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Category: benefits

  • Benefit Fraud: The Right-Wing Lie that Refuses to Die

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/benefit-fraud-the-right-wing-lie-that-refuses-to-die/

    For many right-wing politicians and their media allies, ‘welfare cheats’ is a line that bears endless repetition.

    News broke this week that the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is investigating the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP)  over its treatment of disabled people, specifically whether the department failed to make reasonable adjustments for people with learning disabilities or long-term mental health conditions when carrying out benefit health assessments. 

    “The DWP has been failing disabled people for decades now” and “full transparency and accountability is imperative,” said David Linden MP, the SNP’s Social Justice Spokesperson, in response to news of the investigation.

    For years, successive Tory governments and the media ecosystems that support them, have demonised benefit claimants, presenting them as ‘scroungers,’ ‘frauds’ and ‘cheats.’ Who can forget the Sun’s ‘Beat the Cheat’ campaign in 2012, encouraging readers to be “patriotic” by reporting suspected benefit cheats to a benefit fraud hotline? In 2016, the then chancellor George Osborne refused to apologise for attempting to slice £4.4bn off benefits for people with disabilities, as he defended his controversial budget which led to the resignation of the work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith.

    Today, very little has changed, except that the country is mired in a cost-of-living crisis that has fuelled the sharpest increase in absolute poverty in 30 years.

    …

    Disability benefit fraud a ‘non-issue’

    Meanwhile, separate and more recent DWP figures show that there were almost no recorded losses to the taxpayer due to fraud in the disability benefits system in the financial year ending 2024.

    Disability Living Allowance fraud was just 0.1 percent, rounded down to £0m. PIP cheating was found to be 0 percent in the same period, the data showed.

    PIP overpayments represented 0.4 percent, equating to around £90m lost in a year, marking a significant decrease from the previous year, when such overpayments stood 1.1 percent (£200m). The overpayments were said to be mainly due to errors made by the department when allocating award levels at the assessment stage.

    Responding to the figures, Mikey Erhardt, campaigner at Disability Rights UK described PIP fraud as a ‘non-issue.’

    “New data shows what we, as disabled people, have known for years – PIP fraud is a non-issue. PIP fraud is now the lowest on record – despite the government placing fraud front and centre of their latest public announcements,” he said.

    Erhardt added: “If the government is concerned about fraud, it would be serious about the £15.2bn that multinational companies hide from the UK via tax havens. Money which could fund public services that we all need and use. Instead, disabled people continue to be demonised.”

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/benefit-fraud-the-right-wing-lie-that-refuses-to-die/

    UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak describes his benefit to already filthy rich fossil fuel investors and how he hates poor people.
    UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak describes his benefit to already filthy rich fossil fuel investors and how he hates poor people.

  • DWP under investigation by equalities regulator over treatment of disabled people

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/dwp-under-investigation-by-equalities-regulator-over-treatment-of-disabled-people/

    EHRC ‘extremely worried’ about the treatment of disabled benefits claimants by the government department

    An investigation has been launched into whether the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) broke equality law over its treatment of disabled benefits claimants. 

    The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) is investigating a suspicion that the department failed to make reasonable adjustments for people with learning disabilities or long-term mental health conditions when carrying out benefit health assessments. 

    A further probe will be carried out into whether the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions’ was compliant with equality commitments when developing, implementing and monitoring policy guidance into health assessments. 

    The regulator first started looking into the department after a group of MPs recommended in 2021 an investigation into the deaths of vulnerable claimants, including by suicide, between 2008 and 2020. 

    Following this, the EHRC found further action was required and has now decided to pursue a formal investigation, the first of its kind into a government department. 

    …

    Article continues at https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/dwp-under-investigation-by-equalities-regulator-over-treatment-of-disabled-people/

  • Voters support calls for two-child benefit limit to be scrapped

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/voters-support-calls-for-two-child-benefit-limit-to-be-scrapped/

    Image of Keir Starmer and a poor child.
    Zionist Keir ‘Kid Starver’ Starmer. Image thanks to The Skwawkbox.

    It comes amid calls from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to scrap the two-child benefit limit

    A new poll shows that voters support calls to scrap the two-child benefit limit, a policy which charities and think tanks say has pushed hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

    The poll, carried out by Opinium, for Save the Children and shared exclusively with i, suggests that this would be a politically popular move for Labour, ‘with 39 per cent of the public claiming it would make them more likely to vote for whichever party made the pledge’.

    It comes amid calls from former Prime Minister Gordon Brown as well as the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, to scrap the two-child benefit limit, with the archbishop calling it a cruel and immoral policy that plunges hundreds of thousands of children into poverty.

    The two-child benefit cap prevents parents from claiming child tax credit or universal credit for any third or subsequent child born after April 2017. It was introduced by the former chancellor George Osborne in his austerity drive with the aim of encouraging parents of larger families to find a job or work more hours.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/voters-support-calls-for-two-child-benefit-limit-to-be-scrapped/

  • Food bank charity launches General Election Manifesto, setting out actions for the next government to eliminate poverty

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/food-bank-charity-launches-general-election-manifesto-setting-out-actions-for-the-next-government-to-eliminate-poverty/

    ‘It is not right that anyone should need to use a food bank because they can’t afford to eat and pay bills. However, food bank need is at an historic high.’

    On May 15, the Trussell Trust, the UK’s largest food bank charity and a leading voice on poverty and hunger, released its annual figures. In the last year, 3.1 million food parcels were distributed by their network, the most parcels the network has ever distributed in a single year. It is also a 94 percent increase in the total number of parcels distributed compared to five years ago.

    Facing historic food bank need in 2024, the charity says this long-term pattern needs to change and is urging for urgent reform to Britain’s social security system. 

    In its General Election Manifesto, the Trussell Trust is calling on all political parties to commit to building a future where no one needs a food bank to survive. The charity asks for an Essential Guarantee into Universal credit to be introduced, that would protect people from going without essentials, such as food and bills. They urge for debt deductions from social security payments to be more affordable, and for there to be a long-term strategy and funding for local crisis support.

    …

    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/food-bank-charity-launches-general-election-manifesto-setting-out-actions-for-the-next-government-to-eliminate-poverty/

  • DWP to hire ‘external agents’ in crackdown on benefit fraud that government’s own data shows doesn’t exist

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    https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/dwp-to-hire-external-agents-in-crackdown-on-benefit-fraud-that-governments-own-data-shows-doesnt-exist/

    ‘If the government is concerned about fraud, it would be serious about the £15.2bn that multinational companies hide from the UK via tax havens.’

    As the government continues to crack down on so-called benefit fraud and reform the welfare system with stricter measures, newly released statistics by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that there were almost no recorded cases of disability fraud in the financial year ending 2024.

    Disability Living Allowance fraud was just 0.1 percent, rounded off to £0m. Personal independence payment (PIP) cheating was found to be 0 percent in the same period, the data showed.

    PIP overpayments represented 0.4 percent, equating to around £90m lost in a year, marking a significant decrease from the previous year, when such overpayments stood 1.1 percent (£200m). The overpayments were said to be mainly due to errors made by the department when allocating award levels at the assessment stage.

    In response to the DWP’s figures, Mikey Erhardt, campaigner at Disability Rights UK described PIP fraud as a ‘non-issue.’

    “New data shows what we, as disabled people, have known for years – PIP fraud is a non-issue. PIP fraud is now the lowest on record – despite the government placing fraud front and centre of their latest public announcements,” said Erhardt.

    …

    …https://leftfootforward.org/2024/05/dwp-to-hire-external-agents-in-crackdown-on-benefit-fraud-that-governments-own-data-shows-doesnt-exist/