To think this “crackdown” on benefit fraud is absolutely pathetic

Two wrongs don't make a right. I think the government should crack down on businesses that evade tax but also on individuals that make fraudulent claims by blatantly lying about the responses they put down on UC claims. Too many people claim to live alone and get government help for housing but actually their partners and often fathers of their DC sleep over 4-5 nights a week or more. That's living together in my book.

Sir Patrick Vallance is currently giving evidence that from as early as 2020 those in No 10 (Boris Johnson and his cabal) were resistant to the idea of long covid.

I bet they bloody were. Instead of attempting to learn his two-times table and how to read a graph (yes, really), Johnson was in denial about public health and the future economic impacts of a public health disaster.

And Vallance has shown Sunak to be a liar.

It's all very depressing that this is what passes for political leadership.

Sorry, it Blue Badge.

that people should have their BB removed

@XenoBitch, what does BB stand for? Thank you. Awful man.

Thank you for your kind words.I did get awarded correctly second time (first award once correctly granted was for only 2 years) but only 5 year award whilst know others similar to me got 10 year awards.

@funnylugs, spot on, sadly

I heard that too. The chap has rang in before on the same topic. He literally shouts down the phone. Keeps going on about flat screen TVs (what other type can you buy now??) and that people should have their BB removed (you can have one without being on any benefits).

@Crispedia They are absolutely heartless to put you through all that. I am so angry on your behalf! I hope this never happens to you again and that you are always awarded the highest rate without having to appeal ever again. These people are inhuman!

@OnlyOpenMouthToChangeFeet , v sorry to hear. Which ESA group are you in?

@MistyGreenAndBlue, i am v sorry to hear. I am bedridden with severe ME and I had to start the appeal process for my PIP award when transferred from DLA as I only got awarded the standard care component initially. The assessor decided I was able to cook because I had a microwave at the end of my bed which my carer placed the meal she had cooked into it and I was able to re heat later.

As I am bedridden, I said I would have to have a home tribunal and it was at this point they suddenly decided to award me enhanced care. It was very stressful though and did affect my health. Good luck when you apply again and do appeal if you don’t get the correct award first time.

@Dawn17 am so sorry, awful.

@Rosscameasdoody, thanks, v concerning. I know PIP currently has no bearing on ESA. However, there was an article I read last week that said one of the things the Government is considering is the only people who could get the new proposed health element to Universal Credit would be if they were in receipt of PIP too This would affect half a million people and would be another cruel cut. I know all of these proposed changes are not yet passed legislation but things they are looking at in white papers.

https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/half-a-million-set-to-lose-out-when-dwp-scraps-fit-for-work-test-figures-show/

My apologies, haven't RTFT.

I'm disabled and bed bound, and this terrifies me. I already get calls from the job centre asking when I'm thinking of returning to work. This is despite me being on maximum PIP for next 10 years, and not being able to work since 1997.

At the moment I'm lucky to have a medical team to fight my corner. But what is really scaring me is the other announcement they've made.

They want to move away from medics being able to sign up off altogether, and allow decision makers within the DWP to decide if we're fit to work.

Considering most health care professionals who conduct fitness for work assessments for DWP often don't even know about the condition they're assessing, this is extremely worrying. A friend of mine had heart disease, and a psychiatrist told her she was fit to work. She died 9 days later.

The Tories will only be happy when we're all dead or back in the workhouse.

That's horrendous. At least I have the mental capacity to fight them. I only gave in before because of anxiety.
You are right though. It's about creating fear. It works too

@MistyGreenAndBlue My dh has psychosis amongst other mental health issues, has made numerous suicide attempts, won't leave the house alone and just lies on the settee in silence all day, doing nothing for himself. He's been with the early intervention team for psychosis for the full 3 years you are allowed, he's now with the community mental health team, he has a psychiatrist, two support workers and a social worker. He's also just recently had a social care assessment carried out and has been awarded funding for more support. Yet, he's only ever been awarded the standard rate of PIP. I mentioned it to someone on the community mental health team who said really, he should be on the enhanced rate as he can't leave the house alone etc and she'd write me a letter confirming this. Unfortunately, she then left and went to work elsewhere. When I mentioned this to his new social worker, they advised me not to "rock the boat" with PIP, as, if I asked for a reassessment, they could just as easily downgrade his points, which has obviously frightened me off doing anything. What hope is there for people applying for PIP when professionals are advising people not to bother trying to get what they should be entitled to. The whole system is run on fear.

Absolutely. I'm on a lower rate than I should be because of an assessment by Atos that was frankly a load of bollocks!
I was dissuaded from appealing with the threat of losing the entite benefit, which terrified me.

I capitulated at the time. I know better now. When my next assessment comes up, I'll be fighting them this time.

and those of us who have nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

If you were disabled and claiming disability benefits you would know that that statement is far from the truth. Benefit claimants are all treated as though they have something to hide until proven otherwise - that’s how the system works. Disability benefit claimants have nothing to hide. They support their claims with medical evidence and undergo an assessment by DWP assessors. But they live in fear that the DWP will find some reason to disagree with them and their own doctors, and their benefits will be stopped or reduced as a result. That’s what happens in the real world.

Maybe, but the plain fact is, that it isn’t. Show me evidence anywhere that the same crackdown will be made on tax fraud. Benefit claimants are easy meat - always have been. That’s the point.

This. Unfortunately the British public fall for it every time. I was listening to a phone in programme on the proposed benefit changes and a landlord phoned in, spitting venom about lazy people ‘pretending’ to be disabled and driving around in ‘free cars’ while he and others like him were hard working tax payers. He advocated stopping all disability benefits until the claimants had undergone ‘proper medicals’ because he simply didn’t believe that anyone wouldn’t be capable of some work. He clearly didn’t know the first thing about disability/illness, or how disability benefits worked and completely bought into the governments’ narrative.

The host ended the call by asking him if he accepted benefits claimants as tenants. His answer was yes, so clearly not so principled that he wouldn’t accept housing benefit as rent payment !! The problem with what’s happening now is that unless people have had first hand experience of claiming, they have no idea what’s involved or how hard it is to secure disability benefit. Some people on MN seem to think the DWP hand out benefits like sweeties. It only takes a quick google on disability support sites to realise that that just isn’t the case.

It is cheap and ugly vote catching. We have seen it so many time, mainly, but not exclusively, from the Conservatives. It is the old promise to 'crack down on the undeserving poor, the workless, the work-shy, the immigrants who should not be here'. It is the old false narrative that there are billions of lazy people who will not work or have no right to be here, who are costing the hard-working tax payer billions every year'.

The narrative is untrue, and, as others have said, increases the stigma against the most vulnerable groups in society. Yet it distracts people from the bare, cold truth that this government, like others before it, had fundamentally failed to facilitate real growth in the economy.

Historically, prejudice and victimisation of the poor and vulnerable increases when an economy is failing. That is what is happening here, and it is driven by the government's self seeking false rhetoric.

It’s not clear whether this is for all ESA/UC claimants as Hunt declined to comment when he was asked - said it would have to wait until the Autumn Statement. PIP has no bearing on this, as it doesn’t assess a claimants’ ability to work and can be claimed whether working or not. I think the question is whether it applies to both contribution based and means tested ESA as well as UC and whether it will affect those already claiming as well as new claimants. The DWP are on record as saying the rollout will only affect new claimants, but they’ve backtracked before in similar issues.

l think it’s important for people not to panic because there is no legislation in place to enact any of this. Planned changes to the work capability assessment won’t be enacted until 2025 and the actual changes to benefit are not being introduced until at least 2026/27 - not forgetting that they still have to get the plans through parliament - both houses. I doubt there will be time for any of that before the general election, so then it becomes a question of whether a Labour government would run with the plans as they are.

For anyone wanting to know more about the proposed changes to the work capability assessment, and benefits here is a link to the Disability Rights website page on the subject. https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/dwp-launches-wca-changes-consultation-aimed-reducing-number-claimants-%E2%80%98limited-capability-work#:~:text=%E2%80%9CIn%20March%202023%20there%20were,result%20in%20a%20LCWRA%20classification.

It highlights how these changes are not being introduced to support the most vulnerable into work, but an attempt to reduce claimant numbers by introducing harsh conditionality to benefit entitlement for the very sickest and most disabled claimants where there was none before. They know many claimants will no longer qualify and as a result very vulnerable people will be forced into unsuitable work. I suggest those of you here who have expressed agreement with what the government is proposing click on the link and look at what is actually being proposed. The measure of a civilised society is how we treat our sick, disabled and elderly. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions on how the UK fares on that.

As usual with the Tories, it will be the very most vulnerable who will be at the sticky end of the cuts and increased conditionality.

The cuts to disability and sickness benefits (new PIP and ESA) in 2011 and 2017 affected those too sick to work but not extremely sick or those disabled but not as severely as some. Was cruel.

One proposal is to scrap the LCWRA allowance on UC and ESA.

@Rosscameasdoody, Is that for all ESA claimants? I read for those not also in receipt of PIP? Still bad of course.

@Rosscameasdoody absolutely. Its very frightening for disabled people. Im disabled but work...a lot genuinely can't, and worrying about benefits as sole income beyond their control is , tbh, a matter of life or death.

Having taken part in various consultations on welfare reform as part of a disability support charity, I think a lot of it is simply rehashing and updating on what’s gone before. As usual with the Tories, it will be the very most vulnerable who will be at the sticky end of the cuts and increased conditionality. Because they are the ones who cost the most and the easiest to identify.

I’ve never seen the point of these consultations because by the time they’re put in motion the government already has plans in the pipeline, and if anyone thinks they’re going to take notice of what disabled people or their spokespeople say they want/need, they’re in lala land. It’s just paying lip service and then going ahead with what they were going to do all along. The Cameron/Clegg coalition consulted on changing DLA to PIP. The result was an overwhelming ‘no’. They still went ahead despite a manifesto promise not to tinker with DLA. During the consultation for PIP, they put forward the proposal to reduce the walking test from 50m to 20m. Again a resounding no - it still went ahead and the then minister for the disabled tried to blame it on the consultation, saying that it was proposed and backed by some disability organisations. She then had the embarrassing task of backtracking when she was proved wrong.

There are parts of the new proposals that worry me. For example they’re proposing to take away the issuing of fit notes from GP’s and into the hands of ‘therapists’ who work for the DWP. This puts whether a sick/disabled person actually gets a fit note and qualifies for benefits into the hands of the same people who have made such a dogs breakfast of assessing for other disability benefits and who have been responsible for the ballooning of the benefits bill because so many people have to go to appeal to get a fair decision. If the DWP are going to have the last word in determining who is actually sick or disabled it’s not hard to see where things are headed is it ?

The other thing that worries me is the proposal to tighten up on the work capability assessment. Those with continence and mobility issues, or other serious conditions meaning that they are presently not compelled to work or engage with work related activity are going to be assessed differently, and if their condition means they cannot work in open employment, they will be compelled to work from home - God alone knows how the government is going to conjure up all these WFH vacancies or compel employers to take on seriously ill/disabled people. And this from a Tory party whose first mission in government was to close Remploy and other sheltered workshops for the disabled, where they were gainfully employed and paid. They promised extra support for those made redundant to find other work. It never materialised. Not exactly a track record to be proud of when supporting disabled people into work is it ?

Hunt was talking in The Times, about ‘stick and carrot’. Not surprisingly he wanted to discuss more carrot than stick and when asked about new proposals for benefit sanctions he wouldn’t be specific - citing the consultation results ahead of the Autumn statement on Wednesday. One proposal is to scrap the LCWRA allowance on UC and ESA. This is the higher payment addition for those deemed too ill/disabled to work - Limited Capacity for Work Related Activity. UC/ESA claimants would be around £390 a month worse off. He wouldn’t be drawn on whether this proposal was under serious consideration, or whether it would apply to existing as well as new claimants.

It’s all very worrying - despite the prospect of a change of government. Starmer, and shadow DWP minister Liz Kendall are said to consider that the plans don’t go far enough, so sick and disabled people can’t take much comfort from the prospect of a general election.

Mel Stride, DWP minister, basically said that if people are fit to work, playing the system and coasting on the backs of the tax payer, they could expect to have their benefits stopped if they don’t engage properly with back to work regulations. In principle I have no problem with this. What I do have a problem with is that if these proposals are anything to go by, the governments’ idea of who is fit to work will likely be very different from the reality and the vulnerable ‘low hanging fruit’ will once again be at the brunt end.

Absolutely!