Government to save £5bn by restricting benefits to ‘those with the greatest need’
https://news.sky.com/story/government-to-save-1635bn-by-restricting-benefits-to-those-with-the-greatest-need-13331362
Posted by topotaul
Government to save £5bn by restricting benefits to ‘those with the greatest need’
https://news.sky.com/story/government-to-save-1635bn-by-restricting-benefits-to-those-with-the-greatest-need-13331362
Posted by topotaul
28 Comments
Why not make the corporations pay proper taxes and close any loopholes
I am a PIP claimant for PPMS at the old age of 28. I can no longer legally drive, struggle on public transport because of my vision, cerebral ataxia and clonus to name a few. If I can’t get a seat I can’t travel on transport, I’ll just fall if I try to stand.
Despite all of this I still work, my PIP essentially allows me the ability to get to work and access other means of transport that I couldn’t without the help of mobility payments. I’m on the highest end of muscle relaxers because of spasms and other issues like cerebral ataxia related coordination issues.
At this stage I’m never going to get facilities I lost back through medication or medical interventions due to permanent brain and spinal damage. I’m unsure what the government would prefer someone like me to do here. If they plan ahead and restrict PIP to me I’m financially better of not working. I want to work as long as I’m physically able and I know in the future I’m not going to have this choice, so why do they penalise people with disabilities who want to work, and PIP allows them this ability.
When reassessment time comes I’ll see what they have to say but I’m not hopeful.
A lot of us will choose to leave this planet.
But that’s what they want.
Sorry but all this spin on people with great needs getting their pip removed is rubbish. There are MILLIONS of people taking this system for a ride and also the mobility free car. It needs sorting , I don’t know why the media keep spinning it
Like previous attempts to cut benefits, they’ve already set a target and now they’re going to try to reach it. So, it doesn’t matter if literally every person in the system falls into a category of greatest need, they’re going to do everything they can to try and prove that they are not because they’re expecting to make these savings.
I’m all for this tbh. There are some taking advantage of system and its time to weed them out.
meanwhile there are people who have £*37000000000* to their name
living in the UK
what a world eh?
Quoting what Liz Kendall said:
‘One in 10 people of working age are now claiming a sickness or disability benefit, almost one million young people are not in education, employment or training, and the number of people claiming Pip is set to double this decade, she says.’
Those are ridiculous numbers and something needs to change. People who genuinely need pip to stay in work should be supported.
Hey, please, let’s not be too rough on the government, they’re working very hard to ensure that Thames Water executives get extra fat bonuses this year.
The media: “MPs slashing benefits”, “Disabled people going to die”, etc, etc
The reality: Some tweaks around the edges, Benefits bill to raise from £50bn to £95bn a year (instead of £100bn year). Workers to continue enduring massive tax increases via fiscal drag to pay for it all…
This is a very misleading headline, the changes are nowhere as bad as anticipated nor as impactful as it’d indicate
Unfortunately, the PIP coincides with an explosion in the mental health crisis. That’s why it has ballooned by £20bn since COVID. The government is correct, these figures do not add up and are impossible. Therefore, what is it doing to identify the causes of this mental health crisis, particularly in the young? How about giving them some hope for the future in some way (like affordable housing). Ah that’s right, we’ve talked about a national house building programme but cannot get the builders and tradespeople after Brexit……
It seems that the focus is anything but reducing bills or addressing wealth inequality. There was hardly any mention in this entire announcement of the absurd cost-of-living increases we’ve experienced recently, or the fact that these increases may be contributing to a severe decline in mental health.
The rich and fortunate need to share their wealth; take less for themselves and pay their workers more. It’s really that simple. Attacking the poor, those with mental health issues etcetera… it feels like a smokescreen to cover up the real issue, greed.
Ya keep increasing taxes of the poor, mentally ill and disabled. What ever you do don’t tax the rich, that would leave a bad taste in our capitalist world.
335,000 excess deaths between 2012 and 2019 due to the last round of austerity. These cuts are even harsher than those.
Amazing the lengths this country will go to to avoid taxing the rich, empowering mega rich corporations and facilitating the offshoring industry in hiding wealth and taxes…
Because it is notoriously easy to just claim benefits if you don’t have “the greatest need” at the moment, is it?
Throwing more poor people under the bus isn’t going to fix this country. For poor people, 100% of their money gets spent & they have no money saved. We need to get money that’s sat doing nothing, being economically inactive, back into the system through taxation. Why would we fight abroad for nothing worth saving at home. Billions of pounds were printed during COVID, spent by the poor and taken in by the wealthy. Why the fuck are we not trying to get more of it back & get that money working for us all.
Labour is really speed running lose as many core supporters as possible
Fine, but at least introduce a wealth tax alongside this.
So all the disabled people that can’t find work are screwed then. Great. Really caring.
Here’s my experience:
-Fill in A4 questionnaire booklet and send with GP/consultant letters
-Have medical assessment
-2 weeks later I’m told my claim is denied even though I know I met the requirements
-request copy of report the assessor sent to DWP, it’s full of stuff they just made up, wtf???
-wait ages for appeal, it’s unsuccessful
-wait ages for tribunal, was successful only because judge allowed my secret recording of the assessment as evidence
-several years later this exact same thing happened again sans tribunal
Looking forward to these further restrictions, surely it will be an improvement
What will hurt alot is the requirement for 4 points in 1 section.
You could go go from 8 points with 4 in 1 section and get pip. But get 12 points across multiple and go from high rate to nothing at reassessment.
I’m expecting a legal challenge on this.
No particular comment either way but something does need to be done to address the benefits bill. By 2029 it’s estimated to hit £100bn. At some point there won’t be enough people working and paying tax to fund it.
£5bn by 2030, in national budget terms, is fuck all.
Luckily disability can’t ever happen to me or someone I know and I’m going to be a millionaire one day anyway so even if it did it wouldn’t have an impact at all.
The problem is that there are people who abuse the system. Friend of mine went to uni, has a job now in some sort of copy editor or something similar – not sure on the exact job but had the word editor in the title.
He’s had that job now a couple of years at least. He found out the other day that his sister (never worked, benefits claimant) brings in £30k net per year in addition to the other benefits you get (free dental etc.) from being on benefits with a kid or two… he works full time and brings in £28k.
These practices need to be closed off, benefits are hugely important and a lifeline for many but are also abused by others who are fully capable of working but have no intention of it.
To pre-empt the standard replies around businesses paying tax… this absolutely needs to have the loopholes in this area closed too, both are abuses of the system and I think both need to be addressed.
I’m baffled by the number of people telling disabled individuals “don’t worry, the DWP will assess you correctly if you have genuine need”, as if we haven’t had years and years of stories of the DWP assessing people as fit to work who clearly aren’t.