@ Vincent Cable
Business Secretary
The Centre for Welfare Reform has shown comprehensively that 25% of the cuts fall on the 3% of the population who are most severely disabled. £9bn of the total £89bn deficit cutting programme affects ... Show more »The Centre for Welfare Reform has shown comprehensively that 25% of the cuts fall on the 3% of the population who are most severely disabled. £9bn of the total £89bn deficit cutting programme affects disabled people directly.
The work capacity assessment is draconian and inappropriate for many people with severe or fluctuating conditions.
You must be seeing many people in your surgeries who are on the breadline and who have lost or are terrified of losing the vital support they need to survive at the most basic level. Without proper but already insufficient, support, the weakest are often unable to leave their homes, pay basic living costs or in some cases wash or eat.
For example, it has been reported that there are only 18 local councils left out of around 100 that provide social care for people with 'moderate' needs, who are defined as those needing assistance with bathing and eating. What is happening to people in other areas?
The withdrawal of benefits has already lead to at least one known suicide as emotionally depicted at this week's demonstration at the ATOS head office in London.
Proposed deep cuts to disability living allowance and the time limiting of Employment Support Allowance to only 12 months for people who had no way of knowing in advance of becoming ill, that the goalposts would change, will also have a huge negative impact on people who are already experiencing financial hardship and are struggling to cope with the basics of life.
Even in your own borough of Richmond upon Thames, where disability living allowance is given by the Government with one hand, it is taken by the Council with the other hand to pay for personal care. For a young sick person trying to start out in life, struggling through a university course against the odds and hoping to find a way to earn a little income, this is cripplingly restricting as it takes away money she desperately needs to live and also will charge her, pound for pound for every little bit of income she ever manages to gain to try and improve her lot in life.
You seem like a kind and decent man. How can you allow your party in government to support the measures currently being put forward that target those who are desperate and in need over those who can afford to pay? Show less »