain Duncan Smith is a vindictive animal and, where victimising the vulnerable is concerned, he takes any setback to heart.

We – and I include myself in this because I am a carer – can expect him to come back with another attempt to penalise people who help the sick and disabled.

And he’ll probably rig the timing so it happens when we’re least able to respond.

We must be vigilant.

Iain Duncan Smith suffered a major defeat today when the High Court ruled the benefits cap should not apply to unpaid carers.

The Court has ruled that family carers who receive Carer’s Allowance should be exempt from the benefit cap – which limits the amount of benefits a family can receive to £26,000 a year.

Under savage new welfare cuts, the cap is now set to reduce even further to £23,000 in London and £20,000 elsewhere.

Mr Justice Collins found that the decision not to exempt carers was “discrimination” and not lawful.

Source: Iain Duncan Smith suffers court defeat on benefits cap – Mirror Online#ICID=sharebar_twitter#ICID=sharebar_twitter

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‘I said this, but I meant that’ – Osborne admits lying to electorate in TV interview

 

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George Osborne has admitted that the Conservatives lied to the electorate in their pre-election manifesto, claiming that they would reduce the Benefit Cap to £23,000 per year, when in fact this only applies in Greater London.

The rest of the UK will lose £6,000 from the current cap limit, meaning their income will be capped at £20,000 per year.

Of course, Osborne didn’t actually say he had been lying, when he spelt out his latest piece of oppression to Andrew Marr on television yesterday (Sunday). Politicians never admit lies, even when they’re blatant. Instead, they’re happy to present themselves as fools.

If the government had any imagination, it would eliminate the deficit by stimulating the economy, but economic output has dropped by something like eight per cent since Conservatives took office in 2010 – because austerity has choked off the money supply to businesses.

George Osborne will be quite happy with that. He doesn’t think anybody deserves to have money – other than the Conservative Party’s big business friends and donors.

Benefit payments to families living outside Greater London are to be capped at £20,000 a year.

In the first Conservative budget for 19 years, George Osborne will say that the previously announced figure of £23,000 will only apply to families living in the capital in a further cut to the welfare budget.

Disclosure of the additional cut came during the chancellor’s appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, in which he claimed to have found the £12bn of welfare savings promised by the Conservatives as part of their plan to eliminate the deficit in the public finances.

Source: Osborne announces cut in benefits cap to £20,000 a year outside London | Politics | The Guardian

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