I have had a number of people contact me, primarily over social media, about the Welfare Reform Bill which I supported and indeed served on the Bill Committee as it was going through the legislative process. The bill proposed a number of changes but the area that has been raised by most people is the changes to the Employment Support Allowance (ESA) for people within the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG). In the Summer Budget 2015, the Chancellor announced that from April 2017, new ESA claimants who are placed in the WRAG will receive the same rate of benefit as those claiming Jobseekers Allowance (JSA). The changes only affect new claims after that date and there will be no cash losers among those who are already in receipt of ESA.
The UK has created more jobs than the rest of Europe combined in recent years but that benefit has yet to reach those on ESA. While 1 in 5 JSA claimants move off benefits every month, this is true of just 1 in 100 of ESA WRAG claimants. They deserve better than this. As well as providing financial security for individuals, there are many reasons why for those who are able to, work is the most effective way to improve the well-being of individuals and their families. Those in the WRAG currently receive additional cash payments but little employment support. Fixing on welfare treats the symptoms but not the causes of poverty and thus all too often can trap people into dependency. The additional cash payment in some cases can act as a disincentive to move into employment. Therefore some of the money currently spent on cash payments will be redirected into practical support that will make a genuine difference to people’s life chances.
This new funding will be worth £60m in 2017/18 rising to £100m in 2020/21. It will support those with limited capacity for work to take steps to move closer to the labour market and then when they are able, back to work. How the money will be spent is going to be influenced by a taskforce of representatives from disability charities, organisations, employers, think tanks, providers and local authorities. Most people with disabilities and health conditions want to get back to work. There is a large body of evidence that work is generally good for physical and mental wellbeing. A White Paper will shortly be published which will set out the reforms to improve the system of support. In addition to this, Universal Credit is already helping by introducing earlier support and putting claimants in the best position to move into and stay in work. They can work with their dedicated Work Coach alongside health professionals to receive personalised integrated support. The new Work and Health Unit has at least £115m of funding to pilot new ways to join up across the health and employment systems. £43m is being invested over the next three years to trial ways to provide specialist support for people with mental health conditions. The government’s Disability Confident campaign seeks to challenge the attitudes of employers towards recruiting and retaining disabled people.
The government is spending £ 50bn each year on benefits to support people with disabilities or health conditions. This is over 6% of all government spending. The budget for Disability support has been higher in every year since 2010 than that of the last Labour government. I believe that it is important that it gets to those who need support most and is spent on securing a long term benefit to those who need such support. Some of the media coverage on this issue has been emotive, relying on the thought that it is simply best to write off the possibility of 99 out of 100 people with a disability or a health condition. I made my decision to support the government in order to tackle the long term underlying issues which can help those individuals get into and stay in work.
ESA cuts and then in the Budget PIP reduced.
Which Disability Charities’ support this crazy uncaring policy?
Now Duncan Smith resigns.
Are you still supporting this hard line policy?
Welfare Policy = Good example of Compassionate Caring Conservatism.
I worked as an employment consultant for a4E in London 2006-8. Our job was to help disabled people come off benefits and start work. I liked the work, but it was challenging for me and the people themselves, who may have lost the ability to follow their careers. Employers often feel they have plenty else to worry about, so it’s a real challenge, but it’s worthwhile.
The general idea was that if we could find the best job for each person, the economy would benefit. One flaw in that reasoning, which seeped into every corner of the operation, which is that there really aren’t a lot of jobs out there. Go and look. Most of my clients had sent out hundreds of applications and rarely got a response. I was using tricks I picked up in recruitment to give them a foot in the door.
There have been constraints from the employment side. Technology changed and our economic structure has changed. Traditional manufacturing jobs which used to generate jobs for young men, are finished. Remember “Made in Britain”? being stamped on toy cars and kettles? Right. That’s being outsourced to China.
Since Thatcher, every British government has been gearing for finance, not manufacturing. That’s why it hurt so much when the global financial crisis hit. And that’s why we had to bail them out. If you’re a computer programmer, accountant or mathematician, they might want you.
One way to sort this out was to arrange “apprenticeships”, where someone phones up all the local businesses and offers them workers they don’t have to pay, because they’ll stay on benefits while they “train” (i.e., do free work, i.e., slave). They’re not obliged to employ these people after training. This is a great way of removing jobs completely and it’s very effective.
Another way is letting huge numbers of illegal immigrants walk in who will soak up the black market jobs and never, ever try to unionise.
Another way is making sure banks don’t lend money to small businesses by biasing the tax system in favor of large corporations, I could go on and on, but let me cut it short.
Any five year old child knows that if you remove one chair every time the music starts, it should come as no surprise if someone’s left standing when it stops there’s no point telling them the just didn’t want to sit down hard enough;
If it wasn’t them … it would have been somebody else right?
nobody with any real knowledge and understanding of the process for claiming ESA has any confidence in the assessment system. That is why the rates of ESA for the support group and work capable group should be the same. Cutting ESA does not make a disabled adult’s problems in finding/travelling to/working in a safe environment go away. It just makes their lives more difficult…..