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”
Selohesra
Hypothetically Bill are you in favour of cuts being applied to the benefits of the least vunerable or do you oppose all cuts. If it is the former could we not all unite to focus attention on the clear missuses of benefit money – give the government a clear run on that for the sake of the country and perhaps they would have more time left over to establish more safety nets for the very hardest off.
Kate
Many thanks to Sue for her article and tireless campaigning on behalf of the disabled. Many thanks too to DavidG, Barbs, Douglas and Jenna for their informed responses. I’m astounded and by some of the drivel that’s been posted on here. I can reiterate what has been said, only far more eloquently by those names mentioned above. If Mouse wants to attack anybody, s/he should be attacking the bankers who are now back to paying themselves obscene bonuses. S/he should be attacking the tax evaders and avoiders which dwarfes benefit fraud. S/he should be attacking the MPs who fiddle their expenses. Benefit fraud is about as low as it gets, you will never get a system that is 100% free of fraud. There are also millions UNCLAIMED in benefits every year.
The fact that the old chestnut about people ‘living in mansions’ on benefits suggests to me that the readers have indeed been swallowing chunks of the Daily Hate Mail or its ilk. Most of the press are Tory-owned, with the exception of The Guardian, The Observer and The Independent. If you want to know the facts, instead of propaganda, then I suggest you read these.
As for likening of this situation to Nazi Germany. It was, in fact, the disabled who were the first group to be targeted by the Nazis. It began with the propaganda. This makes it easier for governments to justify their attacks ie if they have the Daily Mail reading public on their side. Above the gates of Auschwitz was the sign Arbeit Macht Frei.
As for talk about being a taxpayer on the minimum wage. Many people on the minimum wage won’t even come into the tax bracket. Does that make them any less of a taxpayer? So it is with people on Incapacity Benefit. They are taxpayers too which the government and the Tory Hate Press conveniently forget. Oh and before you accuse me (I can only speak for myself) about wanting a return to New Labour. For those of us old enough to remember, New Labour were more right-wing that Ted Heath’s government on the 1970s. They have bought into the whole market and global economy. Successive governments now are different shades of the same blue and are slaves to the market and monetarist economics. Each according to his ability each according to his needs comes from the true Socialists who have absolutely nothing to do with Labour. However, old Labour were much nearer the idea of social justice than anybody we have seen post-Thatcher
Anon E Mouse
Kate – I have attacked all those things you mention and will continue to do so. When Gordon Brown claimed £12500 in cash and no receipt to pay to his brother for cleaning a flat he had never lived in I was livid, Really was.
Any paper like the Guardian that criticises bankers for their offshore accounts and tax avoidance whilst doing exactly the same themselves on a greater scale I have no time for. It’s called hypocrisy.
When am organisation pays for the Wikileaks information whilst condemning phone hacking and employing the dreadful Polly Toynbee can’t really be taken seriously.
I voted Labour my whole life until Brown and I never mentioned any Nazi’s you did. That’s just your smearing and spin against people who don’t share your twisted views on the world.
Sue Marsh is a Labour tribalist, who according to Robert is putting her desire to get Labour re-elected before the needs of people with disabilities. She does the people she claims to represent a disservice but in terms of her own self promotion she seems to be doing alright.
Finally before you praised DavidG who compared government cuts to Ethnic Cleansing did you actually click the link: http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/featured/africa-atrocities-pictures/15969 and see that wretched human being?
Because if you believe that the two are the same Kate then shame on you as well…
joe kane
Excellent article as usual Sue. Well done.
Here is some more evidence of the effects of the ConDem Government’s ongoing campaign of ethnic cleansing aimed at the lower social orders, and those who are too sick, ill and disabled to work – from the picket and protest outside the Atos interrogation bloc in Glasgow, which was holding a recruitment evening –
“We got a clearer idea of the future some of us face as we chatted to some homeless people waiting for the Salvation Army food van who had also had their disability benefits cut despite having serious physical and mental health problems.”
Report of the Atos Recruitment Evening Picket Glasgow
Disabled People Against Cuts
07 June 2011
Sue Marsh
“Sue Marsh is a Labour Tribalist”
I still have absolutely no idea how that affects the argument I make in the article. I’m a cricket fan too and quite obsessive about Elvis Presley. I adore shellfish and Shakespeare.
As I made the same arguments abut the sick and disabled under a Labour government, perhaps anyone with an aversion to the bard might like to start a little discussion here too?