I thought the state had a duty of care to the dying, the sick, the disabled and their carers. I was wrong. It seems to me that people are denied their entitlements by subterfuge. The Government does not have the courage to put a bill through Parliament to say “it is tough, when you are ill that is it, you are finished”. My experience is that this is the reality. I feel Atos Healthcare have set up a “benefit denial factory” as instructed by Labour. The Atos Origin UK operation that they run for the DWP has the highest profit margin of all their European operations. For shame.

A champion emerges as minister admits DLA threat

Dear roger,

The last two weeks have finally removed any uncertainty about whether DLA is under threat, but they have also brought real cause for optimism.

Lord McKenzie of Luton, the parliamentary under secretary of state for work and pensions, was asked last week in a House of Lords debate which disability benefits the government are ‘considering integrating into the wider social care budget in England’.

Lord McKenzie replied:

“At this stage, we do not want to rule out any options and so are considering all disability benefits.”

Even when care minister Phil Hope’s claim that DLA is ‘not under threat’ was referred to and Lord McKenzie was specifically asked to rule out the using DLA as a source of funding for social care, his response was “no particular benefit is ruled out of consideration.”

So, whilst we can’t say why Phil Hope made his ‘be very happy’ statement, we can now say with certainty that it does not reflect the government’s stated policy. For more, see:

Senior minister confirms DLA is under threat
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/1115-senior-minister-confirms-dla-is-under-threat

But that same Lord’s debate also brought a real ray of hope in the form of a champion prepared to fight for DLA and AA.

Lord Ashley of Stoke warned the minister that “any attempt by the Government to withdraw these benefits, or any benefits at all, will be very strongly resisted by disabled people, by their organisations and by many Members of both Houses of Parliament.”

Lords warn attack on DLA and AA will be “very strongly resisted”
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/news/latest-news/1116-lords-warn-attack-on-dla-and-aa-will-be-very-strongly-resisted

Lord Ashley – former MP Jack Ashley – is a formidable campaigner, with victories dating right back to the thalidomide campaign of the 1970s. It will not have brought any joy to ministers’ hearts to see Jack Ashley, and a number of other noble Lords, lining up against them. And it’s a tribute to the efforts of Benefits and Work campaigners that this issue has gone from being almost entirely unacknowledged – or dismissed as scaremongering – to being debated in the House of Lords in less than three months.

Elsewhere, the No 10 petition has perked up again, now reaching over 17,000 signatures. As few as another 1,000 signatures should see it getting into the top 10 petitions before the care consultation ends on November 13th. Do you know people who haven’t signed yet? Try and encourage them along to:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

Meanwhile, the Big Care debate website continues to be swamped by people protesting about the threat to disability benefits. From a feeble 130 posts when we began this campaign, there are now 2,219 responses on the Executive Summary page and 606 on Having Your Say. The total is far higher than that achieved by any similar government consultation and the responses are overwhelmingly hostile.

If you haven’t yet sent a response, please do so by visiting this link:

http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/greenpaper/execsum/

Or emailing: careandsupport@dh.gsi.gov.uk

We’d like to close this newsletter with an email from one of our campaigners which we think is an inspiring example of spontaneous campaigning:

“Today I was in the Blackburn Shopping Centre on my Shopmobility scooter when I saw Mr. Jack Straw doing his shopping. It was too good an opportunity not to speak with him, so after a few swift manoeuvres I asked for one minute of his time. I told him that I had worked for the past 32 years in the NHS and had now been diagnosed with RA [rheumatoid arthritis] hence the scooter and that I have just been awarded DLA and what a difference it has and will make to myself and indeed others and to please not take it away…. He said “he wouldn’t” and gave me his card to write to him and of course I will follow it up with a letter.”

We’re not suggesting that gangs of claimants on Shopmobility scooters should roam our town centres hunting for MPs spending their expenses – pleasing though that image is – but if you’re able to, why not make an appointment to see your MP at their regular surgery and put your views across in person?

With an election looming, the fact that people are prepared to actually visit them in their offices will make a real impression, particularly on MPs with slender majorities.

Good luck,

Steve Donnison

Please feel free to forward or publish this email.

Benefits and Work Publishing Ltd
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk
Company registration No. 5962666

POST YOUR NEWS
Finally, remember that you can post your news in the Benefits and Work forum, if you’re a member, at:

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?func=showcat&catid=13

and/or in the free welfare watch forums at:

http://welfarewatch.myfineforum.org/index.php

You can also keep up with news about opposition to the green paper at the Carer Watch campaign blog:

http://carerwatch.com/cuts/

Unfortunately, we’re getting so many emails on this subject that we are unlikely to be able to respond individually. But we do appreciate hearing your news and views and we do encourage you to publish them for others to read on the forums detailed above.

Charities claim it’s too late to save DLA and AA

Dear roger,

CHARITIES ADMIT DEFEAT
We have received a copy of an email which a campaigner says came from the charity ASBAH (Association for Spina Bifida and Hydrocephalus) in response to his concerns about the care green paper. The email appears to admit defeat in the fight to save DLA and AA:

“. . .ASBAH, in line with many other larger bodies is of the view that these proposals have already gathered too much momentum to be reversed and that major changes are inevitable. . . it is vital within any alternative system that people retain elements within their budgets where they can exercise choice in how they spend that money. Although we have not adopted a position where we are fighting to save DLA and AA we would fight to see this element of choice protected and would resist any attempt to convert all support to ‘in kind’.”

We have emailed ASBAH to ask for confirmation that the email is genuine and to ask which other ‘larger bodies’ – presumably disability charities – have also given up the fight to save DLA and AA.

We have yet to receive a response.

MINISTER’ STATEMENT: IS DLA REALLY SAVED?
One week on and there has been absolutely no corroboration of Care Services minister Phil Hope’s off-the-cuff statement that DLA is not being considered for the axe.

As we pointed out last week, Hope’s ‘don’t worry, be happy’ exhortation contradicts previous statements made by the DWP. So, the continued failure by either the DWP or the Department of Health to make any official statement confirming that they have changed their position and that DLA is now safe can only be a cause for deep suspicion and grave concern.

In addition, no reassuring words whatsoever have been offered in relation to AA.

So, at Benefits and Work, our message continues to be ‘It’s not over yet: carry on campaigning’.

NO 10 PETITION STRUGGLING
The petition about DLA and AA seems to be grinding to a halt again, at under 12,000 signatures. As we said last week, if any agency starts a petition it’s vital that they give it maximum publicity or it ends up damaging, rather than promoting, their cause.

Do you have time to check the website of any disability charity that you have a connection with and, if there isn’t an obvious link to the No 10 petition, email them and politely ask them to publish one.

You could point out that the petition was started by the Disability Charities Consortium and that it’s important that disability charities now work together effectively to promote it. If they can’t act together on so simple a thing as getting signatures on a petition, then what exactly can they act together on and how can they claim to be representing their members’ interests?

The petition can be found at:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AttendanceA/

GREEN PAPER WEBSITE AMAZED
The Big Care Debate website have answered our queries about missing responses by replying that “we have received an amazing response from the public in regards to the Green Paper, on both the website and via email. We are doing our best to work our way through them, and have them online and ready to view as soon as we can.”

We know that in the past, such consultations have struggled to get responses numbering in the hundreds, let alone the thousands. So, we can certainly believe that the ‘amazing’ response by Benefits and Work campaigners has taken the Department of Health by surprise. But we do wonder how hard it can be to read and publish a few thousand posts over several months. Is the sheer volume of communications really the only problem? Rather than, say, the fact that most responses are overwhelmingly hostile to the green paper?

If you haven’t yet sent a response to the green paper, please do so by visiting this link:

http://careandsupport.direct.gov.uk/greenpaper/execsum/

Or emailing: careandsupport@dh.gsi.gov.uk

We’re concerned that there doesn’t appear to be any complaints procedure for the green paper consultation and we’re looking into this. But at the very least, if they don’t publish your response it will give more grounds for challenging the validity of the whole green paper consultation, which is after all a statutory process.

POST YOUR NEWS
Finally, remember that you can post your news in the Benefits and Work forum, if you’re a member, at:

http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/forum?func=showcat&catid=13

and/or in the free welfare watch forums at:

http://welfarewatch.myfineforum.org/index.php

You can also keep up with news about opposition to the green paper at the Carer Watch campaign blog:

http://carerwatch.com/cuts/

Unfortunately, we’re getting so many emails on this subject that we are unlikely to be able to respond individually. But we do appreciate hearing your news and views and we do encourage you to publish them for others to read on the forums detailed above.

Good luck,

Please feel free to forward or publish this email.

Benefits and Work Publishing Ltd
http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk
Company registration No. 5962666

(c) 2009 Steve Donnison. All rights reserved.