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”
molly
Well done Sue another brilliant piece sadly ruined by small minded people who are not interested in what you have to say but just want to have an arguement to satisfy their small minds. How can anyone not see how the governments cuts are affecting everyone? Except the richest people in the country who have made record profits on their millions!! My next door neighbour is a lovely disabled lady who has had her council property modified and adapted for her needs. She has been left in tears since the letter from the council arrived telling her the increase in rent and the stopping of her daily carer who helps her manage to live on her own. She was a nurse for 46 years and paid her taxes for what? The local meals on wheels service has had to close and the day centre she looked forward to attending twice a week has shut due to council cuts. The prognosis of her situation is bleak. She has been happy living in her home for 36 years and with the meals on wheels and her carer she has been able to manage to keep living in her property. She is now having to face the prospect of selling her possessions and moving into a council run home. The cost of this compared with the carer and meals on wheels is completely outrageous. How can the government not see that they may be making savings one way but in the long run the costs will escalate the other way. In addition, surely she has paid enough taxes to secure her the right to live the end of her days in the way she wanted, in the home she has lived in for so long.
I feel extremely disgusted at the way this country is treating the old, infirm, disabled, students and any other category that is feeling the attack by the government and the people who feel they have more right to services than others. The media propaganda has worked brilliantly for the government by turning people againgst each other and as the above negative posts have shown there is a lot of people who are not prepared to listen to the real truth about how the cuts are affecting everyday people. I totally agree with Douglas above who says would they be happy if we all were shot? Who would they pick on then? probably each other!!
Please dont get disheartened Sue by such ignorant people who are not prepared to take the time to read up on facts and fiqures but read the daily mail and believe the government induced lies. You are a voice for hundreds of pople that live in this country without a voice and I look forward to reading your next report with interest.
Anon E Mouse
scandalousbill – Despite Sue Marsh’s attempt to work the statistics to allow her hand wringing, wailing and negative ‘opinion’ to be taken as fact (and in my assessment to try to differentiate between people with disabilities and those able bodied instead of being inclusive) tell me how many people you think will be “thrown on the street” by actions of this coalition government.
Give me a number scandalousbill – we both know this is nothing more than this author trying to forward her Labour agenda. Again. As for the research what do you expect from a report from Demos?
As for the young person in Dorset priced out by the rich would those toffs include Harriet Harman, Polly Toynbee, Luciana Berger, David Garrard or Gulam Noon?
Anon E Mouse
DavidG – You asked me about socialism and got your answer.
At no point have I passed any comment on the disabled – just the fact this author is using disability as a means of promoting her Labour Party views and then refusing to answer any question put before her and finally doing the ignoring trick – “I disagree with you so I’m refusing to respond”. Throw in a bit of smearing and the suggestion that I have something against the disabled, which is far from the truth and Sue Marsh seems to have all the qualifications to be a Labour MP in a Brown style government. A government she voted for.
You yourself DavidG are trying to say that you and I are different and I just don’t see that. Some people are able bodied and some less so. You live with your victim mentality if you wish but do not accuse me of something I haven’t said – it is dishonest.
Regarding your offensive “Ethnic Cleansing” remark try this: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/africa-atrocities-pictures/15969
That’s why I find your comment truly disgusting to compare some government cuts to those poor human beings. Shame on you sir.
You have a weird sense of right and wrong DavidG. But I bet you ignore the point anyway. Again…
scandalousbill
Anon,
You say:
“Give me a number scandalousbill – we both know this is nothing more than this author trying to forward her Labour agenda. Again. As for the research what do you expect from a report from Demos?”
Do you read the Ops before commenting?
Sue cites the estimate given by Crisis that has predicted 11,000 disabled persons face homelessness.
http://www.crisis.org.uk/pressreleases.php/448/11000-disabled-people-face-losing-their-homes
Crisis cite Government statistic, among other sources, as the basis for their calculations and projection:
“These figures come from an Equality Impact Assessment of the measure published by the Department for Work and Pensions this month: http://www.dwp.gov.uk/docs/eia-hb-shared-accommodation-age-threshold.pdf “
Do I feel that the impacts Crisis describe will occur once the legislation takes effect? Absolutely. In fact I fear these figures may well be conservative. I think that the unit cost basis indicated by Grayling in the exchange between him and Timms on Welfare Reform, that I previously referenced, implies that greater the disability of the individual the more that person will suffer. For me, this is a most pathetic way to obtain “savings”.
BTW, 13 eastie, this is far from your notion of belt tightening. Reduction of care to the most vulnerable differs strongly from going out to dinner less often for “savings”; it translates directly into the enforced suffering of those less able. I am not sure if your comments on this topic reflect your demonstrated insensitivity or simply an underlying bigotry.
Anon E Mouse
scandalousbill – I don’t believe it. Never believed there would be a double dip recession either – it’s just negative Labour supporting scaremongering. Nothing more.
The clue is in the headline “could lose their homes”. ‘Could’ is the operative word here. Not ‘will’. No one is going to lose their home. Forget “Jennifer’s Ear”, the Tories won’t do it.
To forward her agenda, Sue Marsh is citing these reports as gospel and they simply cannot be taken as such.
No one can make the statement that Crisis did that: “Applying this lower rate to single people under 35 will mean average losses of £41 per week for those affected, with the vast majority losing their homes”.
To make that statement as definitively as that person does, ignoring the “Well they would say that wouldn’t they”, is tantamount to idiocy. How can Crisis possibly know the outcomes of 11000 individual people?
They can’t. It can only be an opinion, not a fact. And I reiterate the stance I have taken throughout regarding Sue Marsh and her sycophantic love of the Labour Party and her wish to forward her agenda of getting that throughly discredited party back into power. Because that’s what she’d like.
That’s all this is and I concur with Robert I’m afraid…