No benefits if unemployed for more than a year and other ways Sunak wants ti tackle the Benefits system

[cakeorwine]

This are the headlines - I can see some massive issues here for people - it's easy to say there are job vacancies - but what if they aren't in the area people are and there is no transport to get there. How does that work? I can see a lot of exploitation here.

There's also the other rules here around PIP payments, part time workers etc.

I wonder how much personal experience Sunak has of such things?

This is an outline from the Daily Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13330045/Benefits-axed-year-stop-lifestyle-choice-Prime-Minister.html

12-month rule for unemployed

Tory manifesto plans will see people on the dole have their benefit claims closed after a year unless they can convince Jobcentre staff they are actively looking for work and willing to accept any reasonable job offer.

Personal Independence Payments

Hundreds of thousands of people with anxiety and depression could lose access to payments worth up to £700 a month and instead be offered therapy to help them back to work.

PART-TIME WORKERS

New rules will require part-time workers on Universal Credit to look for more work. Anyone working for less than the equivalent of 18 hours a week on minimum wage will have to show they are actively seeking more hours.

Disability rules

The work capability assessment rules, which govern who is eligible for sickness benefits, will be tightened to require 424,000 with milder mental health conditions to start looking for work.

Sick notes

GPs could be stripped of their role in signing off people as sick and replaced by 'specialist work and health professionals' who will focus on what work people could do with support, such as flexibility to work from home.

Benefit Fraud

Investigators will be handed new powers to tackle benefit fraud, which hit £6.4 billion last year. In future they will have similar powers to those investigating tax fraud, including the ability to make seizures and arrests

Prime Minister who, together with wife has personal fortune of £730 million, appeals to moral majority of Great British Public to join him in scapegoating and demonising infinitely less well off. (For votes.)

If it works and they get back in, heaven help us.

So what happens if mentally ill people are waiting for treatment? Do they still have to work? What happens if the professionals working with them don’t think they should work? Do they still
lose their benefits? What happens to the ones waiting for treatment who don’t have professionals to advocate for them? How on earth are Job Centre staff in any way qualified to dictate who can and can’t work? Ill people shouldn’t be taking any old job too, surely they will need the right work and boss. What if it isn’t found?

There is a real danger here of suicide rates rocketing.

@Maverickess Why is it that the middle class and higher tax payers are 'targeted' yet for anyone else it's just what needs to happen for the good of society?

It's been said poor people are those targeted - or those with the least money. I remember the VAT discussion many said it will benefit society. I am effectively saying the same thing. If raising funds via VAT for fees is acceptable and something that will benefit us all - then this policy should be treated the same.

Given the choice most of us wouldn't work. People should not choose benefits over work if they are able to work.

2 birds 1 stone maybe?!

no longer receive treatment = cost saving, waiting list down
no longer receive benefits

it’s hard to argue against Tory logic like that

Bottom line if presented with a job, and you are able to work you should work - that includes commuting etc.

I always wonder why people would refuse to work if for instance they trained to be a hairdresser but haven't found a hairdressing job for months. If there's another job why not work until the right thing comes along.

I was going to bother to replay, but I think @dimllaishebiaith nails it tbh.
Obviously a suitable job would be ideal. In my case that means something with a lot of restrictions as I have significant impairment. It also means an employer willing to go through the Access to Work process with me. Plus, I have personal experience of actually getting a suitable job, that I could do and was qualified for, and then having the offer rescinded when I disclosed a disability. Discrimination? Yes. Does it happen? Also yes.
The point is, cutting benefits to those disabled people not in work isn't much of an encouragement. You can be as capable as you like, but if employers take one look at you and decide you're incompetent or unreliable because you're disabled, you're not going to find a job.
Anyway, PIP isn't means tested and has nothing to do with work, and that's one of the benefits they're threatening to cut.

(and in case you missed it, I'm not currently unemployed. Not that it should matter for you to care about my opinion).

The benefit system is broken but the only way to fix it is to sort out housing. That is the first building block. Access to affordable family friendly housing has to come first.

We would have to build millions of houses. Either that or compulsory purchase. Both are basically impossible

People already unemployed do have to take a job unless there is a reasonable reason they can not.
What this means is that the single parent with no family support will be told they have to take an over night carers job, even though they can get no childcare.
Or a recovering alcoholic will be told they have to take a job in a bar.
Or a single mum will be told they have to take a NMW job that takes 2 hours to get to by public transport, making childcare unaffordable.
Any job will mean any job no matter how unpractical.
I would be worried, except the Tories are getting voted out.

But they’re saying after a year of benefits you have to work. Many won’t be mentally enough to work. They will need NHS specialists saying what they can and can’t do not job centre staff. What happens to those people? There will be some as ill waiting for treatment without nhs staff to advocate. What happens to them?

@CheeseLouise6556 I am sure if you have been signed off you will not work for that period. At the moment and even under Labour we always had functional assessors who work for the DWP. They don't determine your eligibility for benefits, that's done by the DWP.

Why wouldn't you receive treatment? Don't most GPs start you on something when you present with MH problems? Unless it was psychosis etc I am sure you do start treatment while awaiting a psychiatrist - like gold dust!

"Given the choice most of us wouldn't work". Er nope. All the disabled people I know (and I know a lot - they're most of my social circle) are desperate to work. Some can. Some can't. Some could if a unicorn job existed, but it doesn't.
As others have said (and weaponised) on this thread, work can be helpful for a sense of purpose. People look down on you if you can't. And ESA is barely enough to live on, nevermind actually have a choice of enjoying life, given the extra costs incurred due to disability.

Just being put on meds doesn’t treat mental illness.

It sort of gets to the point where it’s on you to come up with the answers, society has done enough to support you but it can’t go on indefinitely. It sounds harsh but there’s no other way - our country is becoming a life support system for the terminally unemployed, and bringing everyone else down with it.

Let's see what the policy says when it comes out.
Why are we lumping everyone into the same box? People present with different challenges health wise.

I understood it as, if you were for instance my relative who chose not to work for over a decade while receiving benefits. He wasn't ill, in his 40s, fit, etc. He just did not want to work. - Then after 12 months they'd cut you off. Which I agree with 100%! This person now works but only a few hours a week.

It would seem to me people with health challenges will be treated differently. Same rules, but allowances depending on your circumstances.

@CheeseLouise6556 I work. The mental health care I have had through my GP is a counsellor who is totally rubbish. Zero help.

Farewell to Welfare

But many people aren’t getting the mental health treatment they need. Waiting lists are sky high.The longer they wait the more ill they get.

I understood it as, if you were for instance my relative who chose not to work for over a decade while receiving benefits. He wasn't ill, in his 40s, fit, etc. He just did not want to work. - Then after 12 months they'd cut you off. Which I agree with 100%! This person now works but only a few hours a week.

So you understood it to mean what you hoped it meant?

How would you write that as law or policy anyway? "People @eise likes will be granted a small income. People she dislikes will be made destitute"?

A lot of us live with chronic illnesses which cannot be treated. Meds support the medical condition so we can't function! That's the point.

You can be on meds for fibroids so you can function while waiting for surgery . . . for example.

Everyone will present with different circumstances. Ultimately those deemed fit to work should work. I am not sure why anyone would be against working to support their needs.

@LiterallyOnFire Don't work then, claim benefits.

We are no longer in a position to meet these needs. They’re going to have to help themselves if they possibly can.

But mental illness differs. Some may be able to but some absolutely won’t. It’s the same with any disability.

@eise I agree anyone fit to work should work. The question is who is fit to work?
A lot of people with mental illness can get a job, they can not maintain one. They end up having a terrible sickness record. I have a relative like this. In his current job for 7 months and overall about 3 months sickness. He is always sacked. He actually wants to work but can not cope with the stress of a job. He will get another job as he does well at interviews, and the same will happen again.

A member of my family works 3 x 10 hr nights at less than minimum wage as some of it is supposedly a sleep in, for which NMW is not required - she does this to accommodate looking after her son more easily. She does work a further 3 hrs (taking 5 hours with travel) taking a resident to a social activity and though paid NMW for this it costs her in travel and getting him a snack - she further does 2hr cleaning role.
She is in the JC regularly to explain why she doesn’t earn enough and prove she is looking for more hours, if she doesn’t soon she will be sanctioned, so as far as I can see it is already mandatory to look for work, or pay at least. She has consistently not gained much out of tax credits/UC due to being a carer as previously travel pay whilst on home care was taken into account as wages, now she gets paid 4x weekly which ruins one months UC a year and she gets no HB as she is in a terrible but mortgaged property (rent would be more expensive anyhow)
I find it sad that nearly a full time role doesn’t cover expenses any more - and this applies at quite a bit higher wage tbf - if you are a single parent family, and sad that care work is not respected enough to get more wages. These issues are down to greedy guts companies knowing they can underpay as stuff is topped up but mainly the government not addressing this - and they really have no call to chase folk in this position whilst letting off the fat cats tax evasion and/or fraud.
Those who want to spend their time fiddling the system/finding loopholes will always exist and sometimes I think good luck to them as it must be harder work than some jobs 🤦🏻‍♀️ - this won’t stop them though. The majority need support in health or education, or childcare, or simply getting back into employment and they won’t be getting that will they with everything closing. I’ve seen all kinds of awful sanctions in a previous role and mainly to those who aren’t literate or confident or well enough to argue it or find employment. But keep saying there’s too many naughty folk ruining the country’s economy and we won’t have to look at the bigger issues.