What’s your Christmas message to the Government? | The Hardest Hit

 

The Hardest Hit are planning to send a giant Christmas card to the Government to let them know that we are not asking for gifts, but we do want our basic rights protected and the support to enable us to live independently and with dignity.

You can sign the card and leave your message by following the link below:

Sign the card!

What’s your Christmas message to the Government? | The Hardest Hit

National Pensioners Convention – Dignity Code

NPC  has created a dignity code to uphold the rights and maintain the personal dignity of older people, within the context of ensuring the health, safety and well being of those who are increasingly less able to care for themselves or to properly conduct their affairs. We have asked a number of professional health bodies, regulators and charities if they will sign up to the code, which we will then present to government.rsonal dignity of older people, within the context of ensuring the health, safety and well being of those who are increasingly less able to care for themselves or to properly conduct their affairs. We have asked a number of professional health bodies, regulators and charities if they will sign up to the code, which we will then present to government.

You can read the code here –  NPC Dignity Code

Joint Committee on Human Rights: The implementation of the right of disabled people to independent living

 2:20 pm; Room 5, Palace of Westminster

Witnesses: Maria Miller MP, Minister for Disabled People, Department for Work and Pensions;

Paul Burstow MP, Minister of State for Care Services, Department of Health;

and Rt Hon Grant Shapps MP, Minister of State for Housing and Local Government, Department for Communities and Local Government

see full details here of upcoming business

Welfare Reform Bill – Letter to Peers

We have been asked to share this letter below, organised by Disabled People Against Cuts.  Please take time to read through and then contact Peers with your own concerns.

You can find names and addresses here . DPAC have suggested these names in particular :

Jenny Willott MP and Ian Swales MP in the House of Commons, and Lord German in the House of Lords. Other peers who are involved are Baroness Thomas, Lord Kirkwood, Lord Stoneham and Lord Addington.

Letter already sent to Peers as follows :

Dont turn back time – day of Action Nov 19th – Fawcett Society

On average, women earn less, own less, and are more likely to work and retire in poverty than men.

The government’s approach to cutting the deficit will widen the gap between women and men:

-Female unemployment is rising as jobs are cut in public service
-The benefits and services women rely on more are being slashed
-Women on low incomes are becoming poorer
-The pay gap looks set to widen
-Women’s access to vital support services is being undermined
-Increasing numbers of women are being forced to give up work as cuts to childcare support means their jobs no longer cover the family’s care costs

The government’s approach to cutting the deficit is turning back time on women’s equality. This can’t go on.

On November 19th, join us on the ‘DON’T turn back time’ March in London or host your own ‘DON’T turn back time’ tea party to help us tell David Cameron:

“DON’T TURN BACK TIME ON WOMEN’S EQUALITY!”

For more information and document downloads please see here

Help at hand for those with benefit concerns

 

BENEFIT advisers have rallied organisations and charities together for a day-long event to show help is at hand for disabled people worried about welfare reform.

Barrow District and Disability Association’s disability advice and benefit service is holding a day-long conference designed to help thousands of people in the area who are worried about the government’s changes to what they are entitled to claim.

Incapacity Benefit, Income Support paid because of an illness or disability and Severe Disablement Allowance are all being phased out.

North West Evening Mail | News | Help at hand for those with benefit concerns

For whose benefit?

 

Plans for a universal benefit are sensible but not the way the government is introducing it – in particular by blaming claimants for the failings of the old system

As the Welfare Reform Bill nears royal assent, many charities are mounting last-ditch attempts to amend some of its less well formulated proposals.

They have been doing this for almost a year, but Department for Work and Pensions ministers appear impervious to their efforts. With such a radical policy plan, the government reasons, there are bound to be dissenters. Disability charities will stick up for disabled people. Children’s charities will fight for special treatment for children. That’s their job. Right?

For whose benefit? | Public Finance Opinion

Tories whitewash the many set to lose from welfare reform

 

The Conservatives debated welfare reform at their party conference this morning.

Chris Grayling started by talking of the “dreadful legacy inherited by the Labour government”. No mention of tax credits that lifted millions out of poverty and supported millions in work. Or pension credits that lifted pensioners out of poverty and improved their income by 50 per cent.

As expected, the first attack is on the “incapacity benefit culture” claiming to support those who wish to work, yet no mention of the abject failure of work programmes that are only as likely to ‘help’ people as they are to find work on their own.

Tories whitewash the many set to lose from welfare reform | Left Foot Forward

Welfare Reform – Day2 at Conservative conference

Today, Oct 3rd 2011 sees day 2 of the Conservative conference.

Full schedule can be read here

You can watch live here    also here

Please note 10am this morning is -

10.00 – Welfare Reform and Jobs
Iain Duncan Smith, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions

Proposal to replace Disability Living Allowance with Personal Independence Payment (16th September 2011)

 

3.1 Carers UK is surprised and disappointed at the lack of adequate assessment of the impact of the PIP proposals on carers:

· There was no mention of carers in the initial Impact Assessment of the DLA reforms, published with the Bill; or in the Equality Impact Assessments published during the Committee stage. The Government’s response to the DLA reform consultation, published in April, simply states that the Government is considering the implications for Carer’s Allowance of DLA reform.

· This lack of upfront information not only makes adequate scrutiny of the proposals impossible – but it is also causing a huge amount of distress for families, including those affected by the most severe disability and terminal illness, who fear the loss of their disability and carers’ benefits because they do not know if they may be affected.

· Given that 73% of current Carer’s Allowance claimants are women, it is also concerning that the potential loss of independent income for a group predominantly made up of women was not a key part of the gender impact assessment for the Bill.

3.2 We believe that it is critical that a full evaluation of the impact on carers is conducted as a matter of urgency. This must include an estimate of the number of carers expected to lose Carer’s Allowance, a disability impact assessment and a carer equality impact assessment which looks at the impact on gender equality of the likely loss of Carer’s Allowance .

Proposal to replace Disability Living Allowance with Personal Independence Payment (16th September 2011)