Hopes and Dreams

(Content warning: Mentions of domestic abuse and suicide)


During his Tory party conference speech last week, Rishi Sunak, while justifying slashing Universal Credit, asked his audience “is the answer to their hopes and dreams just to increase their benefits?”

The thing is, for many people; the answer is a simple “yes;” an increase in benefits could be an answer to their hopes and dreams.

* If a parent’s dream is for their kids to have a better life than them, and increased benefits mean they’ll be able to work only one job rather than the three they have now, giving them time to help their children with homework, which will enable their children to achieve more later in life: Yes, increased benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a terminally ill person’s dream is to go on an exciting adventure before they die: Yes, increasing their benefits can be the answer to their hopes and dreams.

* If a person with a mobility impairment dreams of a really good wheelchair that’ll change their life, but the NHS won’t prescribe what they need and they’re not popular enough to crowdfund it: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a disabled person wants to move into a more accessible property, which will dramatically improve their health, but they can’t find one within the local housing allowance budget: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a disabled person was saving up for something special, but they blew their savings on the extra costs of being disabled/shielding in a pandemic: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

PIP is supposed to cover the extra costs of being disabled, but despite the fact that so many of us saw our extra costs soar during the pandemic - from having to have everything delivered costing more than being able to go to the shops while shielding, to having to turn to more expensive things like robot vacuums and having to get takeaway every day when social care was withdrawn - we got no extra PIP payments to cover those extra costs. I calculated that my extra costs related to shielding from March 2020 to March 2021 came to £5,000. I won’t say I could “afford” that, because it’s not true; but I did have access to that amount thanks to family, while not all disabled people did. At least one disabled person starved to death during the first lockdown because he couldn’t access food while many other disabled people will have gone cold, hungry, or without connectivity due to not being able to afford phone credit because their extra costs were not met. There were no campaigns to get a one-off payment to PIP claimants to cover our pandemic extra costs, because no political party actually cares enough to fight for us; and the major disability charities aren’t any better, because they didn’t demand that PIP meet our pandemic-related extra costs either.

And if you have more than £16k in the bank, you’re not eligible for any income based benefits, you can only claim £74.70/£114.10 weekly contributions based ESA (as long as you’ve been paying your National Insurance contributions in the last couple of years), plus PIP. I’ve a good friend who got an inheritance a month before the pandemic. Not huge, but enough to buy a crap house in some of the most deprived areas of the north. But her income based benefits were cut because she did the right thing and told the DWP she’d gotten the inheritance, so during the pandemic she’s had to live off that inheritance because she was paying £107 rent a week out of £114 ESA; leaving her with £7 a week to live off, plus PIP to cover some of her extra costs of being disabled. Obviously £7 a week for all bills is not survivable, so she’s had to dip into the inheritance; and now it looks like she’ll be renting for the rest of her life between the inheritance she blew on surviving while shielding, and the soar in house prices caused by the stamp duty cut. Her only hope to buy a crap house in a deprived area in the north now is if there’s a housing crash this winter.

Most political parties at various points in time bang on and on about how the system should look after those who’ve ‘done the right thing’ and worked hard and paid their National Insurance. But they don’t at all. Having £7 a week to live on after you’ve paid your rent is not “looked after”. Those who’ve paid their NI but aren’t eligible for income based benefits because they’ve got a partner in work, or got more than £16k from an inheritance or old savings from when they were fit for work, are treated like shit. And because of that, the benefits system will pay more in the end. My friend won’t be able to buy a house now, so she’ll deplete the small inheritance, and then will soon be back on income based benefits again and the state will need to pay her rent again. If contributions based benefits were fair, she wouldn’t have blown out her inheritance while shielding, she’d be able to buy a cheap house once she’s had her third jab and finished shielding, and the state would never need to help her with rent ever again.

She - like claimants of all legacy benefits like JobSeekers Allowance, Carer’s Allowance, and all types of ESA (both contributions and income based) - didn’t even get the extra £20 a week that UC claimants got. When you’re left with £7 a week after paying rent, that extra £20 would triple the amount available to spend before having to buy food out of the money she was hoping to buy a future with. The #20MoreForAll campaign was pretty pitiful to be honest because it had no mainstream support; the main political parties barely made a peep - Labour just had the very occasional tweet from the Shadow Work & Pensions Secretary - and the charities that are supposed to represent us barely made a fuss either. I suppose at least they did more for that than they did for trying to get a one-off PIP payment to cover our pandemic extra costs; with the amount of effort there being absolute zero, they’ve never mentioned it at all.

(Friend consented to being written about anonymously)

* If a parent is worried about their children being at risk of getting involved in a gang, and dreams of moving to a new city to give their kids a fresh start, but they can’t afford a moving van, a deposit on a new private rented flat, or even to pass the financial check landlords carry out: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a person with limited mobility simply dreams of surviving this winter without dying of hypothermia, and wishes they could afford to put the heating on: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

Disabled people born after 26th September 1955 aren’t eligible for the non-means tested Winter Fuel Payments and despite the fact that fuel bills are higher than ever, disabled people are having to spend more time at home than ever before because many of us are still at least semi-shielding, and most importantly; many of us can’t move around to keep warm like non-disabled people who can do star jumps to warm up: There’s no campaign to introduce WFPs for disabled people in this most expensive winter ever. Again, neither politicians, nor charities that supposedly represent us, care about us going cold this winter. The WFP ranges from £100-£300 depending on age and circumstances. I’d say that £150 for those getting the low rate mobility component of DLA/PIP (who have some limitations with their ability to move around), and £300 for those getting the high rate mobility component of DLA/PIP (who have severe limitations with their ability to move around), would be suitable rates. But no-one cares if we fucking freeze, especially not those supposed to be representing us.

* If a person who recently became disabled can no longer do their old job, and they need money to pay the course fees to retrain do something different: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

While you can get some qualifications funded by the JobCentre if you meet certain conditions; there will always be people who want/need to train on a course that isn’t funded, or they don’t meet the criteria for funding.

* If a homeowner is off work sick long term with Long Covid, and they dream of keeping the family home, perhaps the home where their children grew up, maybe the house where their spouse died, but they can’t afford the mortgage on ESA or Universal Credit: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If someone permanently too ill to work dreams of being a homeowner: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

You can claim housing benefits to pay your landlord’s mortgage, but not your own. The only help for homeowners with housing costs is Support for Mortgage Interest; and even that’s a loan nowadays. So you’d have to find the money for your mortgage, and all the other expenses in life, out of your £74.70/£114.10 weekly contributions based ESA, or £324.84-£668.47 monthly Universal Credit. (Some people are still getting income based ESA, although you haven't been able to put in a new claim for ibESA since long before SARS-CoV2 made the jump to humans, so that won't apply to anyone newly claiming benefits due to long covid.)

* If a disabled person on income based benefits dreams of living with their partner, but can’t afford it because their benefits will be stopped completely leaving them wholly dependent on their other half: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

* If a disabled person dreams of leaving their abusive partner, then an increase to benefits that are paid directly to them - specifically PIP or contributions-based ESA, as distinct from Universal Credit which will be paid to the head of the household - could enable them to afford transport and a temporary place to stay in order to be able to leave; answering their hopes and dreams.

Disabled people are nearly three times as likely to experience domestic abuse as non-disabled people so needing to save up money that comes to you personally in order to leave is not a hypothetical risk for thousands. It's also why many disabled people daren't move in with a partner they'd be wholly dependent on because it would put them at such high risk of financial abuse, and potentially other kinds too. You never know what the wonderful, kind, gentle person you love right now will turn into when you're completely dependent on them just to buy tampons.

* If a disabled person simply dreams of not having to count every penny, of being able to spontaneously buy a new dress, of being able to get takeaway now and then, of being able to put the heating on more than 3 hours a day: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their dreams.

* If a new computer could make someone employable, if they’re only well enough to work from home and a new PC could completely change their life, but they just can’t afford one: Yes, increasing their benefits can answer their hopes and dreams.

I don’t know if you noticed, but in several of these examples - the person who needs a new wheelchair, the person who needs a more accessible home, the person who needs to retrain, and the person who needs a new computer - an increase in benefits would ultimately make them more employable. The government thinks slashing benefits is the answer to getting disabled people back to work; but in reality the opposite is true. If you need a wheelchair to physically get yourself to work, but you can’t afford one, the NHS won’t issue a suitable one, you’re not eligible for Motability because you got turned down for high rate mobility PIP, and you’re not popular enough to crowdfund one: You literally cannot physically go into a job interview to try and get hired.

First Labour, then Tories and Lib Dems, then Tories on their own, then Tories and the DUP, and most recently Tories on their own again, have spent the last 13 years cutting disabled people’s benefits to try to get seriously ill and severely disabled people to get off their "lazy" sick and disabled arses, and into work. Never mind the fact that DLA was not an out of work benefit and plenty of claimants needed it to stay in employment; they still created PIP to try and cut the case load by 20%, spouting utter bollocks about getting disabled people into work.

But when you cut someone’s benefits, you drive them further from the workplace. If someone has a job that can’t be done from home, but their PIP is stopped so the Motability scheme takes back their leased wheelchair: Suddenly they cannot go into work, maybe cannot even get out of bed. They’ll at the very least need to take a sabbatical from work until they get a new wheelchair, they may even lose their job entirely.

You also drive them further from the workplace because poverty damages health, and we’re talking about people who are already sick. If someone has cancer but is hoping that claiming benefits is a short term thing because they’re hoping they’ll recover quickly; until they discover how little they’ll have to live on. You cannot recover from a serious illness like cancer if you’re malnourished from poor quality food, and borderline hypothermic because you can’t move much and you can’t afford to put the heat on, while the stress of poverty can also affect physical healing. A cannabis prescription may help with many facets of cancer with THC being an antiemetic, a painkiller, and an appetite stimulant, but cannabis prescriptions are pretty much only available privately; and you definitely won’t be able to afford private healthcare on £74.70 a week ESA (the amount you’ll get if you’re expected to be able to return to work in the not too distant future). Such claimants would have the chance to recover quicker and get back to work quicker if their benefits were enough that they could eat well, keep warm in winter and cool in summer, avoid having their physical healing slowed by the psychological stress caused by poverty, and afford a bit of private healthcare; whether a physio to help them get movement back after an op, or, yes; a doctor who issues private prescriptions for medical marijuana.

The stress of poverty affects even those who were the most mentally sound previously. So if you’re claiming benefits for a mental health condition, the chances you’ll be able to get off benefits is slim. But if our benefits system lifted ill and impaired people out of poverty, it would give people a real shot at recovering from a mental illness, instead of our social security system making people sicker. Especially if people could afford to pay for mental healthcare in a timely manner rather than waiting at least months, commonly years, often for the wrong therapy on the NHS.

If you just yank the social security rug out from under the feet of people claiming benefits due to severe mental illness, obviously they’re not well enough just get a job, so they end up dying like Errol Graham and Mark Wood who both starved to death because they couldn’t afford food, or they’ll die by suicide like Philippa Day, Paul Reekie, and far too many others to list. Reekie died only a month after Iain Duncan Smith succeeded Yvette Cooper as Work & Pensions secretary, so his death was as a result of the benefit cuts instituted by the last Labour government; before the Tories had the chance to make the system even worse. It's worth noting that in Australia, during the pandemic when social security payments temporarily rose and lifted people briefly out of poverty, suicides went down.

The government created the non-means tested furlough scheme to keep people's finances sound while they weren't in work, because they know full well that plunging people into poverty drives them further away from work by damaging their mental and physical health, and leaves them unable to afford the essentials to get back into work like a computer and smart clothing. But they don't apply the same logic to sick and disabled people. Somehow we're a magic mirror image of the non-disableds, and forcing us deeper into poverty will supernaturally drive us closer to work. Even though the list of DWP-related deaths tells a different story.

Yet despite all these obvious examples of how increased benefits could not only answer our hopes and dreams (and in some cases save our lives), but also achieve the government’s goal of making us more employable; Thérèse Coffey said at the Tory conference that she wants to cut even more people’s benefits “to get us into work” when, of course, all it’ll do is make people iller - therefore further from work, less able to afford to get healthy, and less able to buy the tools they need to find work like wheelchairs and computers - and will ultimately lead to even more preventable deaths at the hands of the DWP.

The main reason for planning more cuts, of course, is just because the Tories love levelling down, despite all the "levelling up" bollocks that riddled Johnson's conference speech. At the exact same time that the Universal Credit cut went into effect, plunging families into poverty, increasing hunger and suffering across the country; Thérèse Coffey was making sure everybody knew that she was loving it; she was having the time of her life.

Four things from the Conservative Party Conference #cpc14

1) Housing Benefit for 18-21 year olds

In general students are ineligible for housing benefit, but many disabled students are. Which considering that most non-disabled students are able to take a part-time job, but most disabled students aren't it's rather sensible. Because of my impaired mobility I certainly could never have done the bar work or waitressing that my classmates all did. This is a way of levelling the playing field and allowing disabled people to study like their non-disabled peers.

Cuts to Disabled Students' Allowance were announced earlier in the year, though they've recently been postponed.

But now the Tories are planning an extra cut which will hit young people if they win the next election: they're going to prevent 18-21 year olds from claiming housing benefit. Many young people are going to end up homeless; both disabled and non-disabled; and it's going to be horrific. But it's going to have an extra impact on disabled people in that it's going to be yet another barrier in accessing an education that won't hit non-disabled people in quite the same way.

2) Freeze on working age benefits for 2 years

In his speech; Osborne announced that if the Tories win next year, he'll freeze working age benefits for 2 years. He lied outright when he told the assembled crowd and adoring media that this wouldn't apply to disability benefits. Dr Campbell explained on her blog how it definitely will be hitting ESA claimants. Please spread her post far and wide for people who haven't read the fine print of Osborne's announcement and took him at his word when he said it wouldn't apply to "disability benefits".

3) Benefits cards instead of cash

Because IDS doesn't realise that Shameless was a piece of fiction, he's going to be trialling paying benefits by pre-paid cards instead of cash so that people can only spend them on items he deems acceptable; and at stores that have negotiated deals with the government.

So if you live in the village where I grew up, can't use the train station or the buses because they're not accessible, and you don't have a car: You're fucked. Because the chances that the one family-run tiny village shop have got in on the government scheme are slim.

There's a host of other problems too. Addiction isn't the only criteria you'd get put onto the cards for. Debt is another one. Scope estimate that being disabled costs you on average an extra £550 a month. When you've got those extra costs mounting it's very easy to rack up debt.

What happens when you then need to buy a piece of equipment like a walking stick or a chopping board adapted for one-handed use from a company that's not signed up to the government benefit card scheme and you don't have any cash?

What about the 58 year old woman who's paid her National Insurance premiums for 40 years? She's now developed cancer and had to claim ESA while undergoing treatment. Because being ill is expensive she ran up some debt during treatment and as such was shifted from cash payments to a pre-paid card. She's just been given that all clear by her doctor; but it'll be at least a month before the effects of the treatment have worn off enough for her to be well enough to go back to work. Should she really not be allowed to buy a bottle of champagne the day she gets her all clear? After 40 years of paying her NI contributions?

It's very easy for people with mental health problems to get into financial difficulty when they're especially unwell. I know a lot of people end up with some quite large debts. For me, personally, the most effective antidepressant is TV. It's easy to immerse yourself in a fictional world to forget - just temporarily - how terrible real life is. I spent much of Monday upset about how isolated and alone I am. Wanna know how I distracted myself from the thoughts that my life really isn't worth living? I watched TV.

So you're ill, you're in debt, you've been given a card and are only allowed to spend money on pre-approved items from pre-approved stores. Your TV breaks and you need to repair or replace it for the sake of your sanity; to give your brain some respite from how miserable your life is. You're not allowed to buy a TV because TVs aren't on the list of things you're allowed to have. Are you supposed to just wallow in your depression until you finally do end up causing yourself serious harm?

Or you're so physically impaired that you're unable to cook. Your council won't give you a care package because their budget's been cut by central government. The only way you can get some food is to order a takeaway. You've got yourself into debt because buying takeaway every day is expensive, but you've got no choice. You get transferred from cash payments to the cards because of your debt and takeaways are a prohibited item. What are you supposed to eat then?

Or a card-holder in the situation that I'm in now where they need to buy a new mattress but the only things they're allowed to buy with their card are food, toiletries and clothes? Or if they are allowed to buy a mattress, but only from a supplier that's got a deal with the DWP. And that supplier won't remove old mattresses for disposal and they can't get rid of a mattress themselves because they're too physically impaired?

Then there are people with addictions. People who aren't going to stop buying drugs or alcohol because of a switch from cash to pre-paid cards because they are addicted. Instead they'll sell their £30 card for £15 of cash. Or resort to crime to meet their physical need for the substance they're addicted to.

4) Acceleration of Universal Credit rollout

On Monday IDS announced that Universal Credit will be rolled out to all JobCentres from early next year. They say this is because of the "success of the policy so far". Such a "success" that they keep lowering the target... And still missing it. For now it'll only be for single people claiming JSA. But with an accelerated timetable it won't be long before people reporting a change of circumstances can kiss their Severe Disability Premium goodbye, and the rest of us will watch it gradually fade away.

And a bonus piece of news that's not from the conference but got published this weekend

The DWP don't collect information on people who've died as a result of having their income stopped. Read the article from the Disability News Service who submitted the FoI request.

Intensive programs to deal with *that*...

The Conservatives have had their annual get together where they moan about how much they hate us benefit scroungers and lay out their plans to torture us just a little bit more.

Much noise was made about George Osborne's plan to make JobSeekers' Allowance claimants either attend the JobCentre every day or participate in a workfare scheme.

But a less talked about nugget of the plan is this:

Or alternatively, if you've got long-term problems like addictions or mental health issues, you will have to go on an intensive programme that deals with that.

From ITV

As we all sadly know; a great many people who are unable to work due to mental illness have, over the last few years, failed the WCA so been refused ESA and have been forced to claim JSA, despite being in no state to be job-seeking. And now it seems that people with health problems will be forced into potentially unsuitable treatment for their £71.70 a week.

A few years ago my right jaw joint crapped out. I have a bone disease so my joints are kinda crumbly. Last year I got told that that there was nothing wrong with my jaw and it was just depression. They wanted me to go for talking therapies as a treatment for my jaw pain.

About 6 months later someone finally bothered to take an x-ray of my jaw. Low and behold: There's a bloody great chunk of bone missing from my joint.

Now, my health problems are much more complicated than one little joint and I wouldn't be out of work for just one teeny joint (no matter how painful it can be at times). But lets hypothetically say I was on JSA because my jaw had made me lose my last job. It's possible. As a comedian my job depended on me being able to talk a lot. On some days that's really excruciating. I could have been forced to go through pointless counselling because at one point an idiot doctor decided to not look for physical evidence and proclaimed that my jaw pain was a mental health problem.

Now, in that example we're looking at forced treatment that's a complete waste of time and money, but ultimately harmless enough.

But some enforced treatments could be very dangerous indeed. Could you imagine someone with severe schizophrenia being sent to a barely-qualified counsellor? What about someone with Crohn's who has been misdiagnosed as bulimic by a doctor that won't listen and is then sanctioned by the DWP for not complying with their treatment when they - unsurprisingly - continue to throw up.

Forced treatment is a very dangerous route when you consider all the misdiagnosing that goes on. In fact: Forced treatment is pretty dangerous anyway. Last time I saw a neurologist about my migraines he prescribed a drug which prolonged my heart's QT interval. This can be fatal. If the DWP decided that I needed to get my migraines under control to make myself more employable and forced me to either take the drug the neurologist recommended or I'd be sanctioned and have no money for food; I might be dead by now.

Making people sign on every day is a waste of taxpayer's money. It will create havoc in JobCentres where they've barely got the staff to manage the current workload of people signing on once a fortnight. But this aspect of Gideon's 'Help to Work' program is downright dangerous.