Despair: people with long-term illnesses and disabilities are being driven towards suicide because they can’t afford to live in Tory Britain.
You just know the Department for Work and Pensions is already considering this a “positive benefit outcome”:
More people are contemplating suicide as they “cannot cope” as a result of rising costs, charities have said.
Charities supporting those with chronic diseases or disabilities have called for an overhaul of the benefits system.
One woman who has multiple sclerosis (MS) said her costs had almost trebled.
MS Society Wales, said many who come to them were “at the end of their tether”, with the stress often affecting their condition and exacerbating their symptoms.
Disability Wales said it had also seen an increase in mental health issues resulting from the cost of living crisis.
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Uncannily accurate: The Conservative government’s genuine policy towards PIP claimants may as well have been as it appears in this cartoon from 2017. But what will replace the assessment system it satirises?
I should be pleased.
This Site has campaigned against the Work Capability Assessment for sickness and disability benefits, practically since I started publishing it at the end of 2011.
In my opinion, it has been misused, as a tool to force people who are too ill to work onto job-seeking benefits that carry sanctions if a claimant fails to carry out particular tasks – tasks which the long-term sick and disabled are often clearly incapable of doing.
In many cases, the results have been fatal. I know this because it took me two years to force the Department for Work and Pensions to release figures showing that 2,400 people died within a limited period (two weeks) after being found fit for work, between dates in 2011 and 2014.
That’s right – these people had been found fit to go to work by this hopelessly flawed tick-box assessment system, and then they had proven themselves to be nothing of the sort.
And the Tory government carried on as though nothing was wrong.
I also have personal experience of the system’s flaws. After my partner – Mrs Mike; remember her? – was wrongly put in the work-related activity group for Employment and Support Allowance, she appealed in the hope of being relocated to the support group.
Instead, whoever received her letter slapped a “Do Not Contact” tag on her file for no discernible reason and allowed her claim to end after 12 months, while she waited – in considerable confusion and distress – for a response that was never going to come.
Fortunately, I was around to kick up a stink and get the situation sorted out. But that just highlights the fact that many thousands of people don’t have that kind of help at hand.
And now, we’re told, the Work Capability Assessment is to be scrapped.
But we’re not being told what will replace it.
This Independent article has comments from a couple of organisations that have a stake in what happens:
Trades Union Congress general secretary Paul Novak [said:] “Scrapping the work capability assessment will be welcome if it means an end to assessments that cause anxiety instead of helping people achieve their aspirations,” he added, while urging greater investment in public services to get people off NHS waiting lists and reduce barriers to training.
James Taylor of the disability equality charity Scope said axing the assessment was “the minimum change needed to even begin improving a welfare system that regularly fails disabled people”, and stressed the need for “a more person-centred system” offering “specialist, tailored and flexible” support.
“Those that want to work should be supported. But for some, that’s not an option and disabled people shouldn’t be forced into unsuitable work,” he said. “There is a lot of work to do for the government to restore trust in our benefits system.”
Notice that they both mentioned ways of getting more people back into work; this is Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s aim with the changes to the benefit system.
And that’s why I fear for the future of sickness and disability benefits in the UK.
I think the odious Hunt is planning another push to put sick people into jobs they can’t do. If I’m right, his plan will fail on many levels.
Jeremy Hunt: is he planning to pull the rug out from under disabled people, to fill the gaps in the labour market? If so, he’ll probably make matters worse.
Bad news? Or just the same old story?
Apparently Jeremy Hunt is planning to “reform” (we’ve heard that word before!) disability benefits in order to push people back to work.
According to The Independent, the economics editor of the Financial Times, Chris Giles, said there would probably be a “carrot and stick” approach, although it seems to be more “stick” than “carrot”:
“The charitable way of putting it is that people are better off in work rather than out of work and have better lives and maybe they need a push. That’s not how a lot of people will see it but that’s how the government will see it.”
It looks like the expected inflation-matching benefit increase isn’t going to happen for people on disability or sickness payments!
Either that, or Hunt will make receipt of the benefit conditional on seeking work of some kind – which is a partial contradiction in terms because PIP is supposed to support disabled people in their lives, whether they are in work or not.
The trouble is, people aren’t better-off in work because the policy for the last 13 years and more – across the board – has been to push wages down in order to maximise profits.
That’s why we’ve got so many billionaires at the moment – most of whom didn’t do anything meaningful to get that cash.
Secondly: work won’t give disabled people better lives; it is far more likely to make their condition worse – if employers even bother to take them on.
You don’t get a better life in a low-waged job that creates physical or mental stress that is harmful to your health – possibly because it doesn’t pay enough to cover the bills.
And experience shows that most employers won’t even hire a person with a disability – so that person is left struggling on a benefit that is even less likely to cover the bills, because it has been designed to be that way.
So trying to force disabled people into work isn’t even likely to succeed.
Finally, let’s be perfectly clear about this: more people are on disability benefits now because of the Tories’ cack-handed handling of the Covid crisis.
It’s also because they’ve created huge stresses with low-paid work; people are having nervous breakdowns and physical health problems because employers and the government have made it impossible to make ends meet.
The Independent article makes clear the correlation between the pandemic and benefit take-up:
A new report revealed that a huge wave of early retirement following the Covid pandemic was the biggest cause of labour shortages across the UK. [It said] that the workforce outlook for the UK was “bleak”, finding that economic inactivity has increased by 565,000 people since the start of the pandemic.
There was also a stark increase in long-term sickness since the start of the pandemic, with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) finding that 217,000 people not in work in the year to July reported long-Covid.
However, the report highlighted that most of the rise in sickness-related inactivity was among people already taking leave and those leaving jobs were more likely to be ending their careers early.
Giving up, in other words.
So, in typical Tory fashion, these idiots have created a problem for them to solve… with cruelty.
As Kate Bell, assistant general secretary of the TUC put it:
“The government usually reaches for benefit conditionality when they don’t have anything to say.”
“I think it might happen because they see it as easy and cheap.”
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Money: the cost-of-living crisis means more cash is needed to cover the care of severely disabled people – but councils don’t have enough.
Here’s a little-known consequence of the cost-of-living crisis: disabled people are being evicted from charity-run care homes because local councils are refusing to pay increased costs.
These are people with severe disabilities whose care can cost anything between £85,000 and £150,000 per year.
The charity Leonard Cheshire said it had served 11 eviction notices on contracts with councils that had been under re-negotiation without agreement since February. Two were rescinded after councils agreed to pay uprated fees.
The fee increases reflect the rising costs of wages, energy and food due to the cost-of-living crisis that has been largely caused by the UK’s Conservative government, due to Brexit and energy privatisation that has led to failures to upgrade to cheap, locally-generated energy.
Leonard Cheshire has spent millions of pounds from its own reserves over the last few years, subsidising care services that councils have failed to fund adequately – but now says it can no longer afford to continue doing so.
Mencap has not evicted anybody because it generally doesn’t own the properties they occupy – but is subsidising one in five of the state-funded care packages it provides to 4,000 people – so that’s 800 of them. The cost to the charity is millions of pounds.
Evicted residents are unlikely to become homeless because their council or NHS funder has a duty to provide alternative care.
But the concern is that moving will disrupt the care that people get, and cheaper alternative arrangements will be of poorer quality or based far away from their family support network.
Ironically, the evictions are prompted by concerns that the level of council funding no longer guarantees basic safety and quality standards.
Inevitably, the government has claimed it provides plenty of money to support adult social care services – with the £7.5 billion available over two years constituting the biggest funding increase in UK history.
Conspicuously missing is any comment on whether this is enough money to cover the increased costs of care.
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Disabled people face higher living costs than those of us who are able-bodied, but Liz Truss and her Tory government don’t care about that.
They have offered a pittance of £150 to cover the shocks disabled households are facing – and that was before they raised the energy price cap by more than that amount.
They say there are other methods of support – but people with disabilities are most likely to be receiving the Personal Independence Payment of up to £92 per week already.
Disabled people need extra money to cover their extra costs.
But Liz Truss claims her energy costs on expenses so she doesn’t understand.
Here’s a clip:
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Applause to The Independent for highlighting the fact that, even among the vulnerable, there are those who are more likely to lose more during the cost of living/inflation/energy crisis: principally disabled people.
It will certainly be tough for many, particularly for larger and less-well-off families in larger, older properties; for the elderly, more at risk of hypothermia and less inclined to seek the help they are entitled to; and for a group of people who are too often neglected in so many areas: those with disabilities. Once again, they hardly figure in the national debate on the cost of living crisis. And once again, they are treated as an afterthought at best.
In the case of disabled people who are in receipt of social security, the outlook is bleaker than for most of their fellow citizens. In the first place, many have a lower income simply because they cannot work as easily as others, and society often fails to make the reasonable adjustments necessary to help them to get better-paid jobs.
Second, living with disabilities has always been expensive. There are often extra costs that must be met somehow, such as buying and running special equipment that requires electricity; transportation and mobility; the larger accommodation necessary to facilitate wheelchair use. So the cost of living crisis is already disproportionately affecting households that include a disabled person.
Under the January price cap as currently estimated, 1.4 million claimants will be presented with energy bills amounting to 132 per cent of their annual benefit. Families with a disabled child will face bills equivalent to 116 per cent of their disability living allowance. These figures also understate the impact of the energy price hikes on such households, because disabled people typically have higher-than-average energy needs.
It is morally wrong that those with disabilities, whose lives (and those of their families and friends) are already more difficult, should come off worst in this crisis… By definition, people with disabilities are the most vulnerable, and they should therefore be the first in line for exceptional help.
Absolutely right. So where is it?
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Bring out your dead: is this the DWP plan for people with disabilities who can’t afford to pay the inflated energy bills the Tory government has foisted on us?
This is utterly disgusting.
Confronted with the story of a man with disabilities who said he expects to be dead by this time next year because he will not be able to afford the increased cost of energy, Tory Minister for Disabled people Chloe Smith said she hoped the Job Centre could help.
It’s the Tory answer to everything: “Get a job. Get a better job. Get an extra job.”
But – if you’re a person living with a disability – you can’t always do that.
And you know what happens then, in Tory Britain?
You die.
Here’s the clip:
Note Chloe Smith’s record on benefit-related votes in the House of Commons: she always voted to cut benefits.
So, for her, the answer to all your problems, if you can’t get a job, is clear:
You die.
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Boris the bung: Johnson has been splurging cash on the very rich for the last three years. Now, when the rest of us are suffering in a cost-of-living crisis he created, he has little for us other than excuses.
Remember when only benefit claimants had to choose between “eating and heating” – buying food for their families or energy for their homes?
Those were happy days for the small-minded Little Britons who merrily voted Tory government after Tory government into power to continue ruining the economy and siphoning cash away from people who need it.
Now, more than 60 per cent of the UK’s population are in the same position as those benefit claimants – and suddenly it isn’t quite as amusing to fling the old “scrounger” accusations around any more, is it?
Many of the same people who supported government benefit cuts that drove claimants to suicide or simply starved them to death are now begging the same government to support them through the current cost-of-living crisis.
And some – not necessarily the same ones – are having suicidal thoughts themselves.
This Writer has a certain amount of sympathy for those who didn’t vote Tory and never supported the victimisation of the vulnerable.
Those who did are finding it isn’t so comfortable when the shoe’s on the other foot, I suppose. I wonder whether they will learn from the experience, to be a little less judgmental about other people, now they have suffered just a little of what the sick and disabled (for example) have endured for more than a decade?
Well, the experience won’t do them any good if they give in to their more grim thoughts, so it is right that everybody who is suffering mental ill-health as a result of the government’s failure in its most basic function – providing affordable food and energy to the population – should get treatment for it.
Sadly (again) we have a government that is not up to the task.
The Tories are using the crisis to provide another subsidy for the rich, with people who own multiple houses set to receive £400 for each of them, no matter whether they are occupied all the time or not.
Landlords will be under no obligation to pass the cash on to tenants who actually pay the bills.
And mental health services have long been neglected by successive Conservative governments.
Now they are scrabbling to catch up, providing £2.3 billion extra per year to treat two million more people – that’s just £1,150 each for around 1/20 of those who need help, according to the Sky News poll.
And they have called for evidence from the public about what should be in a 10-year plan for mental health, that will not make any difference to people who are in need now.
Thomas Jefferson (or was it Benjamin Franklin?) once famously said, “We get the government we deserve.”
I just hope people who are going through hardship now realise that their choice of Tory rule has inflicted the same – and worse – on others for many years.
What were the organisers of the Royal Cornwall Show thinking? “If it’s good enough for the government…”?
That must be the thought going through the heads of people with disabilities – and campaigners for them like This Writer – after hearing that the biggest show in Cornwall would only give a free carer ticket on the day to people in wheelchairs:
Marie Louisa Ralph, whose two sons are autistic and whose elder son Malachy also has Tourette’s Syndrome, accused the Royal Cornwall Show (RCS) of being in breach of equality laws and ignoring the needs of disabled people whose disability may not be as obvious as being in a wheelchair.
Marie said: “Wheelchairs are no proof of disability but RCS are effectively putting their own interpretation on what disability is. They haven’t got a clue. I’m a big believer in independence for disabled people, many of whom can work and are just as entitled as anyone else to access public event. They might just need a carer with them even if they’re not in a wheelchair.”
The show’s organisers seem to have claimed that Ms Ralph was mistaken and there was a concession for carers – if they pre-booked online. The deadline for that had passed and so the only concession available was if a disabled person arrived in a manual wheelchair.
They provided no rationale for this restriction.
Organisers also insisted that their scheme works well – and that it is a voluntary provision that they are not duty-bound to offer.
So disability discrimination is still considered to be perfectly acceptable at major public events, then?
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This is a classic rant from my brother The Beast – and so full of facts that not only do you need to read it, but you should send it to all your friends as well:
The Tories and Blairites – ’cause it was Blair who introduced the vile Work Capability Tests – are convinced and would like you to believe that a large portion of claims for disability benefit are fraudulent.
Thanks to right-wing rags like the Heil, the British public believes that 25% of all disability claims are fake. In fact… the overwhelming number of claims for disability benefits are genuine. Only a vanishingly small number, less than 1 per cent, are attempts to defraud the benefits system.
But obviously, this detracts from the Tory desire to punish the poor for not working or being able to work, while they could be gainfully exploited by all the rich industrialists they want to give massive tax cuts to.
And so we have suffered 40-odd years of Thatcherite cuts to the benefits system while Tory and Blairite mouthpieces have told us that such cuts are ‘self-help’, encouraging self-reliance, going to revive proper Christian charity and private initiative without the safety net of the state.
The principle of less eligibility – how the whole process of claiming state support was to be as unpleasant as possible in order to deter people from doing so – was one of [Thatcher’s] ‘Victorian Values’ that she wished to reintroduce into the welfare system.
So did Blair, who created the Work Capability Tests because of pseudoscientific, discredited research on behalf of US insurance fraudster Unum. This assumed that most disability claims were fake, and that getting people back into work would do them good.
The assumption that a certain percentage of all disability claims were fake has led, according to whistleblowers, to the imposition of quotas… which demand that a set percentage of disability claims should be turned down.
This has led to severely ill, even terminally so patients, being judged fit for work. It has led to moronic … clerks asking amputees when their absent limbs are expected to grow back. And it has led to hundreds, if not thousands of genuinely sick and disabled people dying from poverty and hunger because they were denied an income.
This included people with serious mental health problems and conditions like diabetes, who were found starved to death.
It’s been denounced by disability activists as a genocide. Harsh words, but this is mass murder by governments who know exactly what the consequences of these sanctions are. They just don’t want you to know.
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