Most of the stuff adversely affecting disabled people gets buried in the press and the media. You only have to look at the hype around the cuts to PIP recently announced. The government is publicly patting itself on the back over one random, mean spirited change that will mean up to a million significantly disabled people losing their support altogether - demonstrates very nicely that it’s not about support, but all about the money.
If the cut goes ahead, those people who have PIP daily living awards at either standard or enhanced rate via a score of two or three points in each descriptor will lose the daily living component altogether - a minimum of four points in at least one descriptor is now the minimum qualification.
The government are priding themselves on the saving for the tax payer from the cut. And yet nowhere have l seen an explanation of the full implications of it.
Currently both the standard and enhanced rates of PIP daily living mean that carers allowance for the PIP claimant can be claimed by a friend or family member, providing they satisfy eligibility conditions regarding hours and income thresholds. Those who lose PIP daily living will also lose carers entitlement. This will mean a significant number of disabled people also losing or having to reduce their unpaid carer support because carers will no longer receive the allowance and will either have to increase working hours or return to work.
The knock on effect will be many more disabled people falling back on the already broken care system for support. Supporting a disabled person with care at home - and in many cases in 24 hour care - will cost significantly more than the PIP and carers allowance clawed back through this cut. So in actual fact the tax payer burden is increased, not reduced. The government haven’t saved a penny - all they’ve done is shift significantly increased costs to another part of the budget, so that they can claim to be doing something abut benefits.
For those posting here, this will have a significant impact on children who receive child DLA. At 16 they will be migrated to PIP, which is a much more difficult benefit to secure. I’m urging everyone l know who currently claims PIP or child DLA to lobby their MP to make them aware of the long term implications of the cut and to ask them how they intend to vote when the time comes.
I suggest everyone here who has a disabled child does the same before it’s too late. Many disabled people and their carers, as well as parents of disabled children, will have voted Labour in rthe hope of halting the vicious cuts proposed by the Tories, only to be turned on by the same Labour government who, in opposition, were so fiercely critical of Tory proposals for cuts. It’s about time we remind our MP’s that they work for us, not the other way around.