To be concerned about what Liz Kendall is up to with disability benefits?

[Locutus2000]

The Times reporting just how enthusiastic Labour are about targeting the disabled.

I can only hope they are getting the worst ideas out there first, if not I dread to think what is coming in the upcoming review.

I was confident Labour would at worst be no worse than the Tories.

I was wrong.

Free archive link here.

He gets it instead of a different mobility benefit

No, that is not how it works. He still gets the "mobility benefit" (which is the higher rate mobility component of PIP), but he agrees to pay it to Motability for the duration of the lease.

Also, the car is handed back at the end of the lease. Which begs the question - is it a free car if you never actually own it?

The DWP do home visits to sign claiments off ESA onto UC . This is Tory policy to get everyone off ESA and onto UC . They will have to attend the job centre weekly to look for work or go down the road for a work capability assessment.

I genuinely believe there are a good proportion of people who would want to help someone like you access every single bit of support you could to get what you can to survive.

Even online there are some really helpful groups helping people with application advice and scanning every possible way you could access something else, like PIP.

But everyone on ESA has to undergo a WCA already? Or do you mean a weekly WCA? That would be impossible and massively expensive!

ETA: a lot of people are on contribution only ESA and don't qualify for UC. How would that work?

Good advice. It really might be worth you applying for PIP @XenoBitch ? The worst that can happen is they turn you down.

I'm not really focusing on tax cliff edges but what to do to help people

Before talking about disability there's no way I'd go for hitting the private sector with NI which brings about redundancies and business closures.

Ok other stuff isn't helping such as nom dom or reducing rental supply - you can see the latter start to filter through in threads on here - people incredibly worried about rental increases but another policy outcome that does t help.

Ok back to businesses. Hitting NI means lower end, less secure go first. Who is that? It's someone who can only work 10 to 15 hours a week because they have other barriers. There's a pp on this thread made redundant saying they won't get another job. Don't put in policy that increases those losses. That's Labour atm

Increase tax take by being attractive, by incentivising, I think another poster has talked about this.

After this I'd be happy to talk about what you'd like, if you want flexible less onerous employment so more people can work then it's more possible if you don't do the above.

@EasternStandard this whole thread is about disability and benefits and you don't want to talk about that... OK then.

My whole post is about jobs and disability, how are you missing the connection still?

Can you really not get hitting businesses with NI will reduce funds available to pay for benefits and the first to go will be at the lower end?

Yes, but some people will find just engaging with the whole process so daunting, and stressful, that they find it more palatable to not bother, lest it affects their mental health in a negative way. It is such a shame that some people do not think of the Human costs, when they gleefully want benefits cuts for disabled people. The amount of funds not being rightfully claimed is never up for discussion though.

There seems to be an issue with joining the dots as pp said

By going for the private sector Labour will need to reduce spending on benefits. Plus people will lose jobs - which people are most likely to be made redundant?

I thought people were understanding that basic connection

@EasternStandard OK, suppose we reverse the government's NI proposal - and preferably also reverse the previous government's NI cuts - would you then support legislation to force business (using a carrot/stick approach) to offer flexibility/job sharing/supportive rather than punitive sick pay options/adaptations for disabled people? Or are you just going to let 'the market' handle it, in the way it hasn't for decades?

Would you support restructuring the NHS, which will include funding increases because of the demographically driven growth in demand, so that waiting lists come down and people can get well and back into work?

So are you saying businesses are employing people they don’t really need to because they have spare cash to do so, but if they have to pay higher NI, they will no longer be able to employ those extra people they don’t really need?

Yeah they aren’t getting it as a whole; either sheltered from it via welfare or state sector…problem is…it will now hit both of those.

Private sector recruitment is a car crash right now. Even in NEEDED jobs, companies are freezing hiring, making people redundant. IME it is the part time mums and carers who have been hit first. It’s now filtering through to the higher positions as there is mobility. Seeing a lot of people asking to transfer. There is a lot of scope to relocate those who can be moved in the industry out. It’s a total, bloody mess.

I'd like to see PIP abolished and replaced by a different benefit.

We’re all rich as Croesus apparently so there will be no effect on the public purse.

@MereDintofPandiculation I don't think that paraphrasing sums up the issue

You're better off looking at the latest press release from the CBI

Private sector firms expect activity to fall in the three months to March (weighted balance of -24%), according to the CBI’s latest Growth Indicator. Expectations are now at their weakest in over two years.
This pessimism was shared across all sub-sectors. Business volumes in the services sector are anticipated to decline (-18%), driven by predicted falls in both business and professional services (-13%) and consumer services (-37%). Distribution sales are expected to fall steeply (-35%), and manufacturers also anticipate output to fall (-31%), with expectations at their weakest since May 2020.
Businesses cite the budget and NI increases

Bringing it back to why this isn't good for people on this thread. Flexible, short hour jobs are gold dust and if you have one, and get made redundant chances are it'll be hard to get another.

That is not feasible at the moment as the roll out of replacing DLA with PIP hasn't finished yet.

@LadyKenya yep. Something like £870 million goes unclaimed each year.

Private school parents
Private school kids
The wealthy

Fair point but this is not a disabled-bashing thread.

It may have some posters who wish to do so, but definitely not the majority.

Thanks, I have meant to over the years. I no longer have a MH team, but when I did they said they would worry about how the whole process would affect me.
I am also not able to see my medical notes (again, for my own MH - a lot is redacted).
I simply can not put myself through it, and there are many others like me

Yeah this isn’t a bashing thread. It you who is trying to make it one by taking it off topic and trying to cause an argument.

I don't see regular threads bashing those, though. There may be one or two here or there but they aren't a MN perennial.

Oh. OK.

The OP didn't start a bashing thread, but there sure has been some bashing going on. And some derailing. But fair do's. I will bow out.

Something like an ni break for employing a disabled person would be a good incentive for employers