If the Welfare Reform Bill passes, the results will be horrific and at the Department for Work and Pensions, they are confident that it is a price worth paying.
Sue Marsh blogs at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger
Recently, it was reported that Crisis, the charity for the homeless, had warned 11,000 young disabled people were at risk of losing their homes due to the coalition’s housing benefit cap:
“Although 4,000 of the most vulnerable disabled claimants will be exempt because they need help through the day or night, most ill and disabled people will be forced to move into cheaper accommodation, often outside the area where they live.”
Those aged 25-34 will now only be able to rent shared accommodation rather than a one bed flat, on average, losing £41 per week towards their rent. The article makes the point that:
“This disturbing cut will force people suffering serious physical disabilities or mental illness to share with strangers, even if it damages their health.”
Well, yes it will and it is shocking. Not too shocking of course until we start to see things that make us feel uncomfortable. Not too shocking until we pass twisted bodies on the streets, their collecting cup lodged into their wheelchair handles, but shocking nonetheless.
Actually the really shocking thing is the accumulation of all the cuts faced by sick or disabled people and the effect it will have on their lives and almost certainly, their homes.
We already face the squeeze that able bodied people face. The VAT rise, the high inflation, the public sector cuts, the pay freezes, but overwhelmingly this group already live in poverty. On top of all of this, Scope report that sick and disabled people will lose £9.2 billion over the term of this parliament.
“The government’s proposed welfare reforms will see 3.5 million disabled people lose over £9.2 billion of critical support by 2015 pushing them further into poverty and closer to the fringes of society.”
The figure 9.2 billion is more than 10 per cent of Mr Osborne’s entire UK cuts to reduce the deficit. A full 10% taken from those with extra costs, extra needs and very, very difficult lives; it doesn’t matter how often I write it, I am shocked and terrified by its implications.
That’s 3.5 million people. Again, I write it and can hardly believe it’s true. Many don’t yet know what they face. Some will never know – their disabilities are too severe – but they will be affected just the same.
I have no idea how many of those 3.5 million will lose their homes, but the maths seems fairly clear. The entire cost (xls) to the welfare budget of sickness and disability benefits is £16 billion. 9.2 billion is over half of that.
I’m sure that unlike me, you won’t want to read this lengthy transcript of the Welfare Reform Bill committee, currently on its last stages through parliament, but I wish you would. After all these points were made and more, after a full discussion of the horrors that lie ahead for the sick and disabled, the poverty they are facing, the categorical failure of work programmes to help when their benefits are removed, Chris Grayling, Minister of State for Work and Pensions, had little to say.
To summarise, his answer was “I don’t care, we can no longer afford it…”
I don’t exaggerate – I wish I did. You can read it for yourselves. So, if I were you, I’d get used to seeing sick or disabled people on the streets. If this bill passes, the results will be horrific and at the DWP, they are confident that it is a price worth paying.
152 Responses to “The shocking impact of Osborne’s heartless cuts on the disabled”
Douglas
If I had my way, those landlords who refuse to drop rents for sick/disabled people and then force them to leave should have their property confiscated by the state with no compensation. It is not sick and disabled people who are the parasites, it is those who make a profit off our already-weakened backs.
If they’re going to play tough with the already weakest in society, they must expect a battle. Many of us have nothing much to lose, and when society attacks those with little to lose, we know what often happens. I’m sure the image of the police attacking disabled people who have been made homeless through no fault of their own will be a nice little PR problem for call-me-Dave.
Anon E Mouse
Douglas – I most certainly do not resent anyone in life – able bodied or otherwise.
Despite the possible Socialist tag, I do agree that where landlords are paid from benefits they should have their rates capped. What I cannot understand is why other people do not see it that way and have to agree with Robert I’m afraid about Sue Marsh’s agenda.
Thanks’s for agreeing it’s not fair. Sue Marsh seems unable to see anything that gets in the way of getting a Labour government back in power which is a disastrous idea with the clowns in the shadow cabinet at the moment.
Scandalousbill’s a decent fella and I know I can count on his honesty in my question as well…
Douglas
I disagree with your assessment of Sue. She is definitely more interested in fighting for the sick/disabled than seeing a Labour government back in power. She has been probably THE most tireless campaigner for the weakest in society for YEARS. Sue has, on her blog, gone out of her way many MANY times to condemn Labour who started the attacks on sick and disabled people, yes, even when they were in power. Especially the odious, anti-human Purnell.
I definitely feel, myself, that Sue is on my side and not trying to further a purely Labour agenda. Most disabled people I know cannot bring themselves to even think of voting Labour again until they thoroughly change their ways, myself included.
big pawed bear
let’s get one thing straight here, it is the government, not the working man who set the levels of hb. so the working man has no say over how much of his taxes goes to pay hb. the railing should be at the government saying to the landlords, hey, here’s a nice little earner, state sponsered too. i do not think the sick and disabled should be scapegoated for something they cannot change. policy can change, disabilities for the most part cannot. and i’m not talking about a broken leg here either.
DavidG
@Mouse: “Socialism doesn’t work”
How cleverly you avoid answering the question of whether you are willing to pay to support disabled people. You say that you are fully aware of our ‘plight’, and yet you continuously work to deride and undermine the people here who actually are disabled, accusing them of amateur dramatics, outright falsehood, trying to imply we support fraud. It seems you think we should be seen and not heard.
” I do not believe that your silly remarks such as stating that newspaper stories are the same as government policy”
So if IDS launches an attack on disabled people in the DWP press release, having been warned barely three weeks ago by Scope that these press releases are resulting in increased attacks on disabled people, and three different Tory rags produce near identical stories demonising disabled people for daring to claim DLA with something as trivial as a ‘bad back’, complete with quotes from anonymous ‘sources close to the reforms’ which set out to deliberately mislead the public, then how exactly does he bear no responsibility for the result? Remember, he has been warned of the consequences, he has issued the attack nonetheless, and members of his team have engaged in off-the-record briefings. Which part of the ethics of personal responsibility are you having difficulty with?
“Your problem is Labour lost the election”
Then why is my blog from a couple of weeks ago entitled “Disabled People: Still Labour’s Whipping Boy” ( http://wheresthebenefit.blogspot.com/2011/05/disabled-people-still-labours-whipping.html ) Why have I criticised the latest speeches from Stephen Timms (available on this site) and Ed Balls (see Labour on Facebook) for failing to address the needs of disabled people? Why have I similarly criticised not just David Cameron, but Nick Clegg? My problem is not with individual parties, but with the policies of all parties towards disabled people.
You’re very quick to try and deride other people and wrap yourself in the bloody flag of ‘honesty’, but I’m curious as to why it is that you continuously work so hard to deny that disabled people are facing horrific cuts and a deterioration in the behaviour of the public towards them.