The Welfare Reform Bill: A move to a 21st Century version of the Workhouse?

To all media: Press Release: 24/July/2006

Sheffield Welfare Action Network (SWAN)

The Welfare Reform Bill: A move to a 21st Century version of the Workhouse?

Today the Govt’s Welfare Reform Bill is having its second reading, Sheffield
Welfare Action Network (SWAN) has been campaigning against the Bill since it
was first floated and has serious reservations about its content

The government is targeting millions of disabled people with the threat of
losing up to 30 pounds per week if the claimant does not comply with their
plans. The proposed replacement to Incapacity Benefit (IB), the Employment
Support Allowance (ESA), will only rise above £56 a week (JSA levels) if the
claimant meets very strict requirements.

The reforms also propose ever more medical assessments through a more
stringent Personal Capability Assessment (PCA)

The government also proposes to abolish housing benefit and replace it with
a fixed housing allowance so that claimants get a flat allowance rather than
the full rent charged by the private landlord

Summary here:  http://www.disabilityalliance.org/ibchange.htm

Our concerns

While welcoming any genuine help for those who can and want to work, SWAN
asserts the new system will not only be unsuccessful in its aims, but will
cause further stress and illness for claimants. SWAN will ask why are the
reforms ‘target led’ with the aim of getting one million back into work? If
the reforms are so positive, why do there have to be sanctions and coercion?
This punitive approach will mean many thousands of the most vulnerable in
our society who simply cannot work will face ever more coercion and
harrassment. Further, as some excellent research on our website indicates
where are all these many jobs going to come from? unemployment is now rising
and employers themselves admit they discriminate against people with
disabilities. The reforms also do nothing about the extremely robust medical
assessments, which although described as ‘the toughest in the world’ still
wrongly fail 80’ 000 people a year (source: BBC). Abolishing housing benefit
will mean disabled
people will, if in the private rented sector, have to leave their homes,
(losing their informal networks of support in the process) and move to
unsuitable areas. In our view, the reforms do nothing to provide people who
are disabled with suitable jobs free from discrimination and do nothing to
gain the trust of claimants or give them pressure free time to heal.

Jayne Edwards of Sharrow, Sheffield said "I want to work but I can't and
people really look down on me, like I'm faking it or it's my fault. The very
idea of being forced to work, to attend interviews when I can hardly stand
up is making me worse, its just cruel!

Already, one has to fill in 40 page forms which go into the minutae of your
personal life and where one has to detail exactly your medical condition,
however embarrassing.
You can be spied on by fraud investigators to see if you are secretly
working. Even if you have nothing to fear, this creates a climate where the
claimant feels a far from benign state is omnipresent in his/her life. In
Swan’s view, if the bill goes ahead, it can only get worse: the new welfare
reform bill will mean disabled people will have to accept certain forms of
medical interventions such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) or face
benefit cuts, there will be ‘Work Advisers’in G.P’s surgeries and no matter
how ill you are, the disabled will have to attend a number of interviews to
‘discuss’ what work the person can do. One can argue as a commentator has
that ‘this is a move to 21st Century version of the workhouse.

A more humane system

SWAN argues there is a strong need for the welfare system to be made more
humane,
At our recent national rally concurring: Sheffield Green Party Councillor,
Bernard Little said:

"the whole of our benefit system is built on the myth that if we are not in
paid work we are up to no-good. Swinging the lead. Shirking. Pretending we
are ill. And this cruel myth hits the most vulnerable the hardest .We need
to have a far more flexible benefit system that breaks down the barrier
between paid and unpaid work. That recognises the reality of life with it
ups and downs, good days and bad days, our sickness and health. A benefits
system that recognises that we are all different."

Sheffield Liberal Democrat councillor and group leader Paul Scriven agreed,
stating "The benefits system should not be used by government to further
alienate and penalise disabled people. It should be used to support and
empower them to lead full and independent lives as possible. The changes
that the government are introducing are trying to be used as a tool of
conformity rather than using the benefit system to empower and support
disabled people."

SWAN will continue to campaign vigorously against these reforms and will be
a significant part of the emerging campaign against the Bill and for a
decent more flexible and less punitive welfare system.

Regards

John Rogers

For SWAN

contact details

www.swansheffield.org.uk
 sheffieldwelfare_an@yahoo.co.uk
tel Chris Taylor 07903453006

Note SWAN is planning to become a national organization in the near future

(1)  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/4995078.stm


See related article below.....

Dear All


See below


Colin Barnes



Claimants oppose Welfare Reform Bill



Dear sisters and friends



Here is our joint statement from a number of groups, sent today to some
MPs and the press. You are welcome to contact your own MP to ask them
to raise these issues.



The Welfare Reform Bill, which has its second reading in Parliament
today, brings in a new Employment and Support Allowance with increased
penalties against those who don't comply. It gives new powers to
private agencies in the benefits system, opening the way for more
disability discrimination, bullying, racism and other prejudices.
Doctors are enlisted to get patients back to work - a breach of doctors'
independence and focus on healthcare. Housing Benefit will be severely
cut, impoverishing people on benefits and in low-waged jobs.



* Women and men with disabilities and long-term ill-health,
single mothers on benefit, pensioners and other claimants are opposed to
the Bill, aimed at forcing people "back to work" whether we can manage
it or not.



* We are already working. Having to cope with our disability,
getting around, communicating, surviving in an inaccessible and
prejudiced world is hard work. In addition, many disabled women are
also carers - for children, family and friends, in the community,
meeting other people's needs while needing help ourselves. When wives
become disabled, or focus on the needs of disabled children with little
State help, we are often deserted by partners. One quarter of single
parents (mostly mothers) have some kind of disability*.



* The Disability Rights Commission (DRC -- funded by the DWP)
and charities meant to represent low-income people are largely to blame
for promoting jobs as the answer to poverty and discrimination. DRC
Chair Bert Massie complained that 84% of mothers of disabled children
are "not working" (Guardian, 13 March 2006). He dismisses the demanding
unwaged caring work of looking after children and other people, also
done on top of waged work. What is supposed to happen to those who need
our care if we are all out at work, then exhausted and short of time
when we get home?



* Since the point of the Bill is to cut our entitlement rather
than meet our needs, and given what has happened with previous
legislation, we know that most disabled people will be labelled as able
to work regardless of ill-health, job stresses, discrimination by
employers and inaccessible workplaces. Those of us who are immigrant
will face increased racism. People seeking asylum are already excluded
from the welfare system. JobCentres press us to take unsuitable jobs.
The government barely funds practical support in employment, and is
closing Remploy factories, leaving many disabled workers without
alternative jobs.



* Disabled adults are getting poorer at the same time as more go
into waged work. For the jobs most of us can get, like supermarket
work, we receive very low pay.** We want jobs of our choice, with
access, when we are ready.



* People with mental health problems or addictions, people in
our 50s with industrial injuries from jobs which already have destroyed
our health, are particularly targeted. We face benefit cuts if we don't
take up training, therapy or medical treatment which the DWP - and the
private companies and voluntary organisations acting for them - say we
must have. Pressuring us to take medication or undergo risky or
damaging procedures takes away our basic right to consent to treatment.




* Mothers and children's benefits are also threatened if mothers
don't attend the more-frequent work-focused interviews.



* If our benefits are cut or taken away, suicides, destitution,
rape and exploitation of women forced to depend on violent men will
increase. People will be forced into shoplifting or prostitution to
survive, leading to Anti-Social Behaviour Orders and prison.



People with disabilities, single mothers and others in vulnerable
situations need financial support not benefit penalties. Our
contribution is not acknowledged and we are treated as if society and
the economy could not afford us - a burden. At the same time, the
military budget continues to go up, bringing death and disability to
thousands of people, with little or no discussion about whether we can
afford it. Those of us with least are increasingly paying with our
benefits for a war we do not want. We refuse to be used in that way.
We refuse any further impoverishment and erosion of our rights and
entitlements.



WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities)

Single Mothers' Self-Defence

Bolton TUC Unemployed Advice Centre

Save Our Day Centres

Sheffield Mental Health User Representatives

Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre

Legal Action for Women

Women of Colour in the Global Women's Strike

Payday men's network



Contact 020 7482 2496.





*Source: Child Poverty Action Group response to the Green Paper on
Welfare Reform, 2006.

**Three out of 10 disabled adults of working age live in poverty, and
the proportion is increasing despite more disabled adults taking on
waged work. See Joseph Rowntree Foundation Findings Dec. 2005, ref:
0665.