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

I also lived in Nordic countries - far much better system than the UK. Not a single day did a struggle to see a doctor, midwife, or a specialist in hospital for myself or children.
Private school fees were free, list is endless.

It's a better society IMO - I can't speak for your experience. Yes there will be negatives in every society. The UK has a LOT to learn from others.

My point was about someone who ended up disabled like I did though

Ive cleaned and worked retail. Now I cant. It's not as simple as saying someone could get work if they have a disabling illness. Some can, some cant. Its not a simplisitic picture that the generic flippant "sitting at home on benefits" comments portray

@ALovelyCupOfNameChange but when is enough? I’ve been depressed and anxious and been able to work through it - therapy and pills aren’t a magic bullet and is the stage expected to support indefinitely? Life is hard and tiresome
a lot of the time.

They aren't as densely populated or as culturally diverse as the UK though so it's apples and oranges.

Rishi didn't say physically disabled people who are not capable of work will be forced to work. I know people like you will still be financially supported - and surely nobody in their right minds thinks otherwise.

We should all be celebrating people being sent to work to raise more taxes. It's not a bad thing. If I am working with chronic illnesses so can others who say they won't work if it means working with foreigners or whatever other excuse they come up with.

Yip but the main differences are higher taxes and a society based around society not individualism

Regarding people who work part time, a lot of jobs now only give people part time contracts. In particular retail.

That's true they aren't densely populated. Therefore in theory we should have more people here who can work to pour more £ into the government for services like healthcare etc. But we don't - a large number choose benefits over working because they make a few hundred pounds on benefits more than going to work.

There’s already evidence of a change to getting people into work that have mental health issues, there’s employment advisor job roles in the NHS that support people into work that have mental health difficulties.

also this getting more people with disabilities into work idea, will most likely end up with tax payers paying to subside this from grants like access to work

I am sure nobody is being shipped to work if there is proof they cannot work

I don't get how you can actually be sure of this given all the scandals there have been about dying people being told they are fit to work or the people killing themselves because they have had their benefits removed when they are completely incapable of work. How about these 82 people for starters?

https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2021/may/82-benefit-claimants-have-died-after-some-alleged-dwp-activity-such-termination

You mean in the Nordics?
If you check their tax calculators from the gvt websites they don't necessarily pay significantly more than we do. After their tax rebates/ relief they pay less and gain more.

Good healthcare
Access to private healthcare
Free schools including private schools for ever child
Free University
£5-10K towards anyone you hire to work in your home - nanny, plumber etc.
And more.

You've changed the discussion. You mentioned in Scandinavia people can access healthcare easier than here. It's because they have less people.

Having more people paying into a system isn't going to staff the system. We can have every single person over the age of 18 working but unless our health and social care systems are fully staffed we will never match the ease of access you claim the Nordics have.

I haven’t read the full thread, but agree with some aspects of the plan.

But the part about ‘support’ for people with MH problems made me feel uneasy. Will that be provided by trained professionals?

I signed up to volunteer for a large charity who were looking for mentors to support people to get back into work. They had a big DWP contract. It was all portrayed as quite achievable, perhaps mums who had been out of the workplace. I had relevant qualifications and experience that would have been appropriate to that kind of support.

The reality was that they lined me up to work with a male ex-prisoner who had severe MH problems and had made prior suicide attempts. I met him briefly and, from the way he looked at me, would not have been comfortable being alone in a room with him.

I withdrew from the arrangement and explained that I felt he needed professional support rather than a volunteer. They didn’t disagree, unsurprisingly.

How do you know that when it's never been the case in the UK?

It's not only because they have less people it's well funded and better managed. Most People pay at the point of access - £5 / 8 or something. You don't get hundred of people a week not turning up for appointments. I know a practise here were over 300 people don't show up but the NHS still has to pay for each appointment. Imagine those people paid £5 for their appointments . . . . There is so much waste in the UK.

There is nothing wrong with asking capable people to go to work.
Some people with moan about anything.

This obsession with work is madness in the 21st century. Work is not inherently good, nor is it inherently valuable. I enjoy my job and I’m very well paid, but I don’t want to work. I want to spend time with my DP and DC, maybe study and travel. I do all of that a lot less because I have to work to live, and my taxes pay for benefits that barely allow people to survive, let alone live their lives. No one wins, and it’s stupid.

Most modern jobs are completely pointless in the grand scheme of things. With automation and technology we should be moving to a 4 day week, then 3 in my lifetime (appreciate not so easy for actually important jobs like doctors and nurses, but I’m sure there’ll be a way).

We have to abolish this idea of work, which seems to be to keep people busy for the sake of keeping them busy rather than actually doing or producing anything of value. It’s used by politicians all the time, despite their ‘work’ being largely professional bullshittery of the highest order.

Fuck work.

That is one thing that should definitely change, rather than large retailers offering PT contracts being subsidised by UC. If a shop is open 6 days per week, why shouldn’t it offer a mix of FT and PT contracts?

Because the problem with our health and social care systems is we simply do not have enough staff to run them. If they were fully staffed the waiting times would go down but as I said earlier there is a global shortage of health and social care staff, no one wants to do it anywhere!

Where is the waste? Where do you see the waste in the UK? Missed appointments, yes, but how do you avoid that? Where else is the waste? How do you fix it other than recruit more staff, staff that aren't there.

Because you’ve perhaps not been as severe as someone else or work hasn’t been the thing that’s made you anxious (E.g teaching, policing, nursing). it’s a little bit like saying “I’ve got a bad back but still work”. theres a whole spectrum of backache and jobs.
or some people not being able to work on their period
or with headaches and migraines.

So no one works. Then what?

Thank you! Now imagine even appropriately trained people have to encounter people like you described - it's a very difficult job which requires funding and paying appropriately qualified people to do.

There is nothing this country does to encourage doctors and nurses to stay and not relocate for better working conditions and pay. Who wants to be paid a pittance to do a job like that? What's even more worrying is that volunteers are being asked to do this.

I support getting people into work if they are capable. People with sever chronic illness or disability - that's different as they would require more support and some may never be able to work. These are some of the people we should support financially.

People don't want to work with people whose health significantly affects their capability to work. I have a physical health condition but my main blocker to work is mental health and my autism. I have panic attacks frequently in the work environment. I have to call in sick frequently because I am so anxious about going to work I'm sat at home sobbing. I have to leave my post because I am too anxious sometimes I've had to literally abandon my post to hide in the toilet as I'm having a panic attack. I start crying at any perceived criticism so it's impossible for bosses to feed anything back to me without me then having to go home then have to have a few days off because I am so ashamed and anxious about having to go back to that environment. I have tried so many different sectors. I can't WFH because im so anxious about video calls I can't even log on to them So can't be part of a remote team. This happens every time I ever try to get a job. Why would my work colleagues have to put him with this level of unpredictability and unreliability?

I despair sometimes of what the UK has become...

Do some of the people here really think that 'fruit picking' is going to give anyone a decent standard of living?

It is seasonal, insecure work and no one is going to pay their rent or mortgage with that.

Let's get these Tories out so we can start the long road towards returning this country to decent standards of living for the majority, not just the rich.

Starting with getting all these corporations, Tory donors and assorted mates to pay their fair due of taxes and repay the money they stole from the public purse during Covid.

Funny how carers and disabled people are persecuted while the above wealthy leeches who actually misuse taxpayer money on a daily basis under Johnson and Sunak are never bothered...

I am sick and tired of the serf mentality in this country and the sociopathic belief that the problem with is the poor and the disabled. It is despicable.

Yes I agree

The men need to pay for their dc

Unless the state support and facilitate suicide. Then yes you do have to support the vulnerable.

you could argue that better funded services earlier would prevent so many people ending up in that state

I do think the very part time needs revision.

I know a lot of people effectively benefits trapped. Women who have separated from their kid's dad (most receiving reasonable child maintenance).

Because maintenance isn't included in the UC calculation, it is more cost effective for them to work 16 hours on low pay. But quite a lot of these women are well educated and could do more but I get it, why make life stressful to come out with the same.

The trouble is it's storing up problems. The minute maintenance and UC stop for the kids, they can't afford life. By that time they'll be mid 50s and have been out of higher level employment for two decades.

The chances of them moving back up the career ladder are limited and they have next to no pension.

It's a good deal now but a poverty trap long term.