disability benefits

Labour doubles down on slashing billions from DWP’s disability benefits bill

Spread the love

https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-disability-benefits-bill-high-court-ruling/

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall speaking in parliament. Image: House of Commons/ Flickr

The Labour government has indicated that it will stick with Tory plans to cut disability benefits after a High Court judge ruled the previous government’s consultation into the plans was unlawful.

The proposals would cut around £400 a month from the disability benefits of hundreds of thousands of new applicants by 2029, compared to what they would receive under the current system.

Earlier today (16 January) Mr Justice Calver ruled in favour of disability activist Ellen Clifford, who had brought a judicial review of the public consultation that was held by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in autumn 2023. 

The proposals would change the way the work capability assessment (WCA) functions, by reducing the weight attached to difficulties with mobility and getting around in considering applicants’ level of disability. 

Responding to today’s verdict, a government spokesperson said: “The judge has found the previous government failed to adequately explain their proposals. As part of wider reforms that help people into work and ensure fiscal sustainability, the government will re-consult on the WCA descriptor changes, addressing the shortcomings in the previous consultation, in light of the judgment.

“The government intends to deliver the full level of savings in the public finances forecasts.”

It is not clear if Labour will consult on all the proposals in the original consultation, some of which were subsequently dropped, or whether it will only consult on the proposals that the last government chose to take forward.

The High Court ruling doesn’t force the government to ditch the proposals, although it would make it very difficult to proceed with them without holding a new consultation first. 

…

Article continues at https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-disability-benefits-bill-high-court-ruling/

Continue ReadingLabour doubles down on slashing billions from DWP’s disability benefits bill

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

Spread the love

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.

…

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

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

Spread the love

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.
Continue ReadingBenefit Fraud: The Right-Wing Lie that Refuses to Die