To be terrified about PIP?

[BobbyBiscuits]

I've tried to blank all this out for ages, but today it hit me when the government basically are saying I'm going to (they want me to) have my PIP cut off?
My main illnesses are severe depressive disorder, general anxiety disorder and severe anorexia. I've severe PTSD symptoms and also think I may have ADHD but have not been able to get diagnosed due to phobia of MH services since I got sectioned.
I now have physical symptoms also and severe osteperosis which I put on my last forms. But had no assessment for several years.
I'm praying this is BS from the Tories and they can't do it anyway as they'll be kicked out.
Or could labour still continue this assault against disabled people?
It would halve my already tiny income, other half is from ESA, and they could kick me off that too even though I can't do anything!?

What do people think?

That’s the running total - so, the amount not claimed so far. Per year it’s around £1.5 billion currently. PIL is £22 billion per year.

No but HMRC are

Debatable!!

Please have a proper, critical read about how the tax gap is estimated.

It's tricky because what the DWP defines as "work" in the 1 in 6 statistic is full time work.
Many more disabled people work part time, or self-employed, or sporadically. These are also people for whom PIP is a work support.
My PIP assessment report says I don't work because I work less than one day a week, and they don't have a way to record that.

We can't extend that to people who want to be able to swim at Bannatynes because its quieter or want pip funding for noise cancelling headphones. We need enough people working to fund all this stuff.

Yet more ableist and discriminatory shite posted without a single thought for the fact that if you said this about any other cohort of society or racial group, you’d be called a bigot. But because it’s the disabled it’s somehow fine to stereotype a section of society who are among the most vulnerable and genuinely in need of support. You should be ashamed of yourself.

I have read it. It’s impossible to say exactly but that’s the best estimate. And in any event it wouldn’t be enough to transform the country in the way everyone on here seems to believe (although they quickly vanish when numbers are brought up)

I wouldn’t say “only 17%”. PIP has helped over a million disabled be able to stay in work by covering the extra costs. Get rid of PIP, and the unemployment rate is going to go up by at least a million disabled people.

Rubbish.

They were quoted by me on the last thread.

I don’t know which one you’re talking about can you quickly requote please as I’m very interested to see.

No that's the tax figures.

This thread is utterly depressing. I'm entitled to a mobility car too but I don't have one. I'm afraid of being judged by other people as being not disabled enough. I do have a blue badge and freedom pass as a result of being on enhanced mobility. These repeated attacks on the disabled by the government are despicable and it frightens me that there are people out there who are actually stupid enough to fall for the propaganda that we are all lazy scroungers. Every review I don't sleep for weeks and my anxiety goes through the roof. It feels like a black cloud hanging over me because someone else has the power to take all I have away from me and I don't relax until I get the outcome, then you just count down the months to the next one.

Let me cut and paste for you:

HMRC estimates around £400 million in tax was lost in 2020/21 because of avoidance schemes, and a further £800 million was lost in other forms of avoidance behaviour, i.e underreporting income and writing off personal expenses. Altogether, that’s a whopping £1.2 billion lost to tax evasion. Whew!

Doesn’t drive, or can’t drive? Also it depends where you are which is cheaper.

DWP mainly use full time work in these figures. Many more disabled people have part time jobs, or work hours under the threshold for reporting.

From 2021 BBC news report:

The amount of tax lost to fraud compared with last years’ annual figures, based on HMRC’s own figures, was at least £15.2bn, but billions of pounds more were likely to have been shifted away from the UK to tax havens by multinational companies.

Do you know how much is the total government income and how much % is 22 billion? Yes, when you think 22 billion, it seems a lot of money, but if the government income is more than a trillion, then 22 billion is a very small %. Why the government is worried about the money spent on disabled people, when there's others areas they can cut from?

For example, all the expensive cars, food, phones, laptops etc they use as "work expense ". What they spend in a few hours it's a monthly payment for a disabled person.

Also, it's only 6% of the working population who receive PIP, and less of them receive PIP and are out of work. Most of them still work and pay taxes.

We talk about people who are physically or mentally disabled. Do you even understand how lucky you are that you don’t need to experience it daily? That you can work and live your life, but a disabled person can't do it?

For you, having a shower and wiping your ass is an easy task, for a disabled person is a hard task! For you wanting to live is normal, a person with mental health issues constantly thinks of suicide or reliving their worst days because of PTSD! For you it's normal to walk or clean your house with no pain. For a disabled person, it may be constant physical pain while walking and inability to clean a house, or inability to walk at all! Can you imagine how lucky you are that you don’t need to experience it?

Nobody expects you to start training 8hr a day in order to become an Olympic champion, right? Because it will be impossible for you and majority of people, because you can't do it, no matter how much you want! When you expect a disabled person to do the same tasks as you do, it's the same as someone will expect you to start training and become an Olympic champion!

Why do you bully and are so angry that disabled people receive a little bit of money for their needs? What's wrong with your life values?

Google is your friend. It may even be a high as £120 billion.

https://www.taxjustice.uk/blog/new-figures-show-missing-billions-that-make-up-uks-tax-gap

How would people know it is a mobility car though, unless they are told that it is?

Some of the vile views on this thread are exactly what the government wants to encourage. It makes it easier to cut benefits without too much opposition. You can take some comfort from the fact that most of the posters here with these opinions are also displaying comprehensive ignorance as to why these benefits are paid or how they are assessed for.

You shouldn’t allow this type of opinion to deter you from obtaining a motability car if you’re entitled to one via your level of PIP mobility award. Your health condition is between you, your healthcare professionals and your benefit assessor. Nobody elses’ business whether you look disabled enough or not. Unless someone lives with you 24 hours a day and are an expert in your condition and its’ effects they are not qualified to judge.

"Somebody said their daughter struggles with public transport, so needs a taxi. That is a case of somebody preferring a taxi, but not needing a taxi - i.e. they can take public transport, but it isn't their preferred option."

I might say my teenage son struggles with public transport. What that means is if he gets distressed by noise, too many people and the unpredictability around him that can result in him hitting and biting himself and needing 3 adults to manage his physical behaviour.

Have been on DLA/PIP throughout adulthood.

In the beginning I was met with care and compassion, treated like a human being and any mental and physical health issues I had were dealt with in a timely fashion which kept me on lower rates.

I am now in the position of needing major surgery, but the waiting list isn’t moving (they only have capacity for people at risk of death currently), and I have also been on waiting lists for three other specialisms for nearly four years.

Regards mental health, I had NHS care until about ten years ago, at which point the service was drastically cut. There is no service now for some of my issues.

As a result of all of the above, I now get more PIP than previous because my physical and mental health has deteriorated.

The failing health care system is the root cause of all of this.

OP I have also felt anxiety about these frankly disgraceful announcements, I too think the conservatives will be out and that changes will be watered down.

I am being supported by my family with the stress of it. All I can do is try and get some treatment privately (not all is possible privately), to try and help me improve and to try and figure out a plan to cope if they continue to attack disabled people.

All it looks like to me is that they will fail to address the nhs, they will attack disabled people and then they will reduce taxes for the already privileged.

Do you think Tax Justice are an impartial source?

Yes, go for a mobility car if you can and don't tell anyone about it. Don’t tell anyone where your money comes from, it's only your own business.

This thread opened my eyes some people are so low that they are jealous of disabled people!

They wouldn’t. There are no identifying factors at all. But people tend to think those displaying the blue badge are all ‘free cars’. And unfortunately people tend to see disabled people getting in and out of cars and assume that they are all provided by motability. And as we all know, to some, it’s not the actual level of disability that person has, but whether they look ‘disabled enough’ and are therefore deserving enough.

Some think ‘free cars’ shouldn’t be provided at all, regardless of the level of disability. These people tend to be mistaken in thinking that motability cars come free in addition to the PIP payment, and are an extra cost for the tax payer. Neither is true. The claimant pays their mobility allowance to motability in return for the lease of the car. Motability is a charity and obtains the cars through negotiations with manufacturers, and at the end of the lease, the car is handed back for resale. It is never the property of the claimant - they are only ever the registered keeper. It’s also interesting to note that a study was undertaken at the end of the pandemic which concluded that if the motability scheme were to be withdrawn, it would have a significant impact on the UK car industry.

If the judgement has got to the stage where disabled people are frightened to do anything to make their lives easier for fear of the opinions of others, then we really all need to take a long hard look at ourselves.

The projection pretends that there was no legacy benefit that replaced PIP by putting in £0 as the starting point in 2013/14. It should show DLA plus PIP costs for each year to show the true trend. DLA was at £13bn before the PIP transition started. The swift rise upwards is more due to people transitioning from DLA to PIP than it is new disabled claiming. The figures cited by Sunak in his speeches tend to cherry pick numbers of applicants approved during the furloughs of the pandemic when DWP accrued a massive backlog…and then compare it to recent approvals that are literally higher than usual because DWP is trying to clear the backlog from the pandemic.

So the projection graph (I have reposted for ease with a line representing DLA costs that are being replaced by PIP) is deceptive for past and current years.

The future projection is in £ and most of the increase is due to several things
a) Ongoing high inflation- The £ is worth less and buys less because the Tories have trashed the economy, causing high inflation.
b) Increased number of disabled as the population both grows and ages. It stands to reason that a country of 67 million will have more disabled people in need of support than a country of 64 million. The population is projected to keep growing.
c) increased number of people disabled due to lack of NHS healthcare. You can’t gut a universal healthcare system without creating more disabled people

Caveat. It’s not the disability they are jealous of. Only the payments made in mitigation of the extra cost it brings. If a bit more critical thinking were applied they’d realise that there is little financial advantage to the disabled person because the payments are swallowed up in extra costs.