£12 billion saving on welfare?

[user1471453601]

What do you think that actually means? Does it mean even fewer civil servants ( which translates to longer waiting to get a benefit you are entitled to?) Or a reduction of payments to those worse off who need to receive, and in some cases, are entitled to those benefits?

Sunak doesn't say. What do you say?

This all comes back to the way GDP is calculated and how entrall of ever increasing GDP politicans have been for the past 40+ years.

If you care for your own children, parents, then that does not contribute to GDP. If instead you pay someone to care for your own (to a lower standard than you would) and then get paid to care for someone else's then that does contribute to GDP.

Other ways of contributing to GDP include selling drugs and prostitution.

The cost of everything and value of nothing springs to mind.

"The cost of everything and value of nothing springs to mind."

How to calculate the value of the work of gestating, birthing and caring for the next generation of workers and consumers, without which the economy would collapse irrevocably into dust in a couple of decades.

<btw, once read an analysis of the value of breastfeeding, in terms of the time and energy costs of producing breastmilk, the value of the 'product', the environmental savings it produces.... was eye opening>

It has seemed pretty clear to me that Rishi Sunak hasn't a clue about how PIP works, how the original legislation was written, how it has been interpreted over the years by HM Courts and Tribunals, how many appeals are therefore successful, and yet how difficult PIP is to get - and keep, and what kinds of additional living costs people tend to spend the money on.

The process itself punishes people with disabilities. In fact the EHRC is currently investigating.

The DWP seems steeped in denial (check out any of its formal statements to the media) and its Secretaries of State and Ministers captured by their party's ideological drive to cut costs. Thérèse Coffey was a particularly blinkered SoS for many years.

https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/mind-reacts-to-ehrc-investigation-into-department-of-work-and-pensions/

The majority of people who have mental health issues listed as reasons for claiming sickness benefits have them listed as a secondary condition. You could stop people claiming for mental health issues and they’d still be on out of work sickness benefits because the MH issues weren’t the reason they were out of work in the first place. A large increase in out of work sickness benefits is living with covid and entirely predicted and expected. Those of us lucky enough to still be in work are going to have to suck it up and pay more tax to support it.

Although as it happens the Tories know they aren’t getting in and have just made up some numbers to put in a table to fund tax/NI cuts. They don’t have to worry about whether it’s realistic.

Yes, I agree. I'm in the middle of the extended Pain Management Programme that our local NHS trust provides, and I've met dozens of fellow persistent pain sufferers. They are all ongoing hospital patients, as am I, for arthritis and/or back/spinal damage. Treatment pathways are ... meagre.

Every single person I've met through the service also has the classic triad of 'bolt-on' consequential problems: fatigue, anxiety and depression. Arthritis-related and pain-related fatigue is real; many patients have anxiety around e.g. not being able to pay the mortgage and bills, or making a journey safely; and it can be depressing to become increasingly reclusive and socially isolated.

I fear that the Pain Management Programmes, while good, are already starting to be used to 'mop up' two cohorts of patients: (1) those who do not pass the ever-higher thresholds for treatments in Rheumatology and Orthopedics; and (2) those with Long Covid. This would be well within ideological voucher territory.

@bleughgreen

who are you standing for? I'll move & vote for you!!

@user1471453601 it'll mean vulnerable people getting benefits chopped and new applicants having to jump through more hoops!!

& people like @StripedPiggy rubbing their hands together with glee.

I have a progressive, incurable neurological condition. It means they will take my PIP away essentially, largely because people are claiming it for things like anxiety and ADHD. As usual they want to pit us against each other to avoid us looking at the real culprits.

Having read the reports on Sliven and the great benefit scam I suspect there's probably some other scams going in

Reports range from 50m to 200m
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/bulgarian-city-thrived-200m-uk-134546053.html

If Sunak's great plan is to focus on foreign criminals defrauding the benefit system by vast amounts, why hasn't he said so? Who's going to argue with him on that? Win-win, surely?

But he's strongly indicated he's after PIP claimants, not UC fraudsters.

"It means they will take my PIP away essentially, largely because people are claiming it for things like anxiety and ADHD"

As you know - it's very hard to get 1. An ADHD assessment on the NHS and 2. PIP.

My son has such severe anxiety he hears voices, has not been able to attend school or education for 5 years, and was on 200mg sertraline + clonazepam + pregabalin for two years to be able to function in any capacity at all.

GAD can be completely incapacitating - it is in my son's case.

My son also has a diagnosis of bipolar 1 and leukaemia, and gets PIP, but his severe anxiety has been more disabling than either his cancer or his bipolar.

Your son quite clearly has anxiety related to his other conditions and I hope life gets easier for him. And like I said - they would rather turn it into a knife fight between people getting PIP than focus on a broken health service and social contract.

But I HAVE met people quite blatantly using 'anxiety' or 'depression' as a reason to claim PIP. They see it as free money on top of their other benefits. They half-heartedly attend counselling sessions to create a paper trail to 'prove' they are anxious and depressed without having the slightest intention of changing a single thing about their lives and circumstances. I know these people personally, they get free appointments through their GP and don't even bother attending them. Apparently they are too anxious and depressed to attend counselling/ work / parent but miraculously improve for social nights and holidays.

I never claimed ANY benefits even child benefit before PIP. I have a serious and incurable progressive condition but I still work and pay taxes. I'm frankly tired of excuses from people who COULD work etc but just don't. People who are in much better health than me but prefer to pretend not to be. It angers me that PIP reform will affect people like me to weed out fraudsters and skivers. Your son is not one of them by the way. But he will undoubtedly be impacted by any changes.

My son was completely incapacitated by anxiety for three years before being sectioned and later diagnosed with bipolar 1 at 17, and didn't develop leukaemia until he was 19.

I really struggled knowing that people like you were probably judging him and me in the first few years of his illness. He really masked his feelings when he came to any family events. I'd have my SIL saying 'he seems fine!'. He wasn't fine.

He also didn't attend counselling sessions at times because he just couldn't cope, but in those years he had a couple of holidays, which were very hard for all of us.

I'm going to assume the people you judge as not really ill are your family or acquaintances. I feel sorry for them. I know what it's like. 😞

"This hereditarily ill person will cost our national community 60,000 Reichmarks over the course of his lifetime. Citizen, this is your money." 1930s Nazi propaganda. Does it sound familiar? And Tory supporters laugh when we say their policies remind us of Nazism.

Your post is definitely thought provoking and I'm always open to being challenged and thinking about new perspectives. I will say that your son is probably the exception rather than the rule but thank you for sharing your story because to be honest I have met so many absolute piss takers I was frankly becoming quite cynical.

Oh no @izimbra you've got me wrong there. I wasn't saying that at all.

I didn't mean that was your view....I was saying that the current situatino for women under the Conservative government to which you referred was similar to the ReformUK stance.

That's because the welfare budget is mostly pensioners are the population is aging.

@StripedPiggy , exactly correct. The amount of people who are economically inactive has ballooned since COVID. All those who can work should work, deciding to ponce off of those who work shouldn’t be an option but equally those in genuine need should receive the help they require.

@Lovepeaceunderstanding and how many people do you think are economical inactive (as though that was the one and only problem in our country or the only thing that matters. People can and do contribute to our total well being without being economically active) because there are over 7million on NHS waiting lists? And trying to minimise the amount of harm that @StripedPiggy does on the mental health of people in our country beggars belief.

No. Unclaimed benefits, like council tax help, universal credit. I mean you could just Google instead of demanding a link (a trait I find immensely annoying on MN) and choose from any number of sources.

@Gondoliere here you go: https://policyinpractice.co.uk/missing-out-2024-23-billion-of-support-is-unclaimed-each-year/

Essentially, the amount of benefits lost to fraud is dwarfed by the amount people are actually eligible for, but do not claim.

I think asking for evidence is fair enough. If you make a point it’s not unreasonable to back it up. Expecting someone to Google is treating them like your secretary.

I agree @StripedPiggy and @Lovepeaceunderstanding — benefits should be a safety net needed not a way of life and for a large cohort that is exactly what they have become at the detriment of people with genuine disabilities.

Agreed with lots of other posters - it means culling the old (only the poor ones though), the disabled, and the chronically vulnerable, either literally via some kind of cull or slowly and painfully by withdrawing support. If you're wondering how they'll be targeted, my money is on Palantir being involved somehow now that they have access to NHS records and following their recent performance in the Middle East. I'm bloody glad I'm not any younger.

@Lifesd

"Benefits should be a safety net needed not a way of life and for a large cohort that is exactly what they have become at the detriment of people with genuine disabilities"

First off - what data are you working from that a life on benefits without recourse to work is a 'way of life' for 'large numbers' of UC claimants who are not ill or disabled and have no barriers to work?

Secondly - we've had successive governments - Labour & Conservative - that have completely failed on housing policy, leaving working class households in large swathes of the country now often having to find on average £16K just to cover rental costs for a 2 bedroom privately let flat. Add on to that enormous commuting costs (far higher than many other European countries), plus some of the highest childcare costs in Europe. Ordinary people in low paid work just can't sustain themselves without significant amounts of state support. That's the benefits lifestyle that this government in particular has pushed people into.

And they factor in the breakdown of many relationships - often at no fault of the parent (usually a woman) left caring alone for children. Then we've got zero hours contracts & insecure work, coupled with a punitive benefits system that makes coming off UC extremely scary because of the 6 week wait for payment if you need to get back on it...

So maybe start there. With job security. The living wage. Social housing, Decent & affordable housing, a less punitive benefits system. Rather than pointing the finger at people who may stay on benefits rather than risk ending up needing to use a food bank or end up homeless if a crappy, poorly paid and insecure job goes tits up for them

It will be interesting to see the proposals in the Labour manifesto on employment rights. Whilst they might not go as far as some would like, they will surely be a step in the right direction, and of particular support to women.