To ask you all the take a minute to look at the proposed Green Paper on work & welfare, particularly the cuts to PIP.

[MarvellousMonsters]

The Government has published a green paper which amongst other things proposes to change the PIP eligibility, which will ‘save £5b’ by removing financial
support from those who don’t score 4 points in a single criteria in the daily living component of PIP.

green paper in full

It’s estimated that it can cost up to £1000 a month in extra living expenses as a disabled person, and the daily living allowance of PIP is designed to help towards these costs. The lowest rate is £72.65 a week, (£290.60 a month) and this is a literal life line to those who have a limited capability for work, are ‘not disabled enough’ to qualify for full support, but do need help. It allows people to pay for things like cleaners and domestic help, to buy ready prepped veg etc to allow them to eat proper healthy food, to heat their home if they have poor body temp control, and so on. The proposed changes will push these people into acute poverty, and also reduce their quality of life, not just financially, but because being in receipt of PIP makes people eligible for other types of practical support.

You may feel this isn’t something that affects you, but disability can happen to anyone, as those previous fit healthy people who are now incapacitated by Long Covid can confirm. You could be in a car accident, or become sick, it could literally happen to anyone, so this truly does concern everyone, even if you are currently able-bodied and well.

Please, if you do nothing else, please fill in the consultation form and lobby the DWP not to introduce the ‘4 point rule’. If you only do that you’ll help thousands of people who are currently at risk of losing vital support.

consultation form

TLDR: please tell Liz Kendall not to remove vital welfare support from disabled people.

Ordinary tax payers like you could become disabled and unable to work overnight. I did. I was a teacher before this.

I read your post the wrong way. I agree with your post, now I understand what you meant.

This. Disabled people are being affected by rising costs, the same as other members of the public! There are a myriad of ways that money could be saved during the PIP process. It would just seem to me, that the Government is not in a hurry to give up their sacrificial lamb!

The problem they want to be targeting is the enormous number of people with MH conditions claiming.

But the 4 point proposal will adversely effect people with physical health conditions.

This i worked full time for years paying tax before having to claim pip. Nobody thinks it will ever happen to them.

Exactly. People with very severe and serious physical medical conditions won't necessarily score 4 in one descriptor. What happens then? Starve? Left to die? Beg council for help? Dignitas?

These proposals are already causing chaos. We’ve got staff who are just about making ends meet with their wages plus PIP support due to Autism/ADHD and it’s got them in such a spin that they’re signed off with stress and anxiety and is already affecting their health & wellbeing.

It’s already not easy to claim these things so they should be left as they are and if individual cases are suspected as being fraudulent, then look into them. These blanket rules just don’t work anymore.

People on here love to kick down at the disabled and tend to forget that they are only an accident or illness away from becoming disabled, or a carer (and then have to provide 70-80 etc hours of care for the grand total of £83 per week).

I wasn't a carer until dd was 17 so no one knows what's round the corner.

I see Labour have considered back tracking winter fuel. Let hope they do the same with pip

So it’s ok for someone on £100k to pay tax to fund the system but not benefit from their contribution?

What next, charging them additional fees for state school and the NHS?

They already don’t get child benefit or additional childcare hours.

The fundamental principle of social democracy is universality.

That’s why Scandinavian countries get away with such high taxes - EVERYONE gets to benefit.

They need to be fixing the NHS, and trying to ensure that help for people suffering from poor mental health, are seen in a timely manner, and are having the right resources available to them. The modern way of living is wreaking havoc among the young people especially. They need help, targeted help.

There is often help available to those people, but they have already decided that it won't help them or work for them or have unrealistic ideas about a bespoke service that they think they will need.

That's the reason why the Tories proposed PIP reforms involving direct payments for therapy was universally shat on. The PIP/DWP forums were full of people saying they'd been offered CBT for instance, but it wouldn't work for them. Or they'd been offered 12 sessions and knew that wouldn't be enough.

And the reasons they are being awarded PIP are often not really reflected in their day to day lives and functioning or what the PIP money is being spent on.

PIP claimants saying they were spending PIP and therefore needed it, on Deliveroo orders, their dogs, general bills, or so they could work part-time.

And a large amount of young people saying various narratives about how their depression and anxiety was caused by having to work in low-paid, crappy jobs with no future so how is the government plans to get them back into work going to help? because they find low-paid, dead-end jobs depressing. But PIP affords them the ability to not work so it's a vicious cycle.

The attitude to work has shifted significantly over the years to something you have to do because that's how you pay to live, to something you don't really have to do if it stresses you out because there is a welfare safety-net.

PIP is a gateway benefit to other benefits, including housing. It is in many peoples best interests to claim PIP.

That's why the system needs an overhaul.

In addition to the fact it is not means-tested so you can be a millionaire and claim it. And that may be a small number but i've seen 3 threads on MN in the last few months with parents claiming PIP for over 16s and the families don;t need the money so are asking whether they give it all to the teen to spend as they like, give them half or save it all. With many Mnetters saying 'put it in the bank, that will help them towards a house deposit' when that is not what PIP is supposed to be for but we have this culture of 'entitlement' now with benefits.

Oh I agree with you that the system needs an overhaul@AzureOtter. It really is not fit for purpose, in its present form. Putting aside for a moment why people claim, and are awarded PIP, what they choose to do with the money they receive is pretty much down to the circumstances , or priorities that people are basing their choices on. These may include, as you say, Deliveroo orders, their dogs, general bills.

The takeaway being delivered, due to being bedbound, or exhausted, and unable to cook, due to disability etc. The dog, that is a life line, due to poor mental health, and a reason to get up each day, etc. Day to day living that is getting more expensive, especially so for disabled people, so PIP money being slowly absorbed into heating bills, electricity, etc, which they may use more of, having to charge wheelchairs, have ventilators, etc.

Anyway I do reject the idea that there are hoards of young people not willing to work, due to depression and anxiety, and seeing benefits, as a way of life, wholesale.

Because someone on £100k shouldn't need it. It's like saying UC for everyone, or free school meals, or help with their rent, access to food banks for all. That's not how a system that's there to help people financially should be run.

Then you're means testing the blue badge, etc for some people

Exactly.

And I don't when the shift happened, when I was young in the 80s, being on benefits was a bit shameful.

And I don't think for a second it should be, but a shift happened when it became about 'entitlement' and not need.

There are pop-ads on online newspapers saying "do you have any of these physical or mental health/ND conditions? then you could be entitled to £££ from the government" with links to PIP applications.

And organisations that will do your application for you, for a fee. And numerous free websites that tell you what to say to increase your chance of a successful claim, how to score the individual points.

And as most claimants have a paper-assessment so are never seen, and the largest number of successful claims is for MH/ND claims where there are no actual ways to confirm the diagnosis medically, it's just based on self-reporting, we've ended up in the situation where the most claimed for conditions are not physical ones, which is what the benefit was designed for.

It was designed for physical disablities where there were obvious extra costs from having a disability like not being able to wash, dress, move around, need carers, extra electricity and heating for medical reasons like washing clothes.

But it seems to have become some kind of compensation scheme for having a disability under the equality act, regardless of if you actually need the extra money and can be spent on whatever you like and anyone who questions that is some kind of right-wing benefit basher.

It’s not though. PIP is NOT an out of work benefit. What you’re saying is there’s an arbitrary total salary number that YOU think is enough to exclude someone from the services they fund and need.

As someone who relies on Access to Work to keep me in my £100K job, losing it will have a significant impact on my ability to keep earning enough to be a net contributor to the system.

Why would you need extra when you already earn a good salary and can pay your own expenses,

Blue badges and more are tied into PIP eligibility (I don't know if Access to Work is explicitly tied in but I think it's easier to get AtW if you get PIP).

That's why making it means tested wouldn't work - there are schemes that aren't about personal money that help people get and retain jobs, tied into the PIP eligibility.

These systems need to be untangled before means testing or any kind of PIP reform comes into play.

PIP is a gateway benefit to other benefits, including housing.

The only thing PiP sometimes gets you is a blue badge. Nothing to do with housing, you are thinking of ESA/UC.

And as most claimants have a paper-assessment so are never seen, and the largest number of successful claims is for MH/ND claims where there are no actual ways to confirm the diagnosis medically, it's just based on self-reporting, we've ended up in the situation where the most claimed for conditions are not physical ones, which is what the benefit was designed for.

The vast majority of PiP claimants are very much 'seen' and substantial medical back up is required. It's like the Telegraph comment section here.

The people claiming how easy it is to get PIP, are the same people who have not yet had to experience the process, first hand, no doubt.

I've no idea. It seems to be about as predictable as picking lottery numbers.

There are so many variables: different assessors, different decision makers at DWP, some applicants may be better at describing how their health conditions affect their ability to do stuff, it's impossible to say why two very similar applications get different outcomes.

I don’t earn enough post tax after bills to be able to afford the £1,500 a month fee my support worker charges. Yet she’s fundamental to helping me do my job despite my disability.

I also couldn’t afford to pay for private health care out of pocket which is why I’m thankful for the NHS.

Should state schools be means tested? There are a lot of folks earning more than £100k that send their kids to state school when they can afford private.

Even worse if they’ve used their high salaries to buy a house in the Outstanding catchment depriving a family with less money of the place, don’t you think?

The other important thing to remember is all of the money used for PIP, Access to Work, and other benefits gets redistributed back into the economy. This is all one giant Ponzi scheme.

The government tax us to redistribute the money in the form of benefits which is then taxed again (VAT and in the case of my support worker, their income tax and NI), and the cycle repeats.