Benefit cuts proposal

[Charliechoosecarefully]

I just wanted it to have a specific thread:-

Kendall says government to consult on merging JSA and ESA benefits.

Kendall says WCA being scrapped, with Pip assessment process being used instead - will be scrapped in 2028.

Kendall says 'right to try' will let people on sickness benefits try work without immediately having benefits cut.

Kendall says UC payments being rebalanced, with standard rate going up, and some health top-ups frozen or cut.

Kendall says reassessments for people on universal credit with health top-ups to be beefed up

Kendall says universal credit claimants with most severe disabilities will not face reassessment

Kendall confirms Pip eligibility rules to be tightened, and assessment process to be reviewed - 4 pointed needed in one descriptor.

Kendall says under-22s could be prevented from claiming health top-up for universal credit

Sourced from the guardian.

It wouldn't really help my son either. It would just make getting things that he needs far more complicated.

The vast majority of people know their disability or their child's disability well and can be trusted to spend the money wisely.

kinkytoes · Today 14:21

I'll get flamed for this but I really wish they'd cut back on benefits for illegal immigrants than for disabled people

Oh FFS. “Illegal immigrants” do not get benefits! How many times does that have to be said before people understand?

(BTW, they’re not illegal immigramts. They are asylum seekers. They (human beings) are only illegal if their case has been heard and found unworthy of asylum. Most are granted).

when people go for review and get turned down wont it effect Council tax support and rent amounts??

Actually, welfare spending as a percentage of GDP is broadly the same as it was in 1990. There have been fluctuations in between (Covid, a couple of recessions) but the baseline data has barely moved. Of this spending, well over 50% goes on state pensions, which I don't believe should be classed as welfare spending at all. What has changed, rather than the cost to the tax payer, is the rhetoric about disability and illness. This was started by the Cameron government who divided the populace into "hard-working people/families" and the rest. I'm a bit of an anomaly here. I am severely disabled, dependant on mobility aids and a personal care assistant, but I'm a qualified epidemiologist and I work full-time, as do around 18% of PIP recipients. We are where the government's claim to any kind of altruism fall apart. They aren't helping us into work, because we're already employed. They may well be helping us out of work if we can no longer afford to pay assistants, run mobility scooters etc. The people cheering these cuts on really need to decide what they want - the destruction of a system that supports working disabled people in favour of the pleasure they will get seeing them struggle on a pittance? Is that what you want? In that case, sort your own killer viruses out and good luck getting through the medical degree.

Do the hotels they stay at do it for free? There’s me thinking it cost the taxpayer around £3 billion alone just in 23/24.

When people make the means testing argument for disability benefits, I’m always reminded of David ‘Austerity’ Cameron having no qualms about claiming DLA for his son Ivan despite being very well off.

But in what direction is the spending on the benefits concerned heading and how fast? Rapidly, unaffordably northwards.

Your language regarding taking pleasure in seeing people struggle on a pittance is ridiculous btw. Pretend that's how others feel if you like but mainly its people being realistic. The spending and number of new claimants is crazy.

Congratulations on your medical degree 🙄

Illegals immigrants cannot get benefits. The clue is in the word illegal!

Exactly. Some people here legally that work and pay tax don’t have resource to public funds let alone “illegal” immigrants !

👏👏👏👏👏

Yes it will

If PIP is removed then so will anything you get for housing and council tax dependent on that

Many of whom are ‘economic’ asylum seekers.

Agreed?

Fibromyalgia is the new M.E

@doodahdayy "Fibromyalgia is the new M.E"

I know a couple who work at catching benefit scroungers. They covertly film them engaged in hobbies such as golf when they are on permanent sick leave with a bad back, for example.
They don't work in their local area but in a city where they aren't known.

I asked them if they catch many people out. Their answer was "we catch all of those we are assigned to investigate"

They reckon they have saved the taxpayer £millions over the years. 😄.

You're missing the point. The cost of almost everything heads inexorably northwards, with very few exemptions. Affordability depends on the percentage of GDP that it costs, not the pounds and pence figure. And I not convinced that my belief that some people take pleasure in kicking the most vulnerable is ridiculous, and I'm not sure you are either, given your very rude eye roll. My father used to say "You can't have much confidence in your argument if you have to resort to insults."

I have both. And a condition which has destroyed the right side of my body.
All came on after meningitis.
I was in a great career, good health, owned my own home. Non-smoker, no drugs.
I have worked during some periods since I became ill.
I have worked from home and by that I mean sitting up in bed.
My condition has deteriorated despite all my best efforts to preserve the health I have.
I am an economist by trade so I get the concerns over spending.
I don’t drink, I do my very best to take care of myself.
Have worked in a few roles, set up my own business last year (copy and website writing) which I used to do well in but due to AI there’s just no work. Why pay me when you can get Chat GPT?
I am mid 50’s now. Got my first Saturday job at 14. Had three jobs to get me through Uni. Once I graduated I worked as a tutor outside of my own job to help with my mortgage.
I haven’t slept a wink and I am sick with worry.
I don’t spend my PIP on crap. I use it for care. It’s not free for people like me.
Have never felt so low. Please try to understand there are people who become ill through no fault of their own and try every avenue to get better.

Well if they came to investigate me they’d have to film me in bed.
Or never leaving the house unless my other half takes me to the doctors or to hospital.
Or him having to carry me to the toilet or wash my hair.
While the 😂 sign might be entertaining for you and yes, there are people who say there are ill when they are not, it means people like me are now terrified.

2.8 million is a STAGGERING number. Unbelievable.

The disability benefit needs to be for the most severely disabled only - end of. Everyone else will need to make adjustments and work.

It is totally shocking to me that anyone can possibly come on here and argue that nearly 3 million on sickness benefit alone is sustainable- it absolutely isn’t,

They really are just red Torys. Never brave enough or want enough to tax the crippling inequality. So it will just get worse.

Like having 5 jobs and working 30 hours a day? 60% of people on benefits work for their poverty.

Feel free to leave for a communist country or a country that offers you more benefits without questions - good luck with that my friend.

🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼

This is nonsense - the smallest childminder manages to accept vouchers.

I'm going to be one who loses out. I have severe OCD and autism.

I've tried an failed in the workplace having struggled in a full-time job but needed 12 months off sick on two occasions, a phased return and then reduced hours before I was fired (I refused to leave and accept that I couldn't work). I have tried all the available medications for my OCD but they do not work for me. I could benefit from CBT but I cannot access this anymore on the NHS - I've used up my allowance. No support workers, no counselling - nothing. Can't even make a GP appointment nearer than 7 weeks away. Claiming disability benefits and not having to look for work is my only support. I was awarded 10 out of 12 point in both categories of PIP but never 4 points in one category so I likely won't be eligible for any health related benefits in the future. So no treatment, no support, no job, no money.

This thread has thoroughly depressed me. Setting aside the question of what constitutes a disability and whether or not the current system needs reform, can’t people see that that what is happening here is the well, the able to cope, the ‘fortunate’ are being encouraged to see the disabled, the unable to cope, the less fortunate as the problem, rather than as human beings who need help, in the same way that we’ve been encouraged to see all people desperate enough to make their way across the channel crammed into an inflatable as ‘illegals’ bankrupting the country. We’re on a slippery slope towards a society fuelled by hatred and distrust, where eugenics becomes acceptable (I’ve already seen posts on other threads advocating for the prenatal screening for autism because of how much ‘these people cost us’). Wake up people: you are not struggling for money because of the disabled or refugees, your kids’ schools aren’t short of cutlery because your LA is spending all their money on taxis to specialist placements or the school’s budget is being spent entirely on SEND. You’re short of money for all sorts of complex reasons, including a very broken housing market. Your kids school is short of money because real terms funding to schools was slashed under the last government. If government was serious about getting people off disability benefits and into work, it would be investing more in health; it would be working with employers and on employment law - and with the legal sector on improving legal aid provision/availability, because, let’s face it, employment law is meaningless unless individuals have recourse to justice to enforce their rights; it would be working with youth organisations to devise schemes to support the huge numbers of young people currently unable to make that transition from education into the workplace to do so. This would all, of course, cost way more than keeping them on benefits. Far easier just to change the rules in a way that conveys the subliminal message that ‘these people’ aren’t really in need.