benefit change could breach law

[borderslass]

here

people can post about debts and deficits but do you really think that the people who should suffer are the most vulnerable.
I think most people accept uts, they know thay will be hit.
I know I do, but I do expect disabled people to be looked after.
I (an by I I mean most abled bodied sensible people ) can adjust my budget to take this in to account.
but I will still what ever the affect be able to live, to get the bus(or walk to town) I might not be able to buy, but i can be out.
these cuts will mean disabled people will not even be able to go window shopping.

Servicing the national debt of which the banking bailout is part of does contribute to public spending yes

The way people are writing, it's like the govt are scrapping DLA and I am fully supporting it. Neither are true.

But if we are serious about solving the deficit then we MUST look at everything and given the size of the deficit it's inevitable that cuts must be made everywhere.

The whole "oh we'll ring fence the NHS budget" was pure spin and bollocks. The truth is slowly coming out now.

No politician wants to make cuts. It's a sure fire way to lose votes. The truth is we have no choice. It's pain now or more pain later.

The solution is simple. Live within our means. The path there is not because we're so used to living beyond our means that we're going to be like a nation of junkies who can no longer afford to buy drugs.

So, servicing the national debt contributes to expenditure. We are in deficit because expenditure exceeds tax revenue. Part of the national debt is borrowing to bail out banks. Therefore, bailing out the banks is part of the structural deficit because of the costs of servicing the additional debt taken out to help the banks. No?

you don't answer the issue.
wtf has drugs got to do with it.
disabled people already live within thier means.
unfortunately being disabled comes at a price

example my non verbal dd has a VOCA
the charger broke, to replace it will cost £125
a CHARGER. HOW MUCH WOULD A LAP TOP CHARGER COST???

So Niceguy, the cost of bailing out the banks is contributing to the deficit.

Of course we need to look at whatever can be done to get us out of the mess, however so far the govenment seems to be targetting the vulnerable rather than the strong who are better placed to take a hit. Surely raising tax for higher earners and death duty would help.

The interest payment on the national debt created by re-capitalising the banks is contributing to the deficit. That said the bank levy will generate more than enough revenue to pay that interest and when the nationalised banks are privatised we should easily be able to wipe the money spent on the banking bailout off the national debt so I don't think that that part of the national debt is a great concern.

But that could be said for health and education, a healthy educated population should easily be able to pay their way, but the govt think that cutting these will help. I do so hope that you are right Hudd, but that is in no way a certainty, especially if what Niceguy says about America is correct, indeed any banks holding American assets may well find them much reduced in value and be in need of further government help.

I am sorry niceguy but I don't buy what you are saying. If the debt was that bad it would take more than four years to clear, which is what the current Govt plans are anyway. In addition your posts sound more like a broadcast for the conservative party.
The amount that the cuts to the mobility component of DLA to those concerned really will save very little money in the grand scheme of things and will cause more pain than gain. I doubt you understand the pain it will cause to those people who will be affected and why should you, do you have any disabled relatives or friends?
The fact is relatively the rich are not taxed as much as the poor you only have to see what impact the rise in VAT will have on those who have considerably less disposable income. It seems obscene to me that the city will once again be paying billions in bonuses when those who are the weakest in society will be hardest hit. Especially when those banks concerned are making money on the back of quantative easing and the cash injections they have already recieved from the Govt.
Again isn't it funny when Govts talk about cutbacks yet they still seem to find the money to continue various wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. I wonder how much money ha been spent there?
To me it is about priority and right now the poor and the diaabled are not a priority for this Govt.

Well niceguy whoever makes the call the maths are simple

Government estimates are 1.8% fraud rate

40% under claimed

Cutting by 20% will affect vulnerable people. There's not even a coherent argument against that frankly.

Were I in office could I mkae that vut? No. There are far more sensible wyas to save money out there. Stop separating finance and support into childrena nd adults for a start: evidence shows people benefit from early therapy input yet we have people saving £2000 in therapy costs in children's depts and ending up costing tens of thousands in lifelong dependency to adult services. All to tick off their own budget sheet.

Sort out the mess that means carers can;t get childcare and save a fortune in benefits that way (as someone unable to use a nursery if I could get the same TC help with an Au Pair I could for a nursery then I'd be applying for FT jobs tomorrow, and once the boys are grown, as a grad with an MA, more than covering the temporary costs with tax input).

We know that these assessments don;t work for many groups- if you don;t have a physical disability in particular. Appeals for ESA are proving that already. So what happens after that then? Consider this case- someone with AS and an anxiety disorder has their ESA removed and their DLA througha ssessment. They end up on basic unemployment benefit unable to afford the basic advocacy support that might enable them to leave home or cope.

After a time the job centre cottons on they don;t do anything so places them on one of those work-for-benefits schemes, to whcih they do not turn up due to the classic medical manifestations of their ASC. Their only source of income is withdrawn- what then? That's a very real scenario that ASC charities are already looking towards. As a society are we happy with that?

Or the cases of chidlren who need specialised transport in care schools 36 weeks a year who will never go home becuase mobility DLA for them is being pulled and their aprents will lose the specialised transport that their child depends on?

I am not, personally.

if we lose DLA for ds1 then I am going to assume that I am wrong about him being disabled (and so are his paeds, therapists, the LEA who aplced him in a speical unit from this coming Sept...) and send him to a chidlcare establishment so I can work to replace the income that is associated with the DLA- carers Allowance. If he ahrms the child of someone on here or elsewhere that supports the cuts that's OK isn't it? or is it? Is it that we are just supposed to suffer in compelte poverty as a result of his disability as long as we don;t affect either taxation or palce other people's chidlren at risk? DS1 seems compeltely NT by the way and will likely fail an assessment unless he happens to be in meltdown mode, in which case I hope the Assessor is practsed in self defence.

I am also happy to laugh loud and in extended fashion at silly government claims about DLA being an unemployment benefit: it isn;t, by any stretch: that's ESA. And even if it were I am desperately looking for work and can barely find anything to even apply for, let alone actually obtain. It simply is not there, in any sector: even care assistant jobs are non existent at the monent. In fact, even voluntary jobs are in short supply!

Ridiculous. All of it.

'unfortunately being disabled comes at a price'

Quite.

To get a break ever of any kind it costs us a respite worker; she currently gets £7.50 p/h. It's 8 hours a month, with 2 disabled children.

At the riskof being called over dramatic (and I really don't care) I've been close to snapping from it all for a very long time, I think losing that one session would absolutely push me over, but we couldn;t afford it without the DLA. Family? Well Mum when she can but she;s a bit old for restraining an 11 year old now, and nobody else will consider. FIL did consider but last time we saw him he smacked ds2 so not a hope in hell now.

I also have NT kids: I worked full time with NT kids: I know the differneces. They are huge.

but as I said before there are ways of saving money using long terms trategies but nobody cares about beyond their 5 year stint.

Will try to answer the best I can:

disabled people already live within thier means.
I meant the government, not the disabled people themselves. Sorry if that was unclear.

So Niceguy, the cost of bailing out the banks is contributing to the deficit.
At the moment, part of the deficit is yes. BUT once the govt sell the banks we own, they should turn a profit. So I don't think you can count that.

Secondly its the structural deficit that's the problem, not the one off hit from the banks. Even without the banking crisis, we'd still be borrowing £1 for every £4 spent and austerity & cuts would have come regardless. The only difference would have been the timing and the trigger.

I am also happy to laugh loud and in extended fashion at silly government claims about DLA being an unemployment benefit:
Noone has said that and the government are not even proposing that. That was IB to ESA.

This is about tightening up the rules for DLA and turning it into PIP. So noone is talking about scrapping it. The trick will be where they draw the line. Because a line must be drawn somewhere. I want to see genuinely disabled people supported. But I also understand that in the real world where money IS an issue that there must be a balance drawn. And in a country where 60 million people live, that some people will rightly or wrongly feel they've been aggrieved.

Like I said right at the beginning, I don't envy the govt on this one. There is NO upside for them.

sounds to me that you have been sucked in by the government spin.
do you think they really care that disabled people and their families will suffer?
they don't they have made that obvious.
think about it, one of the excuses for taking the mobility element away from people in residential care is that "transport is provided there.......
trouble is, they are cutting this transport, and due to staffing cuts, the staff won't be available to do trips out.

dd uses a residential place for respite,. the young people are taken out once a week, most often to a free place like the local garden centre.
can you imagine that if your lucky one outing a week, to somewhere you don't want to go.

surely it is a basic human right to be able to go outside and visit places you want to go to.

should add, dd isn't affected at the moment as she lives at home.

It's not just about tightening the rules its about making a 20% saving on the current cost of DLA. They can tart it up how they like, in effect they are cutting DLA by 20%. I am aware of the deficit but think in a country as wealthy as ours they can raise the money they are cutting from DLA through taxation.

Bearing in mind DLA is thought to be the least defrauded benefit of all they are taking from people who genuinely need it.

"Again isn't it funny when Govts talk about cutbacks yet they still seem to find the money to continue various wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. I wonder how much money ha been spent there? "

£20 billion on top of the regular defence budget was spent on Iraq and Afghanistan between 2001 and 2010 (www.bbc.co.uk/news/10359548), so on average about £2 billion a year.

The defence budget itself is about £35 billion a year.

The Government is overspending by about £150 billion this year.

So even if we didn't spend any money at all in Afghanistan and not one single penny on the military then the Government would still be on track to overspend by more than £110 billion this year.

And that is the problem.

Blaming the war(s) or the banks (as NiceGuy has pointed out) for the financial problems we're in is not only utterly wrong and misinformed but delays the time when we really do have to look at the real problem and who caused it.

And the real problem is that the Government has been living beyond it's means for years.

The last Labour Government only managed to balance the books for about 4 years, for all the other years of their Government they spent more than they earned.

And that's bad.

But why aren't the Tories really ripping them apart for doing that? Well in their last term of office they managed even worse, between 1979 and 1997 they only managed to have two years in which they didn't spend more than they earned.

And that is the problem.

And people wasting time tilting at the imaginary windmills of banks or wars to take the blame for the mess we're in is more time that the people who really caused it avoid the blame.

We've now allowed the Government to live so utterly far beyond it's means that getting it back to a sensible position is really going to hurt.

"We've now allowed the Government to live so utterly far beyond it's means that getting it back to a sensible position is really going to hurt."

I agree, but don't think it is the disabled that should be bearing the hurt.

"I agree, but don't think it is the disabled that should be bearing the hurt."

True.

But comments along the lines of "it's all the bankers fault" or "if we can find money for wars we can find money for XXX" don't help and are quite simply missing the problem.

Oh and it's worth remembering that somehow getting the Government to actually spend no more than what it earns just fixes the deficit. This doesn't then actually address the huge mountain of debt that successive Governments joyfully overspending for pretty much every year since 1950 have built up for us.

We're in a big hole and have become utterly dependent on living on the Government equivalent of a Credit Card, Politicians of every persuasion have allowed this to happen and they're going to be more than happy to avoid the blame while people run about pointing their fingers at bankers or wars.

Hurrah! Someone who understands what a deficit and understands that for all the talk of fixing the deficit, we won't even have paid a penny back of the actual debt! Pull up a chair mate!

No-one wants to see the disabled suffer. I certainly don't. But the point is that taxing the rich alone will not fix it. People talk about it like its not happened or that it will be the answer.

Already we've had a tax rise to 50% for very high earners. Families where 1 person will earn enough to fall into the 40% tax bracket will lose CB. Tax credits are scrapped for couples earning over £30k (i think). Those are already in effect or coming. Yet those won't even scratch the surface of the deficit.

I think that the point here is that there are thousands of people whose basic needs will no longer be met. If you are able bodied on Jobseekers allowance, for instance, you receive an amount of money which is considered the minimum amount that you need to live on. If you are disabled, you are getting less than this already, but we carefully budget, learning disabled people have assistance to make sure they can afford what they need. There is a ton of research to say that the price of living for a disabled person is significantly higher than that of an able bodied person, and these cuts are going to make them REALLY suffer.

IMO it's a human rights issue, we have a responsibility to take care of our sick, elderly and vulnerable, but they are becoming more and more isolated at a time when they are also expected to go out and find work. How is a person with mobility difficulties, living in a care establishment, going to get to work if they have no transport?

I know first hand what it's like. I have been a single mum to a severely autistic dd for 9 years and I have lived on a tight budget, trying to give my dd what she needs as well as take care of my son, my home, oh yeah, and myself somewhere along the line. She is now in a residential school and comes home regularly at weekend. Under the new rules she will lose her mobility allowance, meaning that the social interaction that she needs will not be possible when she is home. She will not be able to go anywhere so I can teach her how to cope with the outside world. She has epilepsy, and without the car I would struggle to get her to hospital without an ambulance, or home if she is ok but needs to rest. She has behavioural difficulties which mean that if we have to leave somewhere, we have to leave NOW! I can't do that if we have to go and wait for a bus, she has no sense of danger so could run into the road, or she might push me into the road, leaving her alone and vulnerable.

On top of that, I have to attend regular appointments at her school and residential placement, drive her backwards and forwards between home, resi and school, and be able to get to her in an emergency day or night. So even when she is not with me, I need the car that she is entitled to, or at least the cash to pay for a taxi. Without her mobility allowance I have no way of doing anything.

The rocketing price of fuel is making it hard enough to run a car for her, but I struggle on, to take the car away completely will pretty much mean that my dd will be completely isolated from her friends and family, and I will never be able to see her.

I don't have the answers to the government problems, but that money MUST come from somewhere else, they are infringing on people's RIGHTS here, not just inconveniencing them. If my story doesn't convince you, then have a look at the Mencap website, or the Scope website, or one of the many other major disability charities for more stories of how people will suffer. Then tell me it's fair and right.

/me eyerolls at NiceGuy

In a fractional reserve banking system all money is debt. To talk about paying off debt is...bizarre. All lenders want debts to be serviced, no lenders want debts to be discharged. A strong economy is one that both services and utilises debt in this financial system (usurious, basically). You've got to keep the money moving.

The government basically have abolished DLA. The plan is to phase it out in 2013 and replace it with PIP, it's in the article. If you read the consultation paper you'll see these are not progressive reforms (or maybe you won't, but at least you'll be talking about what everyone else is talking about, and not banging on about whatever you read on ToriesRGrate.com.

)

It seems that in the previous administration DLA was rationed like the cancer drugs and went rather unnoticeable.

There is a response here under the FOI by the DWP to an enquiry:
"How many applications for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) on the grounds of a mental health illness were made in 2007?", during 8 months.

The DWP answer was that 19,000 aps were rejected, a rate of 44%. (on mental health illness)

the question was here

And 23,000 56% of claims of DLA were accepted.