Disability hate on MN

[IClaudine]

Hi MNHQ

Since Sunak’s announcement on disability benefits, there has been a big increase on MN in hostility towards people who receive then.

The abuse, hate and outright lies (my neighbour’s son’s cousin’s wife climbs Mount Everest but gets PIP etc) being spewed on MN towards disabled people, a group with protected characteristics, has been dreadful and very distressing for disabled people and their loved ones to read,

Please can you do something?

Here is a small selection of the threads where the disability benefit bashers have paid a visit and had a field day. There may be more, but I can’t face searching for them!

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5064828-to-be-terrified-about-pip?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share  

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5065470-people-who-work-have-anxiety-too?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5066670-aibu-to-hope-that-able-bodied-people-will-support-disabled-people-against-the-tory-attack-on-pip?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/money-matters/5064856-pip-vouchers-to-replace-money?reply=134966246&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/money-matters/5066331-do-you-feel-bad-for-receiving-a-high-amount-of-uc?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

That thread in FWR combined with people claiming they see fraudsters everywhere are going to contribute to me damaging my health if I'm not careful. I sometimes get out of my wheelchair when I'm out and about, and sometimes (shock horror) use quite a pretty walking stick. Whenever I see hate like this online it makes me worry that being seen to walk short distances out and about, which is actually beneficial for my health, could lead not just to me receiving unpleasant comments, as it does, but even being reported for fraud. (and the distances are well within my limitations as listed on my PIP letter, but most people have no clue how long 20m is or that not all wheelchair users can't walk at all)

@CrocusSnowdrop don't let them get to you.

The cars are leased.

At the end of the lease, the car isn't scrapped but is sold on. It keeps the motability fleet young and reliable and the little bit of commission for selling on the car encourages dealers to participate in the scheme.

I won't. But it annoys me that I have to waste brain space on not letting it get to me...

people also conveniently forget that those who needs a wheelchair accessible motability car have to pay a deposit which is NOT returned at the end of the lease period.
Our last car it was 4,500 and this time it looks like it will be 8 500. You pay for the car to be adapted basically and also give up the motability.component of PIP for the length of the lease.
We are thinking of not bothering and buying a second hand one instead.
Infact we have 2 wheelchair users and to get a car with 2 wheelchair spaces the down-payment is 25,000. The vehicle is handed back.after 5 years and you then have to.start again so it is by no means a free car.

Thank you for your insight @Glitchymn1

Thanks, yes I am aware it is a lease scheme.

I suppose the point is, three year old cars are not ‘old’ today, and presumably the mileage in a motability car is lower than normal? Plus they’re fully serviced etc.

Monday briefing: Why has the rightwing press turned on Motability? | Disability | The Guardian https://share.google/Zfe2A5frCr6gPi6mJ

.

But would you still spend £77.05 per week on a car for 3 years that you won't own? I'm of course aware it's the only way people can get cars but to me it seems expensive

We did the sums on keeping our 12 year old rustbucket of an estate car on the road for 3 more years (which given that it had already failed an MOT was unlikely to be cheap) compared with leasing an EV via motability and were pleasantly surprised. We needed a larger car with a bigger boot and ended up having to make a down payment for that but it still made sense for us.

I bought an ex-Motability WAV because there was absolutely no way I could have afforded the down payment to get one on the scheme, and I need my mobility component to pay to run the vehicle.

Motability is a very expensive way to get a vehicle, especially if, like me, you need a large WAV with major adaptations. Buying one with most of the work already done second hand and getting a local fitter to alter the hand controls to my needs was vastly cheaper.

Well, 300 odd quid a month with a modest deposit (?)- all in, with insurance and service covered etc., seems pretty reasonable.

On larger cars it really isn’t a “modest” deposit at all.

LA has a car lease scheme- Christ you can pay hundreds a month on a car that’s never yours. Salary sacrifice so maybe it pays I don’t know, I don’t have one.

@PandoraSocks Of course it isn’t a waste of resources. We may not prosecute (some do). But we can interrupt fraud, cancel benefit, prevent fraud, detect other more serious frauds.

The type of fraud I was referring to would come under non occupation. DWP publish the stags as a whole figure and don’t break it down as far as I’m aware.
The allegation or anomaly is examined then graded and investigators have to keep files on each person looked at, addresses, names, ID’s, employers, landlords, familial links. What/where/when/ how etc.
Each LA will keep their own files and stats, for audit, so you don’t investigate it again if there was nothing in it/ because you never know when something may become important.
The stats are recorded by and held by the LA and each LA will be different.

The DWP don’t work like we do, they have no local knowledge as they are based all around the country.

agreed. We bought a Vauxhall vivaro that takes 2 wheelchairs for 10 grand a few yeats ago but our other vehicle is a single wav. We are thinking of just buying a second hand when that goes back at Christmas as well. Someone is making a lot of money from the motability.scheme.

Because having a car when you are disabled or have a disabled child can be absolutely vital. A reliable car especially.

Public transport is horrendous for wheelchair users. Trains are probably the best of a bad bunch but buses are awful because far too many parents with buggies refuse to move or even though my son is 9, they seem to think that his wheelchair is a glorified buggy and have argued in the past that ''there's already 2 buggies on the bus'' and I've had to point out the obvious that he's in a wheelchair NOT a buggy and the space is in fact for wheelchairs. Some drivers will make them move, other drivers refuse to get involved.

Public transport isn’t accessible to many people.

An illuminating piece from Somerset.

Hundreds of people in Glastonbury, Street, Wells and Shepton Mallet are on Personal Independence Payments (PIP), new figures show — as Somerset MP Sarah Dyke warned vulnerable constituents face being "plunged into poverty" by Government welfare reforms.

The Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Reform Bill passed through Parliament this week with the support of 336 MPs — most of them Labour. But local MPs across Somerset, including Ms Dyke, voted against the bill, which critics say could strip support from thousands of disabled people.

Figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions show:

• Glastonbury: 565 out of 4,489 working-age adults are on PIP — 12.6%
• Street: 540 out of 5,054 — 10.7%
• Wells: 460 of 4,596 — 10%
• Shepton Mallet: 450 of 5,686 — 7.9%

The village where we used to live had 2 buses/day - one mid-morning and one early evening so no use for getting to work/school or nursery run or getting home

But surrounding villages had no buses at all so we were 'lucky'

Good to see MP's standing up for their constituents.

Now people are complaining about reasonable adjustments in the workplace

We can't win - they don't want to employ us because we need reasonable adjustments but they also don't want us on benefits

I thought that when I saw it too.

People can't have it both ways.

@TigerRag a thread so awful I hid it, there was also an awful one about someone with dwarfism being paid to be a figure of fun at a stag do, i don’t know if that’s still up. But that thread, the one I hid, highlights what I’ve said repeatedly, the problem is not disabled people being unwilling to work and just sitting off, it’s entrenched ableism in the workplace(s) as a national problem

Momentum condemns suspension of 3 MPs who voted against welfare bill as 'desperate act'

Momentum, the leftwing Labour group, has criticised the suspension of three MPs who voted against the welfare bill. A spokesperson said:
Suspending the whip from MPs who stood up for disabled people against cuts is a desperate act from a failing government that does not have the solutions to Britain’s problems.

This intolerant crack down on principled dissent, rather than changing course, is a pathetic response to dire poll ratings and threatens to tear apart not the Labour Left but rather the Labour party itself.

GUARDIAN.

Who is in the right? Starmer, or Momentum?