disabled

Morning Star Editorial: Benefit fraud hysteria demonises the sick – and threatens all our rights

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-benefit-fraud-hysteria-demonises-sick-and-threatens-all-our-rights

Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall speaking to the media outside the Department for Work and Pensions in Westminster, London, December 17, 2024

LABOUR’S repeated attacks on disabled people are cynical, cruel and, in providing an excuse to legislate for ever-greater state intrusion into private citizens’ lives, a threat to all our freedoms.

Liz Kendall chases headlines with the latest gimmick (banning those found guilty of benefit fraud from driving). More sinister is the resurrection of Tory plans to make banks share information from private accounts and powers for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to seize funds without a court process.

The state already has ample power both to detect and punish benefit fraud: it can make banks share clients’ financial information if there is suspicion of fraud, while those found guilty can be jailed for up to 10 years (courtesy of Keir Starmer in a previous iteration, as director of public prosecutions egging on the then Conservative-Lib Dem coalition’s war on welfare).

This is not about fighting crime. Nor even about cutting costs: benefit fraud amounts to less than 3 per cent of social security spending, and ministers say the new legislation is aimed at saving £1.5 billion over five years, an almost irrelevant sum given annual spending on social security excluding pensions is over £130bn.

It is about creating a climate of fear.

The approach echoes that toward immigration, where endless scaremongering about “small boats” obscures the rarity of such arrivals compared to immigrants who arrive legally.

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Original article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-benefit-fraud-hysteria-demonises-sick-and-threatens-all-our-rights

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 ReadingMorning Star Editorial: Benefit fraud hysteria demonises the sick – and threatens all our rights

DWP wants to reform benefits to cut costs, not help disabled people into work, court hears

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https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-benefit-reforms-disabled-people-judicial-review/

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

The High Court has heard a legal challenge against a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) plan to reform disability benefits under the guise of helping people into employment

“We are determined to have a welfare system that encourages and supports people into work, while providing a vital safety net for those who need it most.”

So began the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) consultation into changing disability benefit assessment rules – changes that are predicted to cut the financial support given to around 450,000 disabled people by 2029, but which the consultation presented entirely as helping them. 

But contrary to this rose tinting, internal DWP documents revealed at a High Court hearing last week suggest the proposals were at least as much about the Tories’ determination to cut benefits spending as they were about helping disabled people into work.

In fact, DWP officials warned that evidence was needed to justify their line that the measures were about supporting disabled people rather than saving money, while the government rushed the consultation through in time for the savings to be counted in last year’s Autumn Statement.

DWP officials were also aware of the potential mental health impact of cutting benefits to some claimants who would be affected by the measures.

And while an official impact assessment into the plans has still not been published, the court disclosures suggest up to 100,000 disabled people could be pushed into absolute poverty by the changes – although the exact basis of this figure is uncertain. 

The revelations came as a result of a judicial review into the legality of the consultation that was heard last week. The case has been brought by disability campaigner Ellen Clifford, a member of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC). 

And while the consultation took place under the last government, the current Labour government has not dropped the planned cuts – and has fought the judicial review at every step. 

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Read the rest of a detailed report at https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-benefit-reforms-disabled-people-judicial-review/

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 ReadingDWP wants to reform benefits to cut costs, not help disabled people into work, court hears

Activists ask why a Labour government is ‘gleefully’ backing Tory plans to tighten work capability assessment

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https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/activists-ask-why-a-labour-government-is-gleefully-backing-tory-plans-to-tighten-work-capability-assessment/

[dizzy: That’s Labour Socialist MP John McDonnell wearing the red tie.]

Disabled activists have questioned why a Labour-run department was in the high court this week defending cuts proposed by the last government which would cause “human suffering” among hundreds of thousands of claimants of out-of-work disability benefits.

They spoke during a vigil outside the Royal Courts of Justice on Tuesday (pictured) as disabled activist Ellen Clifford and her lawyers from Public Law Project were preparing to challenge the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over a “rushed and disingenuous” consultation on plans to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA).

The plans were announced in the 2023 autumn budget, and would see more than 400,000 disabled people losing out on £416 a month by 2028-29, with many also facing strict new conditions and the risk of benefit sanctions that could see them lose even more money.

Clifford says the changes would be “cataclysmic for Deaf and disabled people in the UK and would push many into destitution”.

Labour’s work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, has promised to make the savings promised by the Conservatives, who pledged to cut spending by £2.8 billion in the four years to 2028-29 by tightening the WCA.

Kendall said the government would make these savings by “bringing forward our own proposals”, but she has yet to rule out the WCA changes.

Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, told Tuesday’s vigil that it was “incomprehensible that the new Labour government is picking up these plans and seemingly running ahead with them in glee”.

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https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/activists-ask-why-a-labour-government-is-gleefully-backing-tory-plans-to-tighten-work-capability-assessment/

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 ReadingActivists ask why a Labour government is ‘gleefully’ backing Tory plans to tighten work capability assessment

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

Morning Star Editorial: A cruel campaign against benefit claimants won’t solve Britain’s health crisis

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cruel-campaign-against-benefit-claimants-wont-solve-britains-health-crisis

Prime Minister Keir Starmer during a bilateral meeting with Kristalina Georgieva, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, at the Cop29 climate summit in Baku, Azerbaijan, November 12, 2024

IF KEIR STARMER were serious about treating people who receive social security payments with “dignity and respect,” he would not have announced his crackdown in the Mail on Sunday, or used it to rail against “criminals” who “game the system.”

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The presumption of guilt is built into the successive wars on “benefit cheats.” It grossly exaggerates the scale of benefit fraud, feeding hostility to the social security system itself. It encourages suspicion of anyone claiming, and was certainly linked to the steady rise in hate crimes against disabled people recorded over 14 years of Tory government.

The assault on disabled and chronically ill people was among the cruellest policies of those governments.

Whistleblowers exposed jobcentre staff being handed targets to cut the number of people receiving payments. “Fit for work” tests were slammed by medical professionals for setting claimants up to fail.

The DWP admitted in 2015 that thousands of people passed as “fit for work” died within months; there were even cases where people starved to death after their benefits were cut, like Errol Graham, whose body was only discovered by the bailiffs sent to evict him.

Labour should be rejecting a Tory inheritance that persecutes some of Britain’s most vulnerable.

But it shows little sign of doing so, with Rachel Reeves pledging to continue Tory amendments to the work capability assessment that narrow eligibility criteria and are likely to cost disabled people hundreds of pounds a month.

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Original article at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/cruel-campaign-against-benefit-claimants-wont-solve-britains-health-crisis

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 ReadingMorning Star Editorial: A cruel campaign against benefit claimants won’t solve Britain’s health crisis