New welfare reform proposals will result in many disabled children facing a cut of up to £1,400 per year (£27 per week) compared to their current welfare entitlements.
By Sam Royston, Policy Adviser the Children’s society
A coalition of 30 national organisations and charities, led by The Children’s Society, are calling on the Government to reverse their planned cut to support for disabled children under the new Universal Credit.
The organisations have identified that new welfare reform proposals will result in many disabled children facing a cut of up to £1,400 per year (£27 per week) compared to their current welfare entitlements. By the time a disabled child reaches 16, this could cost the family £22,000.
Raising a disabled child is extremely expensive. The range of costs can include higher travel costs, increased fuel bills, extra childcare and loss of income due to hospital appointments.
The government estimates that 100,000 disabled children will be hit by this change.
The £27 lost per disabled child a week (which could double or triple if there are two or three disabled children in a family) is more than half the average family’s food budget. This can make the difference between a family coping or falling below the breadline. This shift will force families into poverty.
So why is the government making this change? It claims that the measures are being introduced in order to align child and adult rates of disability support.
But the group of adults with whom support is aligned are at some point likely to be able to move back into work. Children cannot work to raise extra money to increase their income, so have no way to escape poverty. It must be recognised that disabled children face additional barriers to escaping poverty and therefore require extra support.
It is absolutely crucial for people to join us in petitioning the government to understand the significance of this change for disabled children and their families. For many low income families already living on the breadline, this will make the difference between meeting their children’s basic needs and finding themselves unable to cope.
Click here for more information and to see the list of organisations that have signed up.
77 Responses to “Help stop government changes to welfare penalising disabled children”
Chris
Help stop government changes to welfare penalising disabled children: http://t.co/RJhumaN @childrensociety 's @raficooper
mary murphy
Help stop government changes to welfare penalising disabled children: http://t.co/RJhumaN @childrensociety 's @raficooper
Brian Moore
Help stop government changes to welfare penalising disabled children: Children cannot work to raise extra money … http://t.co/oD4yEGB
Sal
This makes me so angry. Parents will do anything, give up anything, try anything, to help their disabled children, to intervene when it can make a lifelong difference and to lessen the pain of a child learning to live with being different and frequently despised. Lives and families which were once on track speed to the bottom of the social, financial and consumer heap. Careers are lost, friends vanish, coping is a distant memory. Every resource to which they have access is used as effectively, efficiently and thriftily as it can be, because it is the only way. Marriages collapse, mental health collapses, hopes and expectations are centred on survival and the child. Now the government will take away such minuscule support as exists. They are not fit to govern a snakepit.
Jon Purdom
Surely David Cameron must know the additional costs of bringing up a disabled child? These welfare payments are not “perks” but payments that are needed to allow child and parents the opportunity to fully participate in society. Cutting these payments will result in fewer parents being able to cope and more children being taken into care.
Our society is becoming more unequal every day. Failing to care for those who are less able and more vulnerable than average is the sign of a sick society that is devoid of compassion. It is time we reaffirmed that people are more important than profits.