work capability assessment

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

MPs back disability activist calls for public inquiry into DWP deaths

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mps-back-disability-activist-calls-public-inquiry-dwp-deaths

John McDonnell, Labour MP for Hayes and Harlington speaks at an anti-racism rally and march in central London organised by Stand Up To Racism and trade unions, March 16, 2024

MPs have joined disability activists calling for a public inquiry into deaths linked to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell MP has tabled an early day motion urging the government to set up the probe.

It states: “That this House notes the shocking evidence published by John Pring in his recent book [on] the harm, too often leading to fatalities, inflicted on disabled people by the DWP since the introduction of the work capability assessment.”

It calls on the government to establish an independent public inquiry into the role played by ministers, civil servants and advisers and their culpability for the suffering identified in this research.

Labour’s Jon Trickett, Mary Kelly Foy and Ian Lavery; SDLP’s Claire Hanna; and DUP’s Jim Shannon have sponsored the motion. Labour MP Grahame Morris has also backed it.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/mps-back-disability-activist-calls-public-inquiry-dwp-deaths

Continue ReadingMPs back disability activist calls for public inquiry into DWP deaths

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: The good, the bad and the ugly in the Labour Budget

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-good-bad-and-ugly-labour-budget

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.

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So-called austerity is best understood as a massive transfer of wealth — from public to private, from the many to the few, as the fortunes of the super-rich ballooned while Britain endured the longest wage squeeze since the Napoleonic wars.

This is a grotesquely unequal country in which big banks and energy giants post the largest profits in their history, in which the richest 1 per cent own more than the poorer 70 per cent of the population put together, in which millions rely on foodbanks while the number of billionaires increased by a fifth during the Covid crisis alone.

When Reeves gives with one hand and takes away with the other — as PCS leader Fran Heathcote notes she does by offering a 1.7 per cent increase in departmental spending, while setting a 2 per cent savings target for those same departments — she cites pressure on the public finances that could be relieved easily through higher corporation tax, a financial transactions tax or a wealth tax. As Unite’s Sharon Graham notes, a 1 per cent tax on the richest 1 per cent would raise £25 billion, filling the so-called “black hole” in the budget at a stroke.

It is a choice to keep children in poverty with the two-child benefit cap, to pick pensioners’ pockets with the winter fuel payment cut and to continue Tory “reform” of the work capability assessment — estimated to cost over 400,000 people with mobility or mental health problems over £400 a month.

It is a choice to echo Tory hysteria over benefit fraud, when the amount lost to this is less than goes unclaimed in social security payments people are entitled to. Giving the Department for Work & Pensions power to remove money directly from bank accounts will likely increase non-take-up of benefits by people who need them but understandably fear their personal finances being exposed in this way.

And it’s a choice to hike the cost of a bus ticket by 50 per cent while maintaining a fuel duty freeze — when governments across Europe are making public transport cheaper because it is essential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

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https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/editorial-good-bad-and-ugly-labour-budget

Continue ReadingMorning Star: The good, the bad and the ugly in the Labour Budget

‘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