Open Letter to Liam Byrne - Will Labour Protect Disabled People?

Pat's Petition is going to Westminster on the 6th February to meet with Shadow Work and Pensions Liam Byrne to find out what Labour will do to support sick and disabled people. WOW Petition was created to ensure that the work done by Pat's Petition will continue into the future and we have some points and questions for Labour to answer too.


An Open Letter to the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary

Dear Rt Hon Liam Byrne MP

The WOW Petition is a crowd-sourced grass roots campaign created and supported by disabled people, people with physical and mental health illness, care workers, carers and family members. We have come together because we are frightened. We have each been affected by the devastating consequences of the Welfare Reform Act and feel we are fighting for our lives.

We are determined to continue and build upon the achievements of Pat’s Petition. We are not satisfied that the government will understand or care about the consequences of the cuts and changes to benefits and services until a comprehensive impact assessment has been completed. We are aware of the Prime Minister’s intention to scrap impact and equality assessments. It is vital therefore, that a cumulative impact assessment is carried out with urgency.

Since the WOW Petition was launched on December 18th 2012, at the time of writing almost 18,000 people have supported us. We expect to reach the 100,000 target as we expand into new initiatives and the campaign grows.

Our petition has been championed by disabled actress and comedian Francesca Martinez. Francesca has spoken out publicly against the arbitrary cuts and the unfairness of disproportionately targeting the benefits sick and disabled people rely on. She has appeared on Newsnight and BBC This Week Programmes to voice her concerns. Baroness Grey-Thompson has also supported our campaign.

Sick and disabled people do not understand why the government wishes to wage a “war on welfare” against them. People who are genuinely too sick to work have been cruelly labelled as “feckless” and “scroungers” by government ministers. Welfare statistics have, we believe, been purposefully misrepresented, and the tabloid media has chosen to wage a campaign of misinformation and misleading stories about the level of welfare fraud. This in turn has altered public perceptions of disabled people and hardened attitudes towards benefit claimants.

Where is the sense in forcing people suffering with long-term and chronic conditions onto a depressed employment market where eight people on average are fighting for every job? People with mental health problems find it especially difficult to overcome employment discrimination and to establish themselves in work even when the economy is buoyant. The greater cruelty is that many of these people will not have access to treatment or therapy.

Sick and disabled people do want to work, but the Work Capability Assessment completely fails to recognise their limitations or how they can realistically function in the workplace. The consequences of forcing people to look for work and mandatory Work Related Activity under threat of losing income could cause illness to deteriorate and place a further burden on stretched NHS and mental health services. Sick and disabled people can and do make huge contributions to society. This does not have to be purely based on their ability to make money. Voluntary work and caring is vital for the economy but isn’t paid. For some “making work pay” will not improve their life chances, opportunities and finances. These people deserve to be better supported.

The third ‘Harrington Report’ revealed that just 9% of people expected to recover within twelve months had found work eighteen months later. The support to get people back to work isn’t working. Less than 1.5% of disabled people referred to the Work Programme had found employment.

We are certain that you are already aware of the failings of the fitness to work test, and the increasing numbers of recorded deaths resulting from the loss of income and stress. The fear of the Atos envelope landing on the doorstep is real. When people know that they are not going to have a fair and honest assessment that takes the opinions of their doctors and consultants into account they feel frustrated, helpless and terrified.

Over 330,000 people have been forced to appeal a decision they believe to be wrong. 40% of these are overturned, rising to 70-80% with specialist advice. The government is removing legal aid to make obtaining legal advice at the tribunal stage even more difficult, and we can only presume that it is a cynical attempt to deter people from appealing rather than fixing a broken system.

Under clause 99 of the Welfare Reform Act sick people could be forced onto Jobseekers Allowance whilst potentially waiting many months for the DWP to reconsider a challenge to a decision. These changes are going to have a huge impact on people’s lives. It is insufficient and dismissive of government ministers to blame Labour for introducing Employment and Support Allowance and to complain that they have inherited a flawed assessment process. This is an unacceptable defence for a serious failure.

We want a reassurance that the current fitness to work test will be scrapped and replaced with a credible medical assessment carried out by medical professionals who are allowed to apply their discretionary judgement based on their medical expertise. People feel they are being ‘tricked’ by confusing forms, tick box assessments and an impossibly narrow set of descriptors which excludes severe and enduring illness from the support group. Assessment recordings should be made available to all who request them to reassure people that the face to face tests are above-board.

People will and do work when they are well and able and appropriately supported. Battling illness and battling the current benefits system for some, unfortunately, is simply too much to cope with.

Universal Credit is yet an untested system of delivering benefits but the uncertainty surrounding it is causing a great deal of worry and confusion. Contributory ESA is excluded but the means tested component is not. Some people receive an element of both.

Hundreds of thousands of sick people have lost and will lose all of their Employment and Support Allowance after 365 days because they have a working partner, regardless of whether they are recovered or not. This arbitrary cut is penalising working families and proves that the government’s aim was to cut the budget and not to support sick people back to work. Without access to specialist employment advice they will be further excluded and isolated from the workplace.

We learn that in Merseyside alone the cost of the new “bedroom tax” to social tenants will be £16 million annually. What is most disturbing is that three-quarters of the households include a disabled person. Depending on the locality some people will be asked to pay council tax from their disability benefit incomes.

The government promised vulnerable people that “they had nothing to fear” and that “disability benefits are being protected” but Coalition MPs voted to cap the annual benefit rise of Employment and Support Allowance at 1%. This also includes the support group as only the disability premium is excluded from the cap. With food prices expected to rise above 5% this year sick and disabled people will struggle to buy the basic necessities. Many, including households with disabled children, are already having to cancel hospital appointments due to transport costs, take out loans to buy essentials and are choosing whether to heat their homes or buy groceries.

Local authorities are being forced to cut back massively on the care and support services they deliver to vulnerable people. The charity Scope report a funding gap of £1.2billion for adult social care. 40% of disabled people who require care are saying that their basic needs are not being met.

Disability living allowance is being replaced by the personal independence payment and the ‘goalposts’ are being moved so that by 2018, 600,000 fewer disabled people will be entitled to the benefit as would have received DLA. This is another arbitrary cut as changing the eligibility will not change the disability. Just because someone is ‘less disabled’ than another doesn’t mean that they don’t require the additional support to allow them to stay in work, maintain their dignity, be independent and have an equal chance in life as their peers. 100,000 disabled people are expecting to lose their mobility vehicles because they can move a mere 20 metres. Not even the length of the Commons floor. How is this “supporting disabled people”?

The cumulative impact of these cuts and changes, inadequate social care, along with many others such as the cuts to Children’s Disability Premiums under Universal Credit, the scrapping of Independent Living Fund for disabled adults who live alone, closure of day-care centres, degradation of mental health services, NHS services, amongst others, is too much to bear.

• We would like to know how Labour intends to correct the injustices sick and disabled people are currently having to cope with under the policies implemented by the Coalition government?

• What reforms to the welfare system does Labour have planned?

• Will Labour scrap and replace the Work Capability Assessment with an objective and trustworthy medical test?

• How do you plan to support those disabled people who have lost work through the Remploy closures?

We would like to thank you for considering our concerns and we look forward to your response. Our hope is that we can co-operate together for a better and fairer future for all sick and disabled people in the UK.

The WOW petition team

email info@wowpetition.com
website www.wowpetition.com

The Petition

We call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of Welfare Reform, and a New Deal for sick & disabled people based on their needs, abilities and ambitions

Responsible department: Department for Work and Pensions

We call for:

A Cumulative Impact Assessment of all cuts and changes affecting sick & disabled people, their families and carers, and a free vote on repeal of the Welfare Reform Act.

An immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment, as voted for by the British Medical Association.

Consultation between the Depts of Health & Education to improve support into work for sick & disabled people, and an end to forced work under threat of sanctions for people on disability benefits.

An Independent, Committee-Based Inquiry into Welfare Reform, covering but not limited to: (1) Care home admission rises, daycare centres, access to education for people with learning difficulties, universal mental health treatments, Remploy closures; (2) DWP media links, the ATOS contract, IT implementation of Universal Credit; (3) Human rights abuses against disabled people, excess claimant deaths & the disregard of medical evidence in decision making by ATOS, DWP & the Tribunal Service.

PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION

15,000 People Have Now Supported the WOW Petition

Since it was launched just five weeks ago, the WOW Petition has now exceeded...

 15,000 signatures!

Thank you so much for supporting this vitally important petition. Please sign and share widely with everyone you know.

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/43154

We need to reach 100,000 signatures urgently to call for a cumulative impact assessment of all the cuts and changes affecting sick and disabled people, their families and carers.

Liam Byrne Calls for A Cumulative Impact Assessment

Disability living allowance: why Labour’s safeguards are crucial

 

The government will set out its plans to change disability living allowance, while Labour will set out the safeguards we’re determined to see put in place.

Right now disabled people are being hit from all sides. Ministers had to be summoned to the House of Commons to explain why they were shutting Remploy factories without any serious plan to get sacked workers into jobs. The Work Programme has proved a catastrophe for disabled people wanting work. It found jobs for just a thousand workers. Scope’s Richard Hawkes wasn’t wrong when he said: “These shocking figures indicate a system that is not working for disabled people.”

But there’s worse. The government’s new bedroom tax is threatening disabled people with big cuts in vital housing benefit. And a loophole in the law means a family caring for an adult child on DLA will be hit by the benefit cap. The government’s management of Atos is so inept that a quarter of Atos assessment centres don’t even have disability access. It’s enough to make you think this government cares very little for the livelihoods of our disabled neighbours.

That’s why we’ve got to be ultra-cautious about DLA reform, and it’s why we’ll absolutely insist vital safeguards are in place.

Read Liam Byrne's article at liambyrne.co.uk

How and Why The WOW Petition Started

We are an ever increasing group of ordinary people who are sick, disabled, carers, and the parents of disabled children, who all feel driven to act against the extraordinary pressure placed upon us by the UK coalition government's ideologically driven Welfare Reform Act.

The petition was the result of a democratic process. It did not come from one person, rather it evolved from the desperation of many. Together we asked anyone who was concerned about the impact of welfare reform to share ideas and suggestions. Some of them created draft petitions and together we worked on and amended them until they satisfied the needs and wants of the majority as best we could within the limitations of the e-petitions website. There was a vote and a winner was chosen. Actress and comedian Francesca Martinez supported our campaign and submitted the petition on behalf of all UK sick and disabled people.

Another petition, called Pat's Petition after Pat Onions who is blind, and a carer, attempted to reach the 100,000 signatures required to potentially trigger a debate in the House of Commons. It was hugely successful and achieved just under 63,000 signatures with no funding or publicity. The deadline was drawing near and on social media an increasing sense of excitement. The target was in reach, but there was also a fear, that the pressing concerns of sick and disabled people would be fobbed off or flippantly dismissed. If Pat's Petition didn't succeed we had to do something to help ourselves and within our limited means. It mattered that ordinary members of the public cared and took notice. In fact the success of Pat's Petition has lead to an upcoming Opposition Day Debate and MPs will have to discuss the impact some the cuts to benefits and services are having on disabled people's daily lives.

We feel threatened by further welfare cuts since Pat's Petition ended. We dread the latest hate mongering headlines towards welfare claimants in the tabloid press, which invariably means the government is attempting to convince the public that it can target welfare claimants yet again for further cuts, conditions and sanctions to their essential social security. We again call for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of all of the changes and cuts to benefits and services before it is too late.

We are sharing our stories with other sick and disabled people who are finding their quality of life is being severely degraded. Sick and disabled people do want to work but the truth of the matter is, there is a woeful lack of real opportunity to fulfil our potential. People with illness and mental health problems are stigmatised and discriminated against by employers. When they do seek work that they feel they can cope with they discover the reality is that no one wants to employ them. Even during periods of economic growth employment opportunties are in short supply. To force these people into an overcrowded job market with the intention of 'helping them' is an ideological idea doomed to failure. The work programme is not a viable solution for sick and disabled people. It begs the question, if the government are prepared to pay private companies to find placements for disabled people, why are they shutting the Remploy factories down where disabled people had permanent jobs? Only recently, a law was introduced which allows jobcentre staff with no medical training to force sick people to sign up for the work programme under the threat of losing their benefits. These people have already undergone the harsh work capability assessment. Even Atos has determined that they are not fit to work. Can the government be so certain that their health will not deteriorate even further as a result of being made to work? Is this fair treatment for a sickness benefit? We are afraid that ESA is becoming too much like jobseekers allowance. We are sick, battling pain, exhaustion, chronic illness and mental distress on a daily basis. We feel we are now being vilified and punished too. We are not too lazy to work.

The majority of cuts have not yet been implemented. Sick and disabled people who cannot work to increase their incomes will not longer see their ESA rise with inflation when food and fuel costs will rise disproportionately higher than their benefits. The average wage according to the Daily Mail is £441 per week. That is quadruple the amount that sick and disabled people receive in benefit income. We are not "scroungers". No one would choose a life of poverty and illness if the choice was theirs to make.

Some people are now saying they have letters from their local councils. That they are having to pay council tax from their benefit income and they may also be hit by the charge for having an additional room. They cannot afford this extra payment but there is nowhere suitable for them to move to, and that to do so would move them away from family and carers and support networks.

The fitness to work test is not fit for purpose. The British Medical Association which represents GPs voted unanimously for it's immediate end because it is so detrimental to the health and well being of their patients. Those people who have worked and paid National Insurance contributions are having all of their benefits stopped after just 365 days because they have small savings or a partner who may only work part time. Many who have been through the flawed assessment process have long-term or debilitating conditions that will deteriorate and cannot be cured. They are being left high and dry without a penny in financial support and with no support to help them back to work. It's clear that the government has no intention of supporting those people towards re-employment. The result is that they are yet further isolated and removed from the work place. People are saying they feel like a burden on their families, that it's unfair when they've worked and paid their insurance contributions to support them in times of hardship, in some cases, for many decades.

People with mental health conditions find it especially difficult to endure the fitness to work test and many are being refused the benefit. We understand that three quarters of them will not have access to any form of treatment, and it's unsuccessful in three quarters of cases. To have to endure this harsh assessment year after year after year, only to be repeatedly found fit to work and go through the back logged appeals process cycle, is too stressful for some. People have committed suicide. There is a sense of fear from everyone. In April legal aid will be stopped. Even now it's exceedingly difficult to find a specialist welfare adviser. We know that professional advice helps people overturn wrongful decisions. This all coincides with the implementation of the new benefit Universal Credit and the change over from Disability Living Allowance to the new Personal Independence Payments. 500,000 are expected to lose their disability benefit, and with it their independence and dignity. People are saying that they will lose their mobility cars if they can move just 20 metres. Without their specially adapted cars they won't be able to leave their homes, attend hospital appointments and contribute to society at all. 

Too many cuts and changes are happening at once. Those mentioned are but a few of the better known benefit cuts. It is quite overwhelming and everybody is terrified. People on twitter are actually reporting deaths and suicides. It's heartbreaking. Some, that close members of their families are having to go into care homes because their care is said to be too expensive. These are people with wives and husbands, and children. 

Who will listen? Who will help us?

If we can reach a hundred thousand signatures it would signify powerful public dissent which the media should pay attention to and ask the government why they won't. We will continue to correspond with backbench committee MPs and media and hope to make it general knowledge that government policy was forced through and not based on evidence, not supported by sick and disabled people and is causing immense suffering. This is a moral and human rights issue at heart.

Anyone can become sick or disabled without a moment's notice, and they do. Turn away and one day, you may find that these cuts are falling not only on us, but on you and your family.

I've never felt so worried about my future or so completely insecure as I currently do. That's why I supported the petition. Will you?

Stop the War on Welfare

On Tuesday the 18th December 2012 UK disabled and sick people, people with learning and mental health difficulties, their families and carers launched a petition calling for an end to the "war on welfare" being waged by their own government.

The welfare budget, and particularly benefits going to sick and disabled people, has been heavily and unfairly targeted for cuts. It is said we can no longer afford the current welfare state. In reality however, as a percentage of GDP, the welfare budget is now lower than it was at any time during the eighties. While at the same time the combined wealth of Britain's 1,000 richest people increased by almost 5% to over £414bn.

In order to resist the government's cruel and failing welfare policies, sick and disabled people, together with their carers, families and friends, have combined using social media to produce the #WOWpetition. This calls for an end to the War on Welfare. Spearheaded by actress and comedian Francesca Martinez the WOW petition aims to get 100,000 signatures to end this War On Welfare by the government. We will be calling for a Cumulative Impact Assessment, an independent inquiry and if necessary, the repeal of the Welfare Reform Act of 2012.

We believe that every single person in the country has a reason to resist the War on Welfare. Some of us may be fortunate enough not to need the safety net our Welfare State provides, but this could all change for any one of us, tomorrow. It only takes an accident or a shock diagnosis to render us ill or disabled, and dependent on a system of benefits and services which is currently being dismantled.

The ‘Greatest Generation’ fought WWII believing they had secured this safety net for themselves, their children and generations to come. Don't let it go without a fight! We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves to ensure a decent and dignified life for all who are sick and disabled, and to provide security for all our futures. The deaths of disabled people linked to the Welfare Reform Act and the Work Capability Assessment administered on behalf of the Government by the private corporation Atos are reported in the press with alarming regularity. We believe that in any humane society the Government would want to know if one of their flagship policies was in any way responsible for a ‘slow genocide’ of the sick and disabled. Please join Francesca and the WOW campaign in resisting the deaths and unnecessary suffering being caused.

SIGN THE WOW PETITION