Disabled People Against Cuts – protest April 18th

Disabled people Against Cuts

April 18th meet for 1.30 pm McDonalds Leicester Square.

Let us have text contact details if definitely coming. Access needs if any too.

Action will be around benefit cuts, care funding and Loss of Remploy jobs.

this affects older people too so bring your grannies and grandads too.

Contact mail@dpac.uk.net

Press release

Photo opportunity. Meet Leicester Square McDonalds, 1.30pm

DISABLED PEOPLE REFUSE TO SIT BACK AND BE SLOWLY KILLED

Already three-quarters of disabled people live in poverty yet the Condems seem determined to push people even further into destitution. It seems that this is a means of punishing them for daring to be or become disabled – something that can happen to anyone at anytime. This is part of the new economy and Condem society of Britain.

Linda Burnip co-founder of DPAC says  “If cuts to benefits don’t kill you slowly by leaving you starving or freezing to death in winter then massive cuts to care and support funding should finish off those Maria Miller, the so-called minister for disabled people, calls “unsustainable” a bit faster. “

Campaigners say disabled people are being unfairly picked on because they are seen as an easy target by millionaire politicians and the ex-banker Lord Freud in particular.

Disability benefits designed to pay the extra costs of disability and originally awarded for a lifetime term are being reassessed. Many who were certified by medically qualified and independent doctors are losing their meagre incomes to politically appointed and performance incentivised ATOS assessors.

Huge increases to hate crimes, cuts in housing benefits, cuts in public services, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, job losses in the public sector, closure of Remploy factories when unemployment is at a record high the list of attacks is endless.

Debbie Jolly another co-founder of DPAC says: “Disabled people will be descending on London again to tell all politicians we’ve had enough. We are fed up with being vilified as scroungers by successive governments, we are sick of hearing about disabled people who have died from neglect and lack of services or who have committed suicide because services and benefits were withdrawn from them. Debbie from Leicester says: “Disabled people will be descending on London again to tell all politicians we’ve had enough. We are fed up with being vilified as scroungers by successive governments, we are sick of hearing about disabled people who have died from neglect and lack of services or who have committed suicide because services and benefits were withdrawn from them. We are angry at the constant attacks by this government  because we are seen as an easy target .We want to make sure politicians know we will not accept these attacks on our lives any longer. “

ENDS

Contact-  Linda 0771 492 7533 or Adam 07801058235

Notes to editors:

Data from Family Resources Survey and the National Equalities Panel found that:

• 75% of disabled women and 70% of disabled men are already at the bottom end of Britain’s income distribution scale living in poverty.

• A tenth of disabled woman have incomes below £31 per week and a tenth of disabled men have incomes below £59 per week including earned income and benefits.

• Under the coalition government’s economy drive disabled people are set to lose at least £140 per month through direct cuts to disability benefits (initially devised to pay the extra costs of being disabled) alone.

• The Condems are removing DLA saying that the number of claimants must be reduced by half a million.

• Employment Support Allowance and work capability assessments have been criticised by CAB, disability charities and Disabled People’s Organisations. ATOS healthcare failures are costing £50 million in additional appeal tribunal costs.

• Housing Benefits for all tenants will be reduced. From October 2011 for those 2 million disabled people living in private rented accommodation and from 2013 for anyone living in social housing which is deemed too large for their needs

• Added to that funding from the Independent Living Fund for care and support has now ceased to all new claimants and any additional needs cannot be met by them

Extra costs of disability to individuals

A Rowntree report (2004) found that the weekly income of disabled people who are solely dependent on benefits is approximately £200 below the amount required for them to ensure an acceptable, equitable quality of life’

However, even if receiving maximum benefits, disabled people still experience a substantial shortfall in income. The income of disabled people solely dependent on benefits, irrespective of the type or level of their need, is approximately £200 less than the weekly amount required for them to ensure a minimum standard of living.

Source: Disabled people’s costs of living: ‘More than you would think’ (2004) by Noel Smith, Sue Middleton, Kate Ashton-Brooks, Lynne Cox and Barbara Dobson with Lorna Reith, is published by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (ISBN 1 85935 236 7,

Employment

The employment rates of disabled people are around 48% compared with around 78% of non-disabled people Source Labour Force Survey, Quarter 2,2010

 Only 20% of those with mental health problems are in employment- Source- Labour Force Survey, Jan-March 2009.

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. Please click here to sign Pat’s Petition  which calls on the government to -

“Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families”

Once you have signed share it with all your contacts asking them to sign and pass on too.

WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

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WHY have family carers been failed again?

For several years now CarerWatch, along with other campaigners, have fought for Carers’ benefits to be improved. However, past and present governments, have continuously failed to address both the low level of the allowance, £55.55 per week, or tackle the restrictions which bar many carers from claiming.

We have repeatedly taken our concerns to Ministers, DWP, MPs, all of which have been ignored. We were outraged with the present Welfare Reform Bill/Act, as once again carers’ benefits were overlooked.

This was frustrating as the current Secretary of State for Works and Pensions, Mr Iain Duncan Smith, had previously recommended an increase in the allowance when with the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), an independent think tank he set up.

In the report, Breakthrough Britain, it was stated –

 “”Family carers are undervalued in our society and receive a disproportionately low level of financial support given the many hours of work that they do“”

Considering we are witnessing the biggest reform of welfare benefits in over 60 years,

WHY have family carers been failed again?

Why, on March 14^th 2012, did Mr Paul Burstows answer a question from Mr Jim Cunningham and state:

 The Cross Government’s Carers Strategy “Recognised, valued and supported: Next steps for the Carers’ Strategy”, recognises that carers should not face financial hardship and the Departments are working together to take forward various initiatives to support carers in their caring role, through welfare reform and in developing the White Paper on care and support. We are looking at putting the rights of carers on a firmer footing in social care so that they have similar rights to the people they care for.

The WRB received Royal Assent March 8^th 2012 and there was NOTHING included that would alleviate the financial hardship being faced by many carers.

With a White paper due for care and support, can we be at all hopeful that the Dept of Health will succeed where other departments have failed. Time will tell.

A recent report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights  urges the Government to conduct an impact assessment on the cumulative impact of the current reforms on disabled people. It considers that this is required by law.

This mirrors exactly what is asked  for with Pat’s Petition – a pause to consider the impact of the ‘perfect storm’ of changes. Too many of these changes will impact on family carers and we urge everyone to sign Pats Petition, share with others.

Care reform must succeed where welfare reform failed

The Care Lobby is here. Full details on their website 

CareLobby 2012 are also staging the world’s first twobby – an online lobby so that even more people can tell MPs that a change in social care is urgently needed. This will run at the same time as the lobby at parliament. Our social care system is broken. Support the twobby TODAY

The program of welfare reform and cuts is proceeding with alarming momentum and the needs of carers  and  disabled people are being lost in the fiscal crisis.  

In this present economic climate we are already witnessing many cutbacks within Local Authorities:

• Care criteria being tightened
• Day centres closing
• Respite allocations reducing in many areas
• Meals on wheels costs increasing dramatically
• Care package costs increasing
• Transport for disabled people either stopping or priced out of reach
• Carers’ grants under threat

…………… and so the list could go on.

Add in the recent passage of the Welfare reform Bill which will see Disability Living Allowance become a Personal Independence Payment. Removing or reducing DLA will not only have an enormous financial impact on disabled people it will also impact on their carers – a double blow which will especially hit hard those families on the poverty line.

This is why we need a pause. To stop and assess how all these changes will impact on lives.

Sign Pats Petition here   Share the link and ask as many others to sign too, ask them to pass it on. Together we can do this.

Emergency meeting – Organising Against the Welfare Reform Bill

 

Received from Winvisible

 

Emergency Meeting:

Organising Against

the Welfare Reform Bill

 

Monday 20 Feb  5pm-6.30pm

Tent City University,

Occupy London,

St Paul’s

London EC4M 8AD 

All welcome

 

Buses 4, 11, 15, 23, 25, 26, 100, 242

Tube: St Paul’s, Central Line

Overground: City Thameslink

 

This is outdoors, so dress warm. 

Hot drinks available and accessible loos nearby.

 

For more info: Global Women’s Strike gws@globalwomenstrike.net

020 7482 2496, 07904 255 145

 

Also please sign Pats Petition here, then become an organiser. Share the link to gather as many more names as you can and in turn ask them to do the same.

Do you send out/receive e newsletters? If so please ensure the petition details are included.

 

 

Support the Life Raft for Women’s Equality – Fawcett Society

Fightback Fridays!   see here

Since the 2010 Budget, women have borne the brunt of cuts. In the run up to the 2012 Budget, Fawcett and more than 20 other organisations – including Oxfam, UNISON, and the Child Poverty Action Group are calling on the government to implement our  ‘Life Raft for Women’s Equality’ - a set of targeted policy asks that  would go a long way in softening the worse effects of cuts on women.

 

Support the Life Raft for Women’s Equality

Measures to reduce the deficit are hitting women with a triple jeopardy: cuts to their jobs, cuts to the benefits and services that they rely on more, and a growing likelihood that women will be the ones left ‘filling the gaps’ as state services are withdrawn.

sign the petition here

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Also,  Stop and review the cuts to benefits and services which are falling disproportionately on disabled people, their carers and families

Sign e petition on govt website here. Share as wide as possible and gather as much support as you can. Ask your contacts to share with theirs.

Take the debate back to Westminster

Easy read consultation on the new Personal Independence Payment

The government’s ideas about the points you need to get benefit, and assessment questions.

Tell them what you think. Consultation ends 30 April 2012

Easy read docs here

Send responses to -

email to   pip.assessment@dwp.gsi.gov.uk      or

post a letter to

Dept of Work and pensions

2nd floor Area B

Caxton House

Tothill Street

London

SW1H 9NA 

 

Condem Government set to Strip Disabled Peoples’ Basic Human Rights

Received from Linda Burnip   at DPAC

The government’s ill-thought through plans to scrap the Independent Living Fund (ILF) from 2015 will not only wreck disabled people’s lives but potentially push them into residential institutions rather than being able to live in the community. This is in spite of these rights being guaranteed by the ratification of a United Nations Convention.

 

Leamington Lobby

The planned changes will cost taxpayers millions of pounds more every year by forcing disabled people back into institutions, and by creating greater ill-health leading to a greater drain on the NHS all at public cost.

The ILF supports independent living for some 20,000 disabled people with the highest support needs across the UK, enabling real choice and control over how they live their lives and creating employment. It contributes to UK tax gains and public savings.

Minister for Disabled People, Maria Miller, announced the permanent closure of the ILF to new applications in December 2010.  Her statement then, and her recent statement of December 2011, point to the permanent closure of the ILF by 2015. 

A Disabled People Against the Cuts (DPAC) led campaign is being launched on February 13^th  when Jamie Bolling Executive Director of European Network for Independent Living (ENIL) will be flying in from Sweden to support UK campaigners. Jamie says “Cuts across Europe must stop! They are breaches of human rights and are taking the lives of disabled people. Without the ILF there will be no choice for disabled people and choice is a right.”

Campaigners plan to 

Welfare Reform and the Financial Privilege – A MUST READ

On 1 February 2012, a committee of the House of Commons resolved that the Welfare Reform Bill, which proposes to cap benefits for most families at £26,000 a year, engages the financial privilege of the Commons.  Under such a privilege, the Commons is entitled to ‘disagree’ with any Lords amendment and ultimately reject it without feeling obliged to provide any reasons other than the existence of the privilege.  By convention, the Lords will accept this determination (though increasingly with protest). I argue below that it would be a mistake to read the financial privilege so broadly, and also that the Lords have both the constitutional power, and good cause, to assert themselves in reply.

READ IN FULL HERE

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Please sign this petition  and share the link to gather more support.

Welfare Reform – The Dread of Things To Come

Tomorrow the Tories will try to push through their new Welfare Reform Bill. Read the story about welfare reform in our new Soundings free-to-download ebook Welfare reform – the dread of things to come

Contributors: Peter Beresford, Kaliya Franklin, Declan Gaffney, Steve Griffiths, Sue Marsh, Jonathan Rutherford

Please help distribute the link via your twitter accounts and your work and social media networks. With your help we can get tens of thousands of downloads.

Sign the petition
People with disability and their carers have been reeling from the attacks on benefits and services and so far their voices have been largely discounted.

Please sign Pat’s petition click here

If we all get behind Pat’s petition we can register our voices in one place and make the government listen.

details taken from LWbooks newsletter

Welfare Reform Bill prompts protest in London

Activists and disability campaign groups are staging a demonstration in opposition to the government’s welfare proposals.

Campaigners say the changes in the Welfare Reform Bill would see half a million people lose their benefits.

listen here

To track the event on Twitter check out hashtags

#dpac

#UKUNCUT

#invisibleinvincibles

If you are unable to attend the event please sign petition here  

Don’t just be a signer — be an organizer. Turn your signature into hundreds more by asking your friends to sign. Then they’ll ask their friends. That’s how we win. 

Photos courtesy of Sam