Department for Work and Pensions

DWP’s ‘misleading and unfair’ consultation on disability benefit reforms unlawful, High Court rules

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https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-disability-benefits-reforms-consultation-ruling/

A meeting of the child poverty taskforce. From left to right: Mayor of the North East Kim McGuinness, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall and education secretary Bridget Phillippson. Image: Department for Education/ Flickr

Tory ministers presented reforms to disability benefits as a way to support disabled people into work – and they would have seen many worse off by at least £416.19 per month

The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) consultation into plans to slash billions of pounds from disability benefits has been ruled unlawful in a damning High Court judgement.

In a judgment published this morning (16 January), Mr Justice Calver said that the judicial review, brought by disability activist Ellen Clifford, had “surmounted the substantial hurdle of establishing that the consultation was so unfair as to be unlawful”.

Repeatedly describing the DWP consultation in autumn 2023 as “misleading”, “rushed” and “unfair”, he said:

• The consultation documents failed to highlight the “substantial” loss of benefits facing those affected by the proposals.

• The consultation gave the “misleading impression” that changes were required to ensure deaf and disabled people could access employment support, when they could already choose to access this voluntarily.

• Despite the consultation presenting the changes as being solely about helping disabled people into work, in reality “costs savings was at least one of the two bases, if not the central basis, on which decisions would be taken on which policies would be taken forward by the government”.

• The eight-week consultation was unlawfully short in the circumstances.

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Article continues at https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-disability-benefits-reforms-consultation-ruling/

Continue ReadingDWP’s ‘misleading and unfair’ consultation on disability benefit reforms unlawful, High Court rules

Disabled activist in court to challenge benefit assessment reforms

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/disabled-activists-court-challenge-benefit-assessment-reforms

Department for Work & Pensions in Westminster, London

DISABLED activist Ellen Clifford began her legal challenge against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) today over the government’s “disingenuous” consultation on tightening the Work Capability Assessment.

Ms Clifford, represented by lawyers from Public Law Project, appeared at the High Court in London for the first of a two-day hearing to argue that the consultation was unlawful as it did not properly explain the conditions of the proposed changes.

The challenge also argues that the primary motive behind the consultation, which ran for eight weeks in 2023, was to reduce spending on disability benefits rather than to get more people into work.

Disability rights campaigners affected by the proposed changes also held a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice today.

Ahead of the hearing, Ms Clifford said: “More than 400,000 people will be worse off by £416 a month if the changes proposed in this consultation go ahead.

“And then there is the risk that people will lose even more money if they are sanctioned for not being able to comply with conditions they will now need to fulfil in order to receive their benefits.

“To be blunt, this would be cataclysmic for deaf and disabled people in the UK and would push many into destitution.”

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/disabled-activists-court-challenge-benefit-assessment-reforms

Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.

Continue ReadingDisabled activist in court to challenge benefit assessment reforms

100,000 older people at risk of being pushed into poverty by winter fuel cuts

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/100000-older-people-at-risk-of-being-pushed-into-poverty-by-winter-fuel-cuts

An elderly woman counting loose change

PENSIONER anger erupted at Labour as government figures conceded that 100,000 older people risk being pushed into poverty by the cut in winter fuel payments.

The National Pensioners Convention (NPC) renewed demands that ministers do a U-turn on the controversial cut, announced by Chancellor Rachel Reeves shortly after assuming office.

NPC general secretary Jan Shortt said she was “gravely concerned” by figures included in an analysis revealed by the Department for Work and Pensions this week.

These showed that the removal of the benefit will plunge around 50,000 pensioners into relative poverty next year, and the same number again by the end of the decade.

Ms Shortt said: “We find it completely unacceptable that an extra 50,000 to 100,000 older people will fall into poverty as a result of the decision to means-test the winter fuel payment.

“The message to older people is that the government is happy to accept them as collateral damage. The government must know these older people are not the ‘broadest shoulders’ they keep saying must pay to fix the economic deficit.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/100000-older-people-at-risk-of-being-pushed-into-poverty-by-winter-fuel-cuts

Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Continue Reading100,000 older people at risk of being pushed into poverty by winter fuel cuts

More than 250 UK unpaid carers risk prosecution over benefit overpayments

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https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/14/unpaid-carers-risk-prosecution-unwittingly-breaching-benefit-rules-dwp

The Department for Work and Pensions has been imposing harsh penalties on carers who breach overpayment rules by as little as £1. Photograph: Jozef Polc/Alamy

Guardian Exclusive: Campaigners urge ministers to intervene to prevent cruel punishments over carer’s allowance

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A series of Guardian articles have highlighted the often cruel punishments and harsh financial penalties imposed by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) on carers who do part-time paid jobs, causing public outrage and leading to comparisons to the Post Office scandal.

As many as one in five carer’s allowance claimants have been hit by “cliff-edge” punishments for breaching earnings limits, where going just £1 over the weekly limit means having to repay the entire benefit. A carer who earned £1 more than the £151 threshold for 52 weeks would pay back not £52 but £4,258.80.

The latest figures suggest as many as 259 carers have come into scope for legal proceedings since April after unwittingly building up large overpayments. A key criterion for referring claimants to the Crown Prosecution Service for fraud is that the overpayment sum is more than £5,000.

In two cases since April, carers have been forced to repay more than £20,000, which suggests the DWP failed to spot the allowance earnings breaches for nearly five years, even though in theory it would have been alerted electronically to the infringements early on by HMRC.

Separate figures, obtained under freedom of information laws, show thousands more carers are unknowingly building up large debts because there is an administrative backlog of 29,000 carer’s allowance cases awaiting investigation for possible breaches of earning limits.

The Carers Trust estimates a further 10,000 carers could be caught by the system over the next few months and it has urged ministers to write off any carer’s allowance overpayment charges while the review is under way.

“The review is very welcome but these alarming figures show that the root cause of the problem hasn’t gone away,” said the charity’s director of policy, Dominic Carter. “The flaws with these overpayment demands are well known by now so it is staggering that many carers are still suffering the consequences.”

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Read the original article at https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/14/unpaid-carers-risk-prosecution-unwittingly-breaching-benefit-rules-dwp

Continue ReadingMore than 250 UK unpaid carers risk prosecution over benefit overpayments

‘Disturbing’ disability benefit reforms in Labour’s budget will see hundreds of thousands denied help

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Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.
Keir Starmer says pensioners can freeze to death and poor children can starve and be condemned to failure and misery all their lives.

https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/disability-benefit-reforms-autumn-budget/

These measures will not affect current claimants, but they will impact those applying for the first time from next year, and anyone who comes off the benefit and then later reapplies for it or whose circumstances change

Hundreds of thousands of people with health conditions could miss out on financial support after the chancellor confirmed plans to tighten the disability benefits system.

In her autumn budget, Rachel Reeves said that Labour will honour proposals brought forward by the Conservative government to reform the work capability assessment.

This is an assessment which people with health conditions and disabilities undergo to determine their capability for work and if they will get an extra amount of universal credit.

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Previous figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) showed that 457,000 people will face lower benefits or higher work search conditions by 2028/2029 as a result of the reforms, which are expected to save the government around £3bn.

Disability charities have called the plans “devastating”. Richard Kramer, chief executive of Sense, said: “The government’s decision today is deeply disturbing for disabled people. They have chosen to continue the previous government’s harmful plans to reduce access to benefits.

“This risks undermining the wellbeing of disabled people, and the consequences could be devastating. Disabled households are living in crisis, their current welfare benefits barely cover the essentials and spiralling food and energy costs have pushed many into debt and despair.

“But instead of choosing to give disabled people proper financial support and beginning to transform lives, the government has played into the dangerous narrative that disabled people should be forced to work and tightened the work capability assessment. They did this knowing that not all disabled people can work.”

The DWP previously confirmed that the reforms will cut the number of people due to be put onto the highest tier of incapacity benefits by more than 424,000 people, equating to a loss of almost £400 every month per person.

“This contemptible measure is purely about saving money at disabled people’s expense. It will force still more disabled people into poverty,” Kramer said. “We are demanding that this dismal decision is urgently reversed. We need the government to realise that benefits are a lifeline and disabled people need more financial support not less.

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https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/disability-benefit-reforms-autumn-budget/

Continue Reading‘Disturbing’ disability benefit reforms in Labour’s budget will see hundreds of thousands denied help