WOWpetition - Contact your MP - We need your help.

Tuesday, 3 December 2013

Today at the House of Commons Backbench Business Committee John McDonnell MP, Ian Mearns MP and Ian Lavery MP secured a backbench business committee debate of the WOWpetition.

Huzzah

The issue is that the debate may either be held in Westminster Hall or the Main Chamber of Parliament and the key factor in this decision is the amount of cross party support that the WOWpetition receives.

Therefore, WOW needs you. (if you need to identify who your MP is and how to contact him use http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ ?)

Please contact your MP by e-mail, letter or phone before next Tuesday and ask him to support a Main Chamber debate on the important issues contained in the WOWpetition (e-petition 43154).

You are not asking your MP to support the WOWpetition but instead asking him to recognise that the important issues it addresses are deserving of a full debate in the Main Chamber.

We have secured a Backbench Business Committee debate of the WOWpetition. Lets make sure it is a full debate in the Main Chamber.

If you wish to contact your MP and discuss the WOWpetition in his surgery we have prepared a briefing document you can base your discussion around. Please do not copy and paste this in it's entirety into an e-mail to your MP as it is likely to be intercepted by the spam filters and disappear into the Ethernet. It is best to either print it off and use it as the basis for a face to face discussion with him or use it to harvest ideas for your own individual message to your MP.

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WOWpetition Briefing on the Need for a Backbench Business Committee Debate of e-petition 43154.

On Saturday 30th November 2013 Government e-petition 43154, also known as the WOWpetition, was signed for the 100,000 time and qualifies to be considered for a debate by the Back Bench Business Committee. John McDonnell MP has agreed to make representations to the Backbench Business Committee in support of a debate of the WOWpetition.

The WOWpetition calls for

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

The response received from the DWP upon the WOWpetition reaching 10,000 signatures, stated that the Government had not done a Cumulative Impact Assessment of the effects of the Welfare Reform Bill 2012 because “it is very difficult to do accurately and external organisations have not produced this either.” However, since posting this response, 2 external agencies, “DEMOS” and the “Centre for Welfare Reform” have separately produced relevant CIA’s.

DEMOS’s analysis showed a cumulative loss of income for disabled people of £28.3 billion over the 5 years to 2018. Referring to this analysis, Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope said: “At the moment there’s no place for disabled people in the Chancellor’s aspiration nation. In 2013 disabled people are already struggling to pay the bills. Living costs are spiralling. Income is flat-lining. We know many are getting in debt, just to pay for essentials. What’s the Government’s response?  The same group of disabled people face not just one or two cuts to their support, but in some cases three, four, five or even six cuts. It paints a frightening picture of the financial struggles affecting disabled people in 2013. On top of this the Government is suggesting capping the welfare bill in the June spending review – having already slashed billions.”

Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform, on behalf of the Campaign for a Fair Society, produced analysis that suggested the cuts to benefits and services fell disproportionately on minority groups. The extreme unfairness of this policy is demonstrated if we compare the burden of cuts born annually by most citizens (£467 per person) to the burden on people in poverty (£2,195: 5 x rest of population), the burden on disabled people (£4,410: 9 x rest of population) and the Burden on people with severest disabilities (£8,832: 19 x rest of population).

We believe that the Government either needs to demonstrate that the CIA’s produced are not accurate and produce its own CIA or explain why the austerity measures have been targeted at people, who WOWpetition believe, the Government thought would not fight back.

2.     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.

The Work Capability Assessment judges the Capability for work or work related activity of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants. We believe the current test is totally discredited, with the Prime Minister saying in October 2013 that its provider, Atos, had "to improve the quality of decision-making" in the face of sustained criticism of both the efficacy and effectiveness of what, WOWpetition believe, is not a tool meant to enable disabled people and help them to achieve what they feel capable of but instead a blunt instrument to reduce the social security bill. We do not believe it is right that in the 21st Century an experimental process has been imposed on sick and disabled people with in some cases fatal consequences. Over 10,000 people have died within 6 weeks of being compelled to submit to what has been described as a “dehumanizing, brutal and aggressive quasi-medical assessment”.

WOWpetition believes that any method for assessing the financial support given, and the life opportunities presented to sick and disabled people needs to be based upon 3 questions: “What do you want to do?” “What stops you from doing that?” “What adjustments can be made to enable you?” Any process that seeks to enable disabled people and give them equality of opportunity, needs to address not just the “supply side” issues of “what can you do” but also needs to address “demand side” prejudices and ensure society provides the opportunities to people facing significant barriers to mainstream employment opportunities, in a fair way that gives people with impairments equality of opportunity. Additionally, any individual trying to enhance their experience should not be penalised/ restricted, as they already face difficulty with employment.

More than anything, WOWpetition wants a system based upon trust. The evidence clearly shows that at approximately 0.7%, Benefit fraud is non-systemic and the overwhelming feeling of grassroots Disabled Peoples Organisation’s, expressed at a summit organised by WOWpetition in London on the 25th October 2013, was that sick and disabled people are sick of being treated as guilty until proven innocent and that the system needs to embody trust, not persecution.

Irrespective of their ability to work, sick & disabled people should be able to rely upon financial support from society that would allow them to experience a good standard of living.

3.     An Independent, Committee-Based Inquiry into Welfare Reform, covering but not limited to: (1) Care home admission rises, Daycare Centre’s, 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.

WOWpetition cannot understand how in the Worlds 6th richest country (by GDP – IMF 2012) the situation can have been allowed to occur where, despite the UK ratifying the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, what is arguably “retrogressive legislation” has been introduced, without being effectively challenged pre-implementation.

At its AGM on April 14 2013, Amnesty International UK passed a resolution on the Human Rights of sick and disabled people in the UK. The resolution (A5) read:

“This AGM calls for urgent action to halt the abrogation of the human rights of sick and disabled people by the ruling Coalition government and its associated corporate contractors.”

It is WOWpetition’s belief that The WRA 2012 was “rushed” through Parliament with the House of Commons using the procedural tool of “financial privilege” to curtail debate and over-turn the amendments tabled by the House of Lords. We believe The House of Lords had taken very relevant advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with the effect that the Human Rights and Equality issues pertinent to the WRA 2012 have been largely ignored. Some overlooked amendments have since been the subject of successful legal challenges, and the Minister for Disabled People has been criticized in open court for failing to consider the effect her policies have on equality of opportunity.

WOWpetition call for the UK to comply with the spirit of its Treaty Obligations and, in line with “Article 4 – General Obligations” of the UNCRPD, strive to achieve full realization of the rights so included in that document without prejudice. As an example of what we would argue is the non-compliance of the UK with this Treaty, we are dismayed that an apparent working definition of “Equality of Opportunity” appears to be, that employers may choose to favour a disabled candidate over a non-disabled candidate. This, we believe, is not what was intended by “Article 3 – General Principles” of the UNCRPD.

 In order for lessons to be learnt and safeguards put in place to ensure persons with disabilities are never again to face what we believe is a coordinated onslaught on our human rights and right to life, we call for an independent Committee based enquiry into Welfare Reform.

Most worrying are the comments attributed to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson on Nov 28th 2013, in which he says “It is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16% of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2% have an IQ above 130.”

Is a person’s worth or right of equality to be linked to his measured IQ? Is economic potential the accepted measure of somebody’s value and equality? This comment is not acceptable.

Conclusion

WOWpetition suggests that sick and disabled people are the target of a sustained attack on their human rights and standard of living as it is believed they will not fight back. We agree with Richard Hawkes of Scope who said “At the moment there’s no place for disabled people in the Chancellor’s aspiration nation.” WOWpetition seeks a society where disabled people (through birth, trauma or illness) are given true equality of opportunity and valued appropriately, based upon their intrinsic humanity.

On the 10th July 2013 an Opposition Day Debate on “Disabled people” called for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of the changes made by Government that affect disabled people. We argue that the debate called for by the WOWpetition is significantly different to this debate, based on:

·         Following this debate, two independent organisations have done what is “very difficult to do accurately” and produced Cumulative Impact Assessments.  These demonstrate how this government’s austerity measures have unfairly targeted sick and disabled people. The House needs to debate why disabled people are seen as easy targets by this government or the DWP needs to challenge the findings.

·         It is widely reported that both the new Universal Credit Payment (UC) and the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are in trouble. WOWpetition believe the UK government should take the time to carefully consider the effect the transition to these potentially flawed procedures would have on sick and disabled people and if it is prepared to inflict more excess deaths on these communities.

·         Paul Maynard MP, who referred to WOWpetition as “extremists” using the protection of Parliamentary Privilege, made reference in this Opposition Day Debate to the DWP publication “Fulfilling Potential – The Next Steps” and implied it was a remedy for the exclusion and barriers to society facing disabled people. WOWPetition believes this document is flawed and based upon Esther McVey’s inability to distinguish between the Social Model of Disability and the Bio-psychosocial Model of Disability which, we believe, she seems to think are the same thing. This document should be debated in conjunction with relevant meaningful published statistics to identify whether it really is a tool in leading to meaningful Equality of Opportunity for sick and disabled people and how long it is to be before sick and disabled are given this meaningful Equality of Opportunity, defined appropriately. This is a requirement under “Article 3 – The General Principles” of the “UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities“.

As outlined earlier, WOWpetition calls for much more than a Cumulative Impact Assessment and to refuse a debate dismisses and trivializes the other very real concerns of the Sick and Disabled Community.

WOWpetition therefore ask you to support a Main Hall Backbench Business Committee debate of the important issues contained in their e-petition 43154 and engage with our plea for a New Deal for Sick and Disabled People based upon their needs, abilities and ambitions.

Disability Doesn't Discriminate

How often have I said "Disability doesn't discriminate"?

Some of you know I have been terribly upset and worried this week because my sister has been unwell and in hospital. Thank you for your support through this, frankly it's been awful and without my family, friends and "virtual" friends I don't know how I'd have coped. We've been waiting for the diagnosis, it's come.

Let me start at the beginning.

My sister is healthy, has decided to take early retirement from the DWP (yes, stop booing) because of the tremendous stress she is under. So with just one year to go she decided to bring to an end nearly 30 years of work for the DWP. My sister was really looking forward to finishing because she has a new grandson,her first, just 8 weeks old. My sister already has a swimming session booked in with him, has changed her car to accommodate all the paraphernalia that goes with having a baby these days. My sister was looking forward to the retirement she and her husband have worked hard for. The round Europe in a camper van type holiday. The round the world trip etc etc.

So. My sister was getting ready to board a plane for Vietnam on Wedsnesday. She "fell" - she cracked her head open and has four staples in it. She started to "fit" - she had eight "episodes" in an hour and continued to have episodes every hour or so, she still is. I knew immediately from what she said that it was Epilepsy, however the hospital have done many, many tests - a lumber puncture, taken bloods, monitored her for 24 hours, a CT scan etc etc (thank god for our NHS), all this time she has been losing consciousness, at one time the crash team were called and my brother in law stood by thinking he was about to lose his wife. Finally today at 6pm, the consultant came, finally today the diagnosis came...."you have epilepsy". Let me tell you being at the receiving end of that statement is horrendous. The clock stops. Time stops. Then it hits you. The enormity of that diagnosis.
The enormity for my sister. She won't be able to drive her new car to pick up her new grandson. She won't be able to go swimming with him (on her own), she won't be able to ride her scooter round Europe..... the ramifications are enormous.

So. My oft spoken and written words "disability doesn't discriminate" are proven true again. It didn't discriminate against me, it didn't discriminate against my sister.

What if it doesn't discriminate against you? What if your comfortable lifestyle is all of a sudden hit by disability? Maybe you'll realise then that you should have signed http://wowpetition.com ......

I'm not writing this to make mileage from my sister, or to make a dramatic difference to the signatures, I'm writing this to show you it happens, it really does happen. There are four of us, four siblings. Two have diabetes, two have epilepsy. What are the odds of that happening?

Please protect your future and the futures of those you love, sh*t happens - believe me, it does, and when the sh*t hits the fan wouldn't you like to think the state will be there to provide for you? Think again!!

Please sign & share http://wowpetition.com NOW, TODAY!

There are just 40 days till the petition closes. 40 days for us to make a fairer, better, safer future for all of us.

My sister is aware I am writing this and fully supports me with all I and all the WOW team, followers and supporters are doing to make WOW petition a success. In fact just two weeks ago, to help me in my "traipsing" around the country for WOW, trying to raise awareness and signatures, my sister drove me to Bangor so I could help @TenPercent. Most of my family have met Rick. All my family support WOW petition. All of my family know the urgency to succeed and the need/importance to sign http://wowpetition.com ......because all of my family know DISABILITY DOESN'T DISCRIMINATE.......

Written and reproduced with permission from Jane @WOWpetitionchat

When WOW met the Campaign for Benefit Justice

I have thought long and hard about this. I can either say it exactly how it happened or make it interesting by shortening some of the sequences, leaving others out and telling a story that relays the facts rather than just gives the facts (Sounds like a bad advert for some computer software!!). I'm in story telling mode!!!

On Sunday of last week "a link" did the rounds among the WOWpetition Activists. (Activist makes me sound more heroic than fat middle aged man sitting at his computer sending Tweets, e-mails, Skyping and walking my dog (with housework and cooking thrown in!!)). Someone had come across details of a Campaign for Benefit Justice "rally" that was meeting at Birkbeck College in London on Saturday 9th March and there was a general call out for WOWers to go. There was also a steering committee event last Monday evening to help organise this event.

Us at WOW (!!) have always realised that in order to be successful we need to break out of the confines of Twitter, although it is a very comfortable environment. To me this seemed to be an opportunity to take WOW into the real world. Others are doing that already, including our sponsor and all round good egg Francesca Martinez, so I volunteered, contacted the organisers and set out for the steering committee meeting.

At this point, I want to restate that one of the overriding principles behind WOW was that it was to be a democratic inclusive process, to include disabled people, their families, carers, friends and anyone else that supported us. Got that? You sure? OK!

So I walked into the steering committee meeting introduced myself and sat back. I am not going to go through the other people there as this post isn't about the wonderful job they did. The meeting began and as they were talking about the organisation of the event which they had already done without me I didn't really contribute. I think I made some comment about what a good job had been done.

Poked my head above the parapet!

Having included myself in the discussion I was "fair game".

I was asked......

"So, have you managed to change the wording of the WOWpetition yet?"

(It wasn't this brutal or aggressive but I'm telling a story!!)

I replied......

"Hello, my name is Ian. What?!?!"

It transpired that the meeting generally felt that the WOWpetition was a little bit "closed" when it asked for the end of sanctions against disabled people.

"Wouldn't it have been easier to ask for an end to sanctions against all?"

I slipped straight back into exec at a meeting mode. I pointed out that we were unable to change the wording of the petition (we've already considered that - hands up all of you that have noticed the the wording of the petition doesn't include the word "WOWpetition"!!!) and that WOW as a movement is against sanctions against all benefit claimants and vulnerable people. I was not going to try to justify the wording - much too dangerous!!

Good answer I thought.

Although that wasn't exactly the answer I gave. KISS - Keep it simple stupid, are the rules by which I try to live. But my mouth sometimes gets ahead of my brain. I had to add...

"and of course we were working against the 1,000 character limit so had to be focused."

I sat back, happy, thought I'd deflected it.

The offending section was:

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.

KISS?

Somebody at the meeting dared to say something.

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT....

'Hold on! If you "change sanctions for people on disability benefits" to "sanctions for people on benefits" that's fewer characters?'

SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT SHIT

KISS KISS KISS KISS KISS KISS KISS KISS

Here goes....

"The WOWpetition was crowd-sourced amongst sick and disabled people and their stakeholders (thought I'd try some Consultant speak!!) and went through a democratic selection process and a vote. It was never our intention to be non inclusive, in fact we made every effort to be as inclusive as possible, and if we failed or excluded some other group that was not intended and an error of drafting."

Yes, that killed the discussion. Good old "stakeholders"!

The meeting continued and we organised meeting up on Saturday.

I reported back to my WOW colleagues and we had a lengthy exchange about what we could do.

Saturday came.

I got up, packed the car and set off into London. Got to the University of London campus. Suddenly I  realised the plan wasn't completely thought out!

Where to park?

I drove & drove & drove and came across a side road with "Parking regulations suspended" signs everywhere.

"Result".

Apart from it being very narrow parking spaces, nearly full and our elite students and academics being unable to park between the lines.

Got into one space, but it was so tight I couldn't even wind the windows down! Then someone left so as quick as I could (didn't lose any wing mirrors) jumped into it. Success.

Went over to Birkbeck College and saw familiar faces. Found my desk (tucked away under the stairs!!) but as if by magic it moved to a prime location on the entrance to the meeting room. Put the stuff out on my desk, put some posters up, tried to connect my ipad to BT wifi.

Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit shit

We were underground. No signal. How could people sign the petition?

I read somewhere that technology is disabling us. Without SatNavs people can't find their way. That sort of thing.

Went to the shop. Bought an A4 pad, a ruler, some pens. Made a paper petition for people to sign.

Simples.

The first part of the Benefit Justice Meet was in Birkbeck college. In order to get into the meeting they had to file past my desk. If they got too close they were told about WOW. If they wanted to go to the meeting after that they were encouraged to sign or I kept talking. The meeting started. My audience disappeared.


After about an hour and a bit the meeting finished and potential signees reappeared. They had to some past my desk to escape!! Some signed; some took our Cards; Some talked to me about who was WOW. I talked about how Welfare Reform wasn't fair and we'd had enough.Some promised to promote our message elsewhere.


Then they were gone. I packed up to move to the second part of the meeting, the workshops at ULU. However, by the time I got there they had started and there was a bigger prize.

Sitting there in ULU was the TUC rep and one of the organisers. I sat down. Made small talk. Then....

"so is there anything WOW can do to rehabilitate itself in the eyes of this movement?"

It turns out there is a Workfare protest coming up and they would like WOW to organise it for them. We did nothing to organise the rally last saturday so that seems fair to me. I will let you know what when I find out.

Remember, this version would differ slightly from a CCTV record of what happened but I trust you were all sitting comfortably.

From:- http://edwinmandella.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/when-wow-met-campaign-for-benefit.html

ESA SOS - The Starting Gun

ESA SOS - An important post from @suey2y author of Diary of a Benefit Scrounger.

In a few weeks, I'm going to arrange for some very significant stories to break in the very mainstream press about ESA.

I've been collecting them for about 6 months and if there's any justice left at all, they will kill ESA once and for all.

They will totally change your perception of ESA and WCAs

We need a Spartacus 2 and as you all know, I've been sick as a dog.

Today is stage one. If you're in, please leave your Name and user name on twitter or Facebook (Feel free to only provide the latter if you like to keep your anonymity a little) and Constituency

There will be a task most days, so please keep watching my blog. 

Today, I would like something very specific. What is the worst thing, for you about ESA/WCAs? I need you to simply leave a one line answer if possible, ie "1 Year Time Limit - It totally undermines any contributory principle"

The most popular of these "subjects" will make up every short section of the new report.

Share this post everywhere you can. This will be the start of our biggest fightback. EVERYONE will have to give this everything if it is to work. We need hundreds of responses to every request to make this a truly representative report from disabled people, by disabled people. The more join, the more powerful our voice and the more impact any final work will have.

What's more, by crowdsourcing our information and skills, believe me, we have 100 times the resources and ability of the DWP.

I have an awesome team in place - they produced #esaSOS in just 4 days. Hard though it will be, PLEASE, I'm still very weak and CAN'T read endless comments or pages and pages of Hansard or reports. Make this easy for me by keeping as close to the brief each day as you possibly can. I WILL cover everything, nothing will get missed. I'll ask the question you're itching to comment on, honest, but if we do it this way, I can delegate very much and empower you all to know exactly what we need.

Even a shadow of division will see us fail. This will need every group, every campaigner, every supporter, no matter how radical or moderate, how powerful or unknown, every journalist that has supported us, every politician who is fully signed up to our arguments.

If you have a prominent welfare/disability/political voice, website or other outlet, please cross post this from me. 

So today, in the comment thread below please leave :

Name and social media name/s (or just the latter if more comfortable)
Constituency
The WORST thing for you about ESA/WCAs in one line. 

****ESA is the most terrible failure of any developed nation for a very long time. The reasons are numerous and utterly undeniable. The government has failed to implement Harrington with any commitment and is actively increasing the rate at which vulnerable people face a failing and unfair test. We have engaged with a democratic process that has failed us at every stage. We have no choice left but to stop this ourselves. Over 100,000 people now face some kind of ESA assessment every MONTH. We can't afford to wait. ****

Enough is Enough. 

From today, please use the hashtag #ESAendgame in all your tweets. We must build awareness and create an army or support and dissemination. 

"Alone we Whisper, Together we Shout"

Leave your comments at Diary of a Benefit Scrounger

Please sign the petition http://wowpetition.com/