Well this is a new fucking low....

[CherryMyBrandy]

Tories are now proposing to stop benefit claimant's access to medicines if they have been deemed not doing enough to look for work....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/michael-heseltine-hate-politics-jobless-prescriptions-b2449412.html

It's not enough to sanction them, so they basically have next to no money to live on. Now they want to take away their access to medicines, some of those will of course be life-saving.

The people coasting on the backs of taxpayers are them! The Tory government and their cronies.

Whilst this is a very sad case, the fact that it went to the papers shows it was an isolated incident, where the poor man had obviously slipped through the net. There will clearly be incidences like this, but rare. There’s shit service across the board atm from NHS and government departments. I would guess if someone is appealing against a PIP/benefit decline, that the suspension of free prescriptions etc would be paused pending the outcome of an appeal. I just think people on here are scaremongering amongst people who this will not affect. Genuine claimants who are currently on benefits and are not being asked to look for work are not the target group here.

To me, the latest proposal in changeing the benefits system is a bit like the Fit Note you get from your doctor.

Talking to people who have limitations due to illness or disability about what they can do in terms of work available.
It's good, it's positive and can be empowering.

The problem is that there won't be ongoing professional support to identify possible job opportunities and try periods to ensure suitable long term employment is achieved.

The next issue is, that the relevant departments are then given quotas to achieve savings and convictions to demonstrate how fabulous this new benefits system is.

Hopefully this new approach is BS and doesn't get any further!

I think there's definitely a big undercurrent - as can be seen on this thread - that we need to crack down on the malingerers, but 'of course' those who are genuinely ill or disabled will have nothing to worry about - hence we can all support these policies.

Plenty of privileged people don't have the faintest idea what life is like for those who don't have those privileges - nor do they actually care. Not just the having to struggle through life with numerous challenges, but on top of that, having privileged people screaming at them that they are liars and frauds and seeking to take away what little support they already are (grudgingly) given.

This makes me think of the old saying about those who happen not to have anything to say right now not seeing any need for free speech.

Just beware that, although they may currently be coming for people who are not you, none of us know when we might be next on their hit-list. You have nothing to fear... until you do.

Genuine claimants who are currently on benefits and are not being asked to look for work are not the target group here.

Have you even heard of ATOS?

Right and we all know how easy it is for people with serious health conditions and disabilities to get the support they need. They will be lumped in as fit to work when in fact they are struggling with all kinds of problems. There was a move to only allow those who get PiP to get other health benefits and PiP is notoriously hard to get even with serious illness/disability. The chance of genuine claimants being wrongly denied health benefits and not being able to sustain work and therefore losing their right to prescriptions is high. Think of the 6st man who died because his benefits were stopped. I can’t remember the reason they were stopped but it was mismanagement at best, intentional at worst.

The other thing that really concerns me is that claimants with anxiety and depression are also going to be deemed fit to work. I don’t how many of you here have suffered crippling anxiety or depression but the clue is in the word crippling. Until the health service is given enough money to vastly improve mental health services these people are not going to get the help they need. Take away their support and I can guarantee the number of homelessness on the streets will be far worse than it is at the moment. How are people supposed to pay their bills if there money is cut and they are too unwell to work. It’s beyond cruel.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/nov/18/minister-warned-about-mental-pressure-of-benefits-system-after-applicant-kills-himself

So many people believe that they are one of the tories club because they have a good job/own a house/belong to the rotary club. They believe that "we" are all in it together and that all the nasty poor people and benefit claimants are the enemy. They don't see that the tories only care about the millionaire public school gang and anyone else is fair game. Once they are done with the poor and sick they will come for your middle class benefits on the grounds that you're draining the system with your tax free pension savings and childcare. The NHS will be gone and all but the richest will die in the event of severe illness. They will throw you under a bus the way you did with the universal credit and PIP claimants. I've been saying it for years but the words of Martin Niemoller remain as relevant as ever. Get the tories out ASAP!

This 👏 👏 👏

The traditional way of looking for more workers in a free and democratic society is to provide decent wages and a work-life balance, health provision, holidays and other benefits.

Wages have had to be propped up by benefits for so long because they are too low in comparison to the real cost of living, which quietly quadrupled overnight 20 years ago and has been rising steadily ever since. Work is simply not worth doing for far too many people. The emphasis should be on making it worthwhile again, not on creating a new totalitarian slavery while the rich build more superyachts and open more offshore bank accounts.

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My cousins sisters friend is a circus acrobat comment is hilarious - made me chuckle out loud! 😂

When you look at statistics of how many people really are living the life of riley on benefits (and dont forget that the biggest chunk of money paid out by DWP are pensions, which are rightfully deserved, but never mentioned when the figures are rolled out to whip the country into a frenzy about the greedy, lazy, undeserving poor) is proportionally very small. Many of those people will also be trying, failing, appealing and then winning self represented claims about disability payments because their physical or menatl health makes working full time a struggle, or caring for children for whom they are doing the same. The people possibly most reliant upon healthcare

They talk about how many people are claiming UC in the article, but the majority of those are in full time work already - it just doesnt pay enough and alot of it is made of the housing element, that goes straight into the pockets of landlords, not those feckless low paid scroungers. Why no outcry about all that tax payer money going to Landlords? The housing allowance is far far higher than the personal living allowance, so landlords actually take more of the governments money than the actual UC applicant.

Though I guess once you've removed the tents and meagre belongings of the homeless, there are few places left to go

To save £2 per person per week (a 12 month pre paid prescription cost £111.60)
It's absolutely set up to screw people over rather than save money or get people into work.

Unless this person has a disability of some sort, this is abjectly impossible. as a single person their entitlement will be £368.74 a month.
If they are fortunate enough to live/ rent a place that is under the housing cap - and as a single person thats roughly £100 a week here for a single bed - they would have been expected to house share up to age £65 at a max rate of £70 a week roughly (changes with area but Im in an expensive part of the SE) or face a bedroom tax - then they get to keep all that for bills, food, travel to job interviews. If not they need to top their rent up themselves.
And they need a phone. Needs to be a smart phone capable of integrating with the government system, because thats what they need to use to keep their claim working.

So tell me how theyve managed to live such a high life and save on £85 a week

Unless of course they do actually have a hidden disability that you know nothing about that prevents them working. Or have parents wealthy enough to support them while they live at home and save that big old £85 a week.

@NettleTea They probably work from home. I'm unemployed according to my neighbours and local shopkeeper. I actually work 48 hours a week from home and am not entitled to any benefits apart from child benefit for DD2.

No one who knows me only by sight or to say hi to on the street would know that, though. They would only know that I don't leave the house on a regular work schedule.

Ignore the shills on this thread trying to provoke. It won’t happen but is being used as a distraction from the roll out of Free Ports across the UK.

They are essentially tax havens with substantially weakened planning, environmental and labour laws.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_ports_in_the_United_Kingdom

This was the true goal of Brexit, which enabled this. Some of us are living in Free Port areas without even knowing it. Please have a look, as it will affect everything, even in areas that are not Freeports.

This type of post - is it cutely naive or worryingly deluded?

Or a Tory supporter who knows the reality and is just playing innocent?

The idea the 'processes' are fair or work is, frankly, total bollocks.

My other half works full time for a Goverment agency.. not the lowest rank and I work part time around child care. We have only JUST managed to get our wages above the Universal credit top up.
Maybe, just maybe, if we started actually paying people a living wage we wouldn't need to top them up with benefits. Just a thought.

The majority of people on benefits either cannot work due to illness or are working with shit wages.

I expect Tory voters are chomping at the bit with this, may change when we have civil unrest due to starving people on the street who cannot make ends meet no matter how hard they work.

In the meantime they will carry on complaining about their relatives having to pay for carers ( those same carers who cannot pay their bills even working full time!)

I've never met anyone who survives on full time benefits who's life I'd prefer to mine!

Pfft.

This proposal is Dickensian. If you think it'll be fair and positive you're an easy target for a scammer.

@MidnightOnceMore they are shills whose whole purpose is to keep everyone debating and distracted.

The Unemployment rate is low in the UK, you have to ask yourself why this is the focus when there are higher priorities.

@CherryMyBrandy , that is a LIE, They will if they refuse to look for work have FREE prescriptions removed. Quite right too! No one should expect to be able to laze around at the expense of those who go out to work each day.

If you think the only people who get sanctioned are the feckless, you’re part of the problem.

Some evidence of that in the latest polling.
The smallest Labour lead in the last 5 polls was 20%.

https://www.markpack.org.uk/155623/voting-intention-opinion-poll-scorecard/

If you think the only people who get sanctioned are the feckless, you’re part of the problem. System Justification explains a lot.

A surprising number of people - those who are more silly than cruel - need to believe in benign rulers. Therefore they go along with this sort of cobblers.