Benefits v Defence Lord Robertson

[Wednesdayschild87]

Lord Robertson’s Speech… seriously does anyone care?? He’s laid out the fact that as a nation we can’t carry on like this… he said we can’t afford to keep throwing money at benefits whilst leaving our country defences I’m actually shocked no one has come out and spoken on this matter before. I’m incredulous.

Very similar with my son. He had an in hospital cardiac arrest 2 years ago followed by emergency surgery which he was given a 50/50 chance of survival and then more surgeries followed with smaller chances of survival but he beat the odds every single time.

I definitely agree with the crisis part. Before he rapidly deteriorated, I thought his care was a bit mediocre if I'm honest but everything changed with the cardiac arrest and his care was excellent.

But PIP seriously needs looking at. An LBC caller was saying that she uses her PIP to pay for a cleaner and a Gardner which enables her to work as she wouldn’t be able to manage both - that is surely not right - plenty of people struggle with both!

It doesn’t incentivise working less, they’d have more money if they worked more hours.

It does allow people to choose to work less by not removing their safety net, agree. I’m not really sure how you’d address that other than policing each persons account more closely an if there was a drop in hours for a non approved reason, then they could be sanctioned.

But ultimately, if your goal is to have more money in your pocket at the end of the month. You need to work more.

All legacy benefits have come to an end now. There’s no one that would still be affected by a 16 hour cap.

it wouldn’t affect free prescriptions either, which you’re likely to lose at around 18/19 hours a week at NMW. But the gain of more money would outweigh the benefits of free prescriptions, if you bought a PPC.

i honestly think it’s misinformation, these threads are always swarmed with people insisting they know people deliberately keeping their hours low or saying that benefits don’t incentivise work over 16 hours, so if that’s representative of the population, there may well be a good portion of the UK unaware it’s no longer relevant.

the thing I do find ‘suspicious’ about these claims is that 16 hours (at NMW) wouldn’t be enough to lift the benefit cap, nor would it be enough to stop work focused meeting with the job centre. So those people would very quickly (and regularly) be told that they needed to increase their hours in order to have more money.

Was it to do with the 15 hours free childcare. Here in Scotland a friend with a cafe had all the waiting staff choosing to do 16 hours

But other people aren't disabled

Well i understand (and agree with) the idea that PIP can be spent where needed. And a cleaner is perfectly reasonable in my opinion. But id im honest im not keen on the idea that tax payers money is being spent on someone's gardener!! I mean plenty of tax payers cabt afford a freaking garden let alone a gardener.

Quite. Struggling to do both due to time management is not the same as,not being physically able to clean pr tend to the garden due to a physical incapacity and/or having wiped yourself out working.

& yesterday, on Farming Today was a Farmer who claimed that a couple with 2 children, neither parent in work, get £77k in benefits.....

Sure they do.

People can call in and say whatever they want... she meets the standard for PiP.

My friends son uses his PIP to pay for buses to get to/fro work

Though what any of this has to do with Defence is anyone's guess....

That's exactly what PIP is for.

Some of my son's DLA goes to a maths tutor. Not everyone can afford a tutor for their child but not everyone has a child who has missed a significant amount of school due to medical reasons and is below expected standards as a direct result.

That's exactly what DLA is for.

What do you think it should be used for?
PIP can be used for whatever helps the disabled person and makes their life a little easier
There are no guidelines on what somone can spend it on.

Trouble is that if they earn that extra £100 one month, and lose the UC of £55, they'll also "lose" the same £55 the following month initially, until the lower wage filters through the system, then they get it back, but there's a timing problem in that they'd be temporarily £110 worse off by earning the extra £100, and then have to wait for the system to catch up again. Someone on the bones of their arse may not be able to take that "hit" even short term. And from what lots of people say, it can be a nightmare to get changes processed through the UC system, so you can see why people prefer the "status quo" and not rock the boat due to short term changes.

It's only deducted from UC once, at the end of the assessment period in which the income is received. And they are better off by £45 overall. They are never £110 down.

Say the person has a total UC before deductions of £1500 and receives £1500 of wages. Just for ease of the maths.

They normally get paid from their employment on the 30th of the month.

Their UC assessment period is the 2nd to the 1st of the month and their payment date is the 8th.

On the 30th of March they get paid their income of £1500 as normal.

On 8th April they get their UC minus the £590 which is deducted for the earned income so that leaves £910. Add that to their earned income from the end of March which makes a total of £2410.

They work some more hours over the next few weeks so by the end of April they receive £1600 in wages rather than the usual £1500.

For their next UC payment in May, there is a deduction of £645 so their award is £855. Add that to the wages of £1600 from the end of April which makes a total of £2455.

They go back to working their regular hours so the payments at the end of May for wages and UC in June are the exact same as they were in March and April - £1500 and £910. A total of £2410.

So they are still better off by working more. There are no double deductions for the same money.

A lady I know is on PIP and also uses it for a cleaner and a gardener. That is what it is for. She can not clean her house or do things like mow the lawn so pays someone to do that.
Oh, and she works so is a taxpayer.
The fact someone else can not afford a garden is nothing to do with her. Disabled people are allowed to have gardens 🙄

And that is the point I’m making perhaps there needs to be guidelines and a scale of help. I think this person had GAD and I don’t want to get into the ins and outs but would I support a person with a severe disability the help of a cleaner or gardener - no I wouldn’t - but someone who was zipped lining in Mexico or had an anxiety condition yes I would.

It's for whatever makes your life easier because of your disability. Impossible to make guidelines when people get it for so many different things. I for example, give my mum some of it. She takes me shopping, to hospital appointments, helps with cleaning, etc

If you have guidelines on what pip should go on, you do it for all benefits

She is a taxpayer. She's working. As per the post you've replied to discussing the idea that she cant work and manage her cleaning/gardening.

Well that's a bit of a non argument isn't it. The zipliner was clearly committing benefit fraud. No one is advocating for benefit fraud are they.

There are already guidelines and a scale of help. We don't just give benefits to people based on their own demands. We vet them. Do some slip through the net? Of course - find me a fool proof system anywhere! But by and large the fraud rate for PIP is minimal. Which is why stories like the zipline woman make the paper, if they were common - they wouldn't make headlines

There are already guidelines and scales of help.

The entire welfare system, all areas of it, need complete overhaul. Not point reviews of PIP or something else, but end to end.
Just another example:
Renting into retirement - WIBU to spend my pension pot before age 67? | Mumsnet

This posted does what's best for her, but surely system must not be encouraging such behaviour.

GAD is a great example - there is no objective diagnosis for it. You read the symptoms online, go to GP a number of times, get some therapy or not, it doesn't help, you read Reddit and other SM support channels and fill online forms. You might need to go to tribunal, but if you're clever enough you get PIP. It might take you a year, but you'll get there eventually. And then you have gardener and cleaner. Paid by me and I have neither.

But you'd need evidence and you'd need to have some secondary input

There are a lot of physical disabilities where you also can't prove the symptoms

which evidence? how can you evidence GAD?

ETA: I'm struggling to think of physical disability which cannot be evidenced by objective tests such as bloods, X-rays, MRI, CT etc.

Im getting sick of repeating myself but you need evidence to back up your claims and by evideence i mean proper evidence from
professionals who are qualified in the area of disability
It ,s rather more complex than just popping to your GP and telling them your a bit anxious and hey presto PIP.