The Criminality of a Price on Life

In yesterday ‘s Guardian the Government is facing calls to investigate ” a deeply worrying trend in the number of deaths from cocaine use”, 432  in 2017 compared with 112 in 201. I would never dispute any needless death is sad, nor am I unsympathetic to the reasons behind drug use; but it is a choice.

Compare this to a report on Wednesday by Welfare Weekly who demonstrated “111,450 ESA claims were closed following the death of claimants between March 2014 to February 2017″. These people Died through NO fault of their own and indeed may have be as a result of Government Processes.

Desperately this is not new, back in 2014 I was writing about the number of Chronically Sick and Disabled people dying waiting for benefits where ” between January & November 2011 10,600 disabled people either in receipt of or awaiting benefits died”

I called it a Scandal then, now I can only call it Criminal and my real question is Where is the Call for this to Stop ?

I  don’t know if there is one place which has recorded all the deaths of sick and disabled people either waiting for, or after losing their Welfare Benefits;  Steve Topple at The Canary used the Welfare Weekly figures and calculates

the deaths per day were:

• Slightly more than 7 in the “unknown” group.
• 9.02 during the assessment phase.
• 10 in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG).
• Almost 75 in the Support Group.

Further there are numerous petitions, reports and investigations undertaken by ourselves as a disabled community through to the UN; all attempting to identify – Why have so many of our most vulnerable citizens died before their time.

Despite the struggles to address this over the past seven or eight years it continues; ergo I feel compelled to ask When and by Whom will the #DWP, who as the benefits administrator must surely be the responsible party and the Ministers of State who Manages said department be held to account?

Nothing will bring back those we have lost, but surely no one will disagree, it well past time those responsible paid the price for these needless Deaths – it is Time For The TRUTH.

A Disabled #Hostile #Environment

There is an excellent article in todays Guardian wherein Martin Forde QC states #Windrush victims “should be compensated for the devastating psychological impact of missing funerals and relationships collapsing…who lost their jobs or homes, or were detained or deported “; further he says he needs to determine “what the impact has been – psychological and financial.”

I totally agree with this and I believe this thinking needs to be expanded to all victims of the ‘Hostile Environment’ created by Tory ideology, and for me this has to include Disabled people. I’m not going to try and compile a list of the multitude ways we have been subjected to attitudes and policies, which have impacted upon us both psychologically  and financially. We all have stories of the torment we personally have experienced and we all have felt the sorrow when so many disabled people paid the ultimate price, with their lives.

I tweeted this belief earlier this morning and the following reply from @llamakip sums up how I feel:

“Working with disabled people I can confirm the ‘hostile environment’ is not just reserved for immigrants. Right from 2010 the language used was offensive (remember they began by equating benefits with drug & alcohol abuse) and the DWP became politicised as an ideological weapon.”

Because of this I constantly find myself searching for the one experience, article or project which would ignite a public response strong enough for the Government to seem to be “they are very, very anxious to be seen to be sympathetic” to our cause?

 

The cost of PIP? £35 less per week, Thanks #DWP! – This is A CALL OUT for Info

Well I’ve received my PIP award and hooray I’ve ‘scored’ more points than on my DLA and yet, despite this I’ve  been awarded ‘Standard’ rates for both Daily Living & Mobility Elements, to explain how this makes a real difference to me read on.

To get PIP at all, you must score between 8 – 11 points in both daily living / Mobility and to get the Enhanced rate it’s 12 points; the 2 elements are valued differently with

the Daily Living standard rate being £54,45 and the enhanced rate £81.30 per week,

for  Mobility, the standard rate is £21.55 and the enhanced rate is £56.75 per week.

This differs greatly from the old DLA which had three levels of award, the rates which are/were worth  for care

lowest rate – £21.55

middle rate – £54.45

highest rate – £81.30

and for the mobility component

lower rate – £21.55
higher rate – £56.75

I believe these changes clearly demonstrate how the government have reduced PIP spending by a total o£2.2bn?

Personally under DLA I received Mid Care & High Mobility, however under PIP I scraped in at a bare 8 in daily living and 10 for mobility costing me almost £140 per month!! I have reported my intention to ask for a Mandatory Consideration and will keep you posted; in the meanwhile…

…I’m trying to collect evidence of PIP being no more than another Government attempt to cut even more money from disabled people, further driving us into poverty; therefore I ask all of you to please share with me Your examples of PIP, have you received an award, was it worth more/less than before etc.

If you would prefer to share this info anonymously that’s fine and if you want to do so privately, please contact me at ratea62@gmail.com

THANK YOU in advance for your input Jxx

 

Footnote* From truthmeister – ”

As for saving money, the bungling incompetence of IDS has meant that a proposed saving of £1.2bn pa has actually turned into an increase in spending of £1.6bn pa to date, as per the IFS: http://www.ifs.org.uk/publications/7447” Thanks