THE WELFARE BENEFITS UPRATING BILL – ONE MORE LAST STRAW  

This Briefing is written in support of all amendments to the bill which will prevent limiting benefit up-rating to 1% for the next three years  

The problem for the poorest citizens in the UK isn’t the welfare uprating bill on its own but the fact that is the latest in a long line of welfare reform. The last straw could well be the decision of Parliament to limit increases in benefits to 1% for three years while prices of necessities are escalating. This comes on top of the decisions of local government to tax benefits with 8.5% - 22% of council tax or around £3 to £8 a week, in addition to the cuts and caps. Single adult households, the parents of disabled children and pregnant and nursing mothers and their babies will suffer ill health. Taxpayers will bear the increased costs to the health service and the schools.   The Department of Work and Pensions claim that people will always be better off in work than unemployed when they introduce the Universal Credit; if it happens it will be more to do with freezing the increase in unemployment benefits for three years than in providing a living wage in work.  The coalition throws hand-grenades into local government finances and the welfare system and then stands back to admire the damage. 

 BENEFITS INCREASING MORE THAN WAGES?  

 Grant Shapps, the Conservative minister without portfolio, tells us:   "Since 2007, the pay of those working in the private sector rose by 12 per cent and at the same time benefits going to working age claimants increased by twice that amount."   That needs some qualification. Research by Professor Jonathan Bradshaw of York University has shown that the £71 a week job-seeker's allowance paid to single adults from April 2012, has not increased in real terms for decades. When it started in 1912 it was seven shillings a week, about 22 per cent of average male earnings in manufacturing. By 1979 it was still about 21 per cent of average earnings.    By 2008, as a result of the policy of tying benefits to the price index while real earnings increased, it had fallen to an all-time low of 10.5 per cent of average earnings. It has not increased in real terms since then.   The amendment that proposed benefits be increased with average earnings will have a lot of catching up to do!   The government repeatedly state it is not fair for the incomes of people out of work to go up faster than the incomes of people in work, but increasing £1 by 1% is a slower cash increase then increasing £10 by 1%. 

 THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM OF POVERTY IN THE UK IS JOB SEEKERS ALLOWANCE

So the problem begins with the deeply inadequate £71 a week JSA after rent and council tax for a single person aged 25 - 60, £56.25 aged 18 - 24, and £111.45 for a couple up to 60 years old. They are the adult benefit whatever the number of children in the family, whose benefits are added to them. They will be the standard amounts of the Universal Credit. Donald Hirsch, Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough, and in charge of the JRF minimum incomes standards research,  sent me the following comparison with JSA of the weekly minimum cost of  food+fuel+clothing+transport at April 2012 taken from the Joseph Rowntree Minimum income standards research. They are all above IS/JSA rate, and have risen from 22% to 29% more than a single person would receive at the adult rate. The 1% increase will reduce their value further.

MIS SINGLE PERSON PER WEEK	2008	2012
Food	£40.34	£48.25
Fuel	£9.00	£11.63
Clothing	£7.64	£9.31
Transport	£17.03	£22.39
Foot+fuel +clothing+transport	£74.01	£91.58
IS/JSA	£60.50	£71.00
IS/JSA 18-24s	£47.95	£56.25
	2008	2012
Food+fuel+clothing+transport as a % of IS/JSA	122%	129%
Food+fuel+clothing+transport as a % of IS/JSA 18-24s	154%	163%

  A 1% FREEZE ON TOP OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT FINANCE ACT AND TAXING BENEFITS 

 I am using the proposals of Haringey Council to tax benefits with 20% of the council tax as an example of the cumulative impact of council tax, LHA cap and the overall benefit cap. The council’s analysis shows that there are 6837 adult claimants receiving job-seekers allowance at £71 a week up to the age of 60, and 476 unemployed couples with two children with JSA at £258. They will have to pay from £3.18 a week to £7.43 a week council tax. That £71 a week and that £258 also have to pay the rent not paid by the capped housing benefit and unpaid rent due to the coming £500 overall benefit cap.    In the Borough of Haringey: ·       73 individuals will have to pay between £41.43 and £158.01 a week, out of £71 a week, due to the cumulative impact of CT plus overall benefit cap. Many will be between 40 and 60 years old. ·       49 couples with two children will have to pay between £72.40 and £255.24, out of JSA of £258 a week, due to the cumulative impact of CT plus overall benefit cap. That will multiply into several 1000s of households when the numbers affected in all wards in England and Wales are added up.  

COUNCIL TAX ARREARS, UTILITY AND OTHER DEBTS AND THEIR ENFORCEMENT 

 Reducing the value of benefits and then taxing them will increase council tax arrears. Non-payment of council tax means the councils summon the non-payer to a liability order hearing at the Magistrates court adding between £70 and £120 to the council tax arrears. The summons contains the following threats, in bold type and highlighted. Thousands are and many more will be dispatched daily.  

If a liability order is granted the council will be able to take one or more of the following actions:
 
 ·       Instruct bailiffs to take your goods to settle your debt - this can include your car.
 ·       You will be liable to pay the bailiffs costs which could substantially increase the debt.  
 ·       Instruct your employer to deduct payments from your salary or wages.
 ·       Deduct money straight from your jobseekers allowance or income support.
 ·       Make you bankrupt.
 ·       Make a charging order against your home.
 ·       Have you committed to prison.  

The bailiffs can add anything up to £400 + to the defaulters bill. The magistrates approve 1000s at a time.  Neither they nor the council officials know the circumstances of 90% of the defaulters; some of them could be dead and no one will know until the bailiff calls.   Baroness Meacher tabled an amendment to the Crime and Courts Bill for Z2K requiring council officials to know the facts and circumstances of non-payers before they apply for a liability order; we have been promised guidance by Baroness Hanham, but we have not seen it yet. In reality the councils and courts will be clogged up. There will be no time to consider the details of each case.    

 PERSONAL DEBT AND MENTAL ILLNESS

The Government Office for Science in their 2008 Foresight Report “Mental Capital and Wellbeing” highlighted the relationship between mental health problems and debt. Z2K, the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCP) and the University of Brighton are suggesting that creditors, jobcentres and local authorities are making people ill enforcing debts which been caused by government policies or lack of them. The RCP has reported that 50% of people in debt have a mental health problem and 25% of mentally ill people are in debt. The Centre for Mental Health has estimated that mental illness costs the economy £105 billion a year. 

 FAMILIES WITH DISABLED CHILDREN  

The Haringey council tax proposals make no mention of the problems facing the parents of disabled children. Neither does the Welfare Benefits Up-rating Bill.   The report ‘Counting the Costs 2012 - The financial reality for families with disabled children across the UK’ from the charity Contact a Family has been sent to the council. It states as its key findings that of the survey of 2,312 families with disabled children across the UK: 

 ·       1 in 6 (17%) is going without food.
 ·       More than 1 in 5 (21%) is going without heating.
 ·       A quarter (26%) are going without specialist equipment or adaptations.
 ·       86% have gone without leisure and days out
 ·       Almost a third (29%) have taken out a loan - 39% for food and heating
 ·       1 in 5 (21%) have been threatened with court action for failing to keep up with payments – the majority for missing utility bill payments (46%)
 ·       Over one in ten (11%) have already been affected by benefit changes.

POOR MATERNAL NUTRITION BEFORE AND DURING PREGNANCY AND THE CONSEQUENCES FOR THEIR BABIES  

The Institute for Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition at London Metropolitan University is a leading centre of research into the importance of human nutrition and health. Its research is led by Professor Michael Crawford, who has established a relationship between poor maternal nutrition and low birth-weight before conception and during pregnancy.   By way of example, three wards in Haringey had among the highest rates of low birth weight between 2007 and 2009; compared to a national average of 7.53%, Tottenham Green recorded 12.5%, St Ann’s 9.4% and Haringey 11.62%. The average for Haringey is 7.63%.   Although obesity has attracted much attention, brain disorders have now risen in cost to €386 billion for the 25 EU, overtaking all other burdens of ill health. In the UK the cost was £77 Billion Data from Dr. Jo Nurse, Mental Health Division of Department of Health, presented Westminster July 27^th 2008 (now £105 billon PN) which was greater than heart disease and cancer combined. This is now the most serious but unrecognised threat to health and the future of society.

 ·       The incidence of low birthweight a hall mark of future physical and mental ill health has risen since 1973 in the UK;
 ·       In 1972 it was predicted that brain disorders would rise following on the rise in death from heart disease. The prediction was based on similar nutritional requirements for specialised dietary fatty acids and their associated nutrient cluster. That prediction has now been realised.
 ·       Although the national diet improved during the last century, a fundamental flaw crept in the last 4 decades because of a lack of knowledge on the requirement of specialised fats for the development and health of the brain and arteries.
 ·       Several national and international expert committees on diet and health have commented on the flaw. However, little action has been taken because of want for of relevant knowledge.
 ·       The required recommendations have been voiced by the Black, Acheson and Wanless reports with the exception of addressing fundamental flaws in the food chain.

 ·       It now requires bold, interdepartmental initiatives by government and local governments on food production, distribution, public and school education and investment in prevention by the NHS and research councils which currently prioritises drug development. Steve Webb MP, said in a Child Poverty Bill debate on minimum income standards about the total inadequacy of adult unemployment benefits, and the effect on children of the consequent poor maternal nutrition before and during pregnancy:   "When we heard evidence, it was pointed out that a young woman under 25 is allocated £50.95 a week (Now £56.25 - PN) to live on, but evidence suggests that £43 (£48 – PN) a week is needed for food for a decent, healthy living standard. Fuel and other bills cannot be paid from the remaining £7-odd, so young women in that age group who are on benefit are, by definition, eating less than is healthy for them. If they then become pregnant, they will at that time have been eating unhealthily. Budget standards and minimum income standards would enable us to consider what such young women need for a decent standard of living, and to make that the benchmark. Fiscal considerations would determine whether we hit the benchmark, but not knowing what the benchmark is unacceptable and inexcusable." Hansard, column 363 November 3rd 2009.   A food bank will provide food for three days only then they are hungry again, no help in a nine month pregnancy.

   CONCLUSION 

 It is clear from the evidence of the reducing value of unemployment benefits following years of neglect by successive governments, plus the imposition of council tax on benefits and their draconian enforcement, that the high rates of low birth-weight in the UK cannot be disconnected from the decades of diminishing value of their unemployment incomes putting healthy nutrition at risk. Reducing the real value of statutory minimum incomes on top of cuts, caps and tax creates misery for the claimants and billions of costs to the tax payer in the health service and the schools.  

Rev Paul Nicolson
Chair, Zacchaeus 2000 Trust,
34 Grosvenor Gardens
London
SW1W 0DH
020 72590801
020 83765455
Paulnicolson@z2k.org

Please circulate and turn out!
 
Mental Health Resistance Network and Disabled People Against Cuts are holding a
This week sees 2 disabled people take on the government in the Administrative High Court, the division of the Royal Courts of Justice that deals with Judicial reviews, on the grounds that the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) discriminates against mental health survivors.

The WCA was introduced by the Department for Work and Pensions to test the eligibility of disabled people for disability benefits. The test has been fiercely criticised by campaigners, MPs and the British Medical Association. The government’s own appointed assessor of the policy has ruled it ‘unfit for purpose’, yet it continues.

The WCA causes death and distress to thousands of disabled people from all impairment groups. Dozens die every week following assessment while nearly 40% of those who appeal have the decision to remove their benefits overturned, needlessly exposing people who already face many barriers in life to traumatic and harrowing experiences.

The Judicial Review will be calling for adjustments to the WCA to minimise the disadvantages that people with certain impairments face in being assessed. In a wider sense it will be calling the government to account for these continued attacks on disabled citizens.

DPAC and MHRN call on ALL activists and supporters to join us in a vigil outside the court to show support for those taking the case, and disgust at the shameful practices of the WCA.

For messages of support http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mental-Health-Resistance-Network/479666938752033 or email mail@dpac.uk.net

See also the Atos Debate in the House of Commons on Thursday 17th Jan Live from about 11am on BBC Democracy Live

From Left Foot Forward

Anger at government reforms to Disability Living Allowance
On Wednesday, disability rights campaigners urged the Lords that the government’s proposed introduction of Personal Independence Payment, to replace the Disability Living Allowance, had serious flaws and requires significant changes.

The website We Are Spartacus, which features the opinions of disabled people on the issue of welfare reform, has submitted an analysis of the PIP regulations to the House of Lords Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee.

Read more here

News Received:-

If any MP, government representative or stooge tells you the UK is bankrupt, or close to it, ask them why we can afford to pay Thierry Breton £1.9 million to preside over a company running a flawed system that leads to the deaths of 73 of us every week.

Mr Breton is the boss of Atos, the company that has been “reassessing” people who used to be on Incapacity Benefit, in a bid to clear the vast majority of them from the government’s welfare benefit bill within a year of assessment.

Only between 12-13 per cent of those who go through the Atos ‘work capability assessment’ keep their benefits indefinitely, going through to the ‘support group’ of the new Employment and Support Allowance. This means they have conditions which mean they will never be able to work in any way – and, in practice, many are likely to die in the near future. Atos and the Department for Work and Pensions say this figure should be 30 per cent, but that seems more likely to be the percentage transferred from IB. In regard to new cases, I’ll stick with what the Atos trainer said on Channel 4′s Dispatches documentary in July. The others are either put into a ‘work-related activity’ group and told to get better within 12 months, or marked ‘fit for work’ and told to get looking for a job.

These are where the controversial deaths take place, due to stress exacerbating people’s illnesses or suicide because they cannot see a way to go on. For this, Mr Breton is being paid around £1 million per year. His bonus – nearly another £1 million – means he pocketed £1.9 million in total (before tax – although he could always seed it away in one of the tax havens the government is assiduously failing to close down). This is why disability specialist Samuel Miller needs to hear from people whose family members or friends have suffered at the hands of Mr Breton’s company.

Mr Miller is putting together a file of atrocities which he intends to send to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations. The aim is to show that austerity measures are violating British people’s human rights. His best hope is in receiving coroners’ reports where the cause of death is found to be destitution and/or suicide. He can’t do this on his own. I reported Mr Miller’s plan last week and as a result he has received some responses – but many more are needed.

He needs you to get in touch – if you have been affected. If nobody does anything, the government will merrily assume it is right to persist with a regime that leads to 73 deaths, of your loved ones, every week. And they will continue. If you are disabled, you may be next.

So don’t leave it to somebody else. If you have been affected, get your story in to Mr Miller. You could also contact your local news media and get them to run a story about this, with his email contact details:

disabilityinliterature@gmail.com

If they don’t run anything, ask them why. There does seem to be a media blackout and this must be overcome as well. Otherwise you, or someone you know, could end up like Susan Atkinson, who died of cancer last year, aged 37, after Atos told her she was fit for work.
A friend of hers, Donna Thornton, wrote: “I’m not saying they caused her death but they did add  more stress and worry, which I do think helped her give up the fight. “Her quality of life before she died was so very sad for me to watch – instead of her last few weeks of life being happy ones, they were sad and upsetting.

I couldn’t even help her as I was going through the same.” Donna, who has been in three car crashes, has fibromyalgia, nerve damage, has had shingles and suffers depression, wrote: “I just received a letter saying I have got to got to court this time to appeal. “Not only do I feel like a criminal but feel sick [that] I’ve got to go through all this to prove I am sick and disabled. “This system is so wrong; they have got me in so much debt over the past two years, I now want to give up the fight. Life is hard enough being sick, never mind going through all this. “Please help before I end up on Atos’ death list.” Is this familiar?

 disabilityinliterature@gmail.com

It’s not just the Atos assessments that are pushing people to the brink, of course.

How many of you will be affected by the so-called ‘bedroom tax’? Sue McCafferty will. She wrote: “As someone who contracted Hepatitis C from a blood transfusion many years ago my health is deteriorating rapidly… One of the main side-effects is suicidal feelings so the doctors are very cautious about treating anyone who is currently suffering from depression. “I was due to have the treatment [Interferon, which has severe side-effects] this year but since I found out about the bedroom tax, and realised the possible consequences, my peace of mind has been taken from me and I don’t feel mentally stable enough to consider starting the treatment now… Nor does my Consultant since he became aware of how stressed I am. I wake up every day thinking the home I have lived in for over 25 years could be taken from me if I can’t afford the extra rent. “I have become withdrawn and suicidal… I am one of many who may slip out of view, whose invisibility means they are not accounted for…

I hold this Government entirely responsible for the deterioration in my physical and mental health; a deterioration which has lead to me having to cancel the treatment which could prolong my life.” Will you be affected by the ‘bedroom tax’ too?

disabilityinliterature@gmail.com

Pressure from the public can stop the insanity of Iain Duncan Smith’s Department for Work and Pensions, and the other government “reforms” (what a cheek, to suggest changes that will ruin the lives of millions of people are improvements).

But it’s not going to happen if people can’t be bothered to lift a finger. All it takes is an email. If you can read this, surely you can do that?

Source:

http://mikesivier.wordpress.com/2012/12/01/only-you-can-close-the-atos-slaughterhouse/#comments

DLA/PIP Help Groups support this petition and encourage all our members to sign it.

'A Future That Works' - mass demonstration

20 October 2012 - Marching for a future that works!

Hundreds of thousands of people marched for the alternative on 26 March 2011.

We are now back to march for a future that works – on Saturday 20 October 2012 Unite will be marching in London against the cuts and against the coalition. Let’s make sure our presence is huge.+++ March for a future that works – join thousands of people in London on Saturday 20 October +++ March for a future that works – join thousands of people in London on Saturday 20 October +++ March for a future that works – join thousands of people in London on Saturday 20 October+++ 

Links Visit the TUC's: A Future that works campaign page  Check out the draft route for the #Oct20 march Sign up to the Facebook event #oct20: Get the latest TUC updates on twitter





UPDATE: Please take a minute to complete our short survey about PIP and how it will be implemented. The current consultation will end at midnight on 29^th June so your responses before then would be appreciated so that an informed submission can be made by us to the DWP.

Amongst other things this latest consultation asks for responses to questions about stopping DLA (and PIP) for those in Hospital for more than 28 days, which would mean a significant number of people with Motability cars would lose them for comparatively simple ailments that nonetheless affect disabled people disproportionately because of their underlying health conditions, eg Asthma, Diabetes, MS.

There are also questions about the timetable for introduction of PIP from April next year.  They plan to give only 4 weeks notice to those currently on DLA (any rate) to apply for PIP otherwise their DLA stops.

Another section deals with requiring those currently on means tested benefits to undergo a WCA (Work Capability Assessment) AS WELL AS A PIP ASSESSMENT from 2017 when the change over to Universal Credit is completed.

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE BLACK TRIANGLE ANTI-DEFAMATION CAMPAIGN IN DEFENCE OF DISABILITY RIGHTS WEDNESDAY

23^RD MAY 2012 17.00 HRS  

Today at Liverpool the voice of general practice in Britain, the United Kingdom Local Medical Committees (UKLMC) Conference passed the following motion at their annual conference:  

Sponsors: 103 HAMPSHIRE AND ISLE OF WIGHT & 103a SCOTTISH CONFERENCE OF LMCs 

 ...That conference, in respect of work capability assessments (WCA) as performed by ATOS Healthcare, believes that the:  

(i) Inadequate computer based assessments that are used have little regard to the nature or complexity of the needs of long term sick and disabled persons  

(ii) WCA should end with immediate effect and be replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause avoidable harm to some of the weakest and most vulnerable in society.    

Dr. Stephen Carty, member and medical adviser to the Scottish-based campaign group Black Triangle, who tabled the motion which conference carried unanimously with no votes against and no abstentions said:  

 “The voices of Britain’s doctors have spoken. The unjust and inhumane DWP/AtoS Work Capability Assessment régime must now end “with immediate effect”. There are not sufficient safeguards in the present system to prevent avoidable harm [to sick and/or disabled people].”  

 Dr Carty, a GP in Leith, on the edge of Edinburgh, tabled an identical motion at the Scottish LMC Conference in March, where it was overwhelmingly approved, said:
   “Now that the motion is passed it will become policy of the BMA’s General Practice Committee, which negotiates with the government on behalf of GPs and would be expected to push for the WCA to be scrapped”.  

Dr Carty said he hoped the committee would “negotiate in the hardest terms” with the DWP over the WCA.  

In recent evidence he gave to the Scottish Parliament Welfare Reform Committee Dr. Carty told the Scottish Government that “non-cooperation is possible”.   He told the committee that he felt that he was “complicit” in a system that had  been shown to be harmful and which violated the GMC’s recent publication  "Good Medical Practice" guidance; that a doctor must

(overriding duty or principle) take prompt action if he feels that “patient safety is or may be seriously compromised by inadequate… policies or systems”.  

He said “I feel that it is both possible and appropriate to withdraw cooperation unless there are clear changes”.  

Thousands of terrified sick and/or disabled people have been asking our campaign and each other since the motion was carried this morning “but what does this actually mean in practice?”  

 Does it mean that patients no longer have to fear being compelled to attend an assessment where up to 90% of appellants win their appeals (as in the case of those represented by MIND in Oxford this year) with representation and 40% win without representation?  
 Does it mean that I will no longer be forced to subsist in abject penury on next to nothing for an average 10 months while I wait for my appeal comes to come to Tribunal: An ordeal so grueling that many coroners’ inquests have already recorded the stress of this to have been a primary contributor to many vulnerable people having taken their own lives?  
Sadly, it does not. 
 The motion is also set be debated at the BMA’s annual conference for all doctors, to be held next month.
If it is approved at that meeting, the motion will become BMA-wide policy.   A DWP spokesman told Disability News Service last week that “We clearly don’t agree that the WCA should be scrapped… The WCA was developed in close consultation with experts and disability organizations and we are continually working to make sure it is fair and effective… That is why we are implementing recommendations made by our independent reviewer, Professor Malcolm Harrington, and want to keep improving the WCA.”  

 John McArdle, Founding Member of Black Triangle said:   “As a grassroots disability rights campaign group and disabled people’s organization (DPO), constituted and run by and for disabled people, we say that we, the sick and disabled people of Britain have never been consulted in the way that the DWP asserts. The findings of The Spartacus Report “Responsible Reform” exposed once and for all the utter sham passes for the government’s claims to have consulted with disabled people over these so-called ‘reforms’.”  

 He continued “The Harrington Reports are a whitewash. Nobody working with sick and/or disabled people, or disabled people themselves, have seen any improvements to the system.
In fact the system has gotten far, far worse for us and we expect exactly the same thing to happen with the abolition of DLA and the introduction of PIP”.   “We congratulate Paul Farmer CEO of MIND for his recent, honourable resignation from the Government’s WCA Advisory Committee on grounds that the assessment process is “inhumane” and that the Government is not listening after his two years on the panel.” he said  
“We furthermore condemn in the strongest possible terms the new appointment of the CEO of the MS Society Simon Gillespie in replacement of Mr. Farmer and we call upon Sir Michael Marmot, President of the BMA and all other members of the panel to follow Mr. Farmer’s example and withdraw forthwith from this totally discredited body in the light of today’s vote.”  

“Sick and/or disabled people are under full-scale sustained attack by this government whose behaviour is reminiscent of the darkest days of fascism. Now, with all the evidence taken together, far from that statement being hyperbole, it is preposterous to suggest otherwise.   “We say that to this government: “You may pass unjust decrees and seek to carry out policies amounting to little more than Eugenics and Social Darwinism dressed up as “helping ‘the disabled’ back to work” in order to cut £18 billion from the social security budget this year; £10bn next year and a further £25bn (as David Cameron was reported to have considered in the media last week) in the term to come.”  
 He continued: “You may pass these decrees but you cannot compel the members of our medical and allied caring professions to take part in your hatchet job – in violation of every medical and human ethical principle they stand for and live by!.”  
“This is just the beginning. We fight on until all professional bodies and all indeed all of civil society, join with us and the medical profession in refusing to be complicit in policies and systems that are killing sick and disabled people and driving a great many more into penury and destitution. 

 “We say to this Government and its henchmen: You Shall Not Pass!”   http://blacktrianglecampaign.org