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The article by Rachel Reeves MP is a 'two fingers' at disabled citizens, and will lose Miliband the election
It is actually massively upsetting.
For many citizens, hardworking or not, Ed Miliband was finally beginning to show ‘green shoots’ in his leadership. His conference speech in Brighton was professionally executed, and it largely made sense given what we know about his general approach to the markets and State.
Amazing then it took fewer than a few weeks for his reshuffle to ruin all that.
Parking aside how Tristram Hunt MP had changed his mind about ‘free schools’ such that they were no longer for ‘yummy mummies’ in West London, Rachel Reeves MP decided to come out as a macho on welfare. She boasted on Twitter that she was both ‘tough and fair on social security’.
Rachel Reeves’ article was immediately received by a torrent of abuse, and virtually all of it was well reasoned and fair.
Yes, that’s right. In one foul swoop, we managed to conflate at one the ‘benefit scroungers’ rhetoric with an onslaught on ‘social security’.
Being ‘tough and fair’ on the “disability living allowance”, in the process of becoming the ‘personal independence payment’ is of course an abhorrent concept. I only managed to be awarded my DLA after a gap of one year, after it had been taken away by this Government without them telling me. At first, it was refused through a pen-and-paper exercise from the DWP. Then, it was successfully restored after I turned up in person at a tribunal in Gray’s Inn Road.
This living allowance meets my mobility needs. My walking is much impaired, following my two months in a coma. It also meets my living requirements, allowing me to lead an independent life.
I don’t want to hear Reeves talking like a banker but as if she doesn’t give a flying fig about real people in the real world.
For once, the outrage on Twitter, and the concomitant mobbing, was entirely justified. I had to look up again what her precise rôle was – yes it was the shadow secretary for work and pensions, not employment.
Many members of Labour were sickened. A spattering of people, would-be Councillors in the large part unfortunately, didn’t see what the fuss was about. They reconciled that ‘the sooner we face up to this problem, the better’.
The media played it as ‘the hard left of the Labour Party are upset’.
The “Conservative Home” website played it as a sign that the Labour Party were belatedly adopting the Conservatives’ narrative, but it was too little and too late.
Like Ed Miliband being booed at conference, a backlash against Reeves’ article can euphemistically be indicative of Labour’s success at ‘sounding tough’.
At yet, this is ‘short term’ politics from a national political party. The social value of this policy by Labour is not sustainable. In the quest for instant profit for headlines, it will actually find itself with no income stream in the long term.
For all the analysis with Labour marketing must have done through their ‘think tanks’ and ‘focus groups’, it is striking how Labour have missed one fundamental point. That disabled bashing in the media is not populism from the Left, actually.
Conversely, it could LOSE them votes from their core membership.
If they learn to love disabled people, they could WIN votes.
Simples.
So what’s the fuss about? She didn’t mention disability. Well – precisely. Disabled citizens of working age are known to form a large part of the population, as Scope reminded us this week in their session on ‘whole person care’ with Liz Kendall MP, so why did Reeves ignore them altogether?
Is it because she has only been in a brief only a few days? Some of us in life have taken the bullet for incidents in life which have lasted barely a few minutes.
What will it take for Labour to ‘get it’ on disability and welfare? Possibly, the final denouement will be when Labour finally realises it can’t ‘out Tory’ the Tories.
The Twitter defenders of the indefensible cite that ATOS are being ‘sacked’ – well, yippedeeeday. ATOS, who were appointed by Labour, are finally being sacked. When negotiating a contract in English law, the usual procedure is to ensure that there are feedback mechanisms in place to ensure the contract is being performed adequately? You can bet your bottom dollar that Labour wishes to do a ‘Pontius Pilate’ on that, like it does on all its crippling PFI contracts it set up for the NHS.
This is a disastrous start by Reeves, but ‘things can only get better’. It’s not so much that Rachel Reeves is Liam Byrne in a frock that hurts. It’s the issue that shooting the messenger won’t be the final solution in changing Labour’s mindset on this.
It is all too easy to blame the ‘subeditor’, but the subeditor didn’t write the whole piece. Any positive meme from Reeves, in a ‘well crafted speech’ to “out-Tory the Tories” (such as scrapping the ‘Bedroom Tax’), has been instantaneously toxified by the idea of people ‘lingering on benefits’.
The most positive thing to do was to explain how people might not be so reliant on benefits, such as work credits, if we had a strong economy.
Reeves chose not even to mention pensions, which is a large part of her budget.
Because the article was hopeless from the outset, it could not even get as far as how to get the long-term unemployed (or the long-term sick) safely back to work.
It was an epic fail.
It is, in fact, an epic fail on all three planks of Ed Miliband’s personal mission of ‘One Nation': the economy, not recognising the value of disabled citizens of working age to the economy; society, not recognising disabled citizens as valued members of society; and the political process, totally disenfranchising disabled citizens from being included in society.
It is no small thing to wish the Labour Party to fail as well as a result. But this may now be necessary, and Reeves should take the bullet for that if she doesn’t improve.
I won my disability living allowance appeal and it surprisingly was an incredibly rewarding experience
This is what you would call perhaps a ‘good news story’ about my disability benefits.
Last Monday, I was invited to Fox Court, Gray’s Inn Road, to go in front of a disability benefits tribunal. I had no idea what to expect. If you ‘Google’ what these tribunals are about, you are likely to draw a blank.
I turned up on time, although I was very nearly late. I think it’s worth treating the tribunal appointment like a job interview. Make sure you turn up with time to spare, so you can compose your thoughts. Where it isn’t like a job interview is that I appeared ‘smart casual’. This is because I have real difficulty in doing buttons and tying shoelaces, and I felt it might be appropriate for the tribunal members to see me how I actually am in my day-to-day life.
Actually, they were very nice to me. I had a panel of three, including a disability expert, and a medical expert. They weren’t overly friendly. There was a huge timer between us, so I know that the entire thing was over in 17 minutes flat.
In the end, it was quite a big deal for me. For me, I had put in an application, and then was not awarded any benefit. I had been on the highest rate of mobility allowance before. I took just in case my old medical notes, but did make it crystal clear to them the date of the reports. They found them useful. I asked for my original submissions to be reviewed, and they made an initial award. I discussed this award with a welfare benefits advisor in a law centre whom I know well. He recommended that it was, in fact, the wrong award, and thought I should appeal. The only voluminous paperwork was the original application form, which you must complete to the best of your ability. The point about the appeal notification is just to let them know you wish to appeal, with a clear reason.
I didn’t have to pay for the appeal. Always tell the truth. Also, only answer the question they ask. Don’t pontificate about anything else. They want to know how far you can walk in metres. They also want to know whether you need help with your living, so think carefully about washing, bathing, shaving, cooking, shopping, getting out of bed, showering, etc. If something doesn’t apply to you, e.g. night-time care, don’t shoehorn possible reasons why it might.
Think about what you’re saying. Make sure that what you’re saying is consistent all the way through. This will be a given if you are telling the truth. But if you say you never go out of the house don’t say you’ve just come back from a hill climbing trek in the Himalayas, etc. This is obviously a ridiculous example, but you know what you mean.
I learnt some basics from the advocacy course in my Legal Practice Course which helped. That is, it really helps if you keep eye contact with the people asking you the questions. I acknowedged that I had a weird squint beforehand, as I have a rare double vision problem. I didn’t use any notes, but I would strongly recommend that you don’t immerse your nose in a bulk of notes. Those notes will only confuse you, and slow you down enormously.
So, anyway it was an entirely constructive experience. Whether or not it is typical, I don’t know. However, I learnt how to trust them. I didn’t take in any tape recorders, as indeed some had advised. I won my appeal. I’m glad I put myself through it, though it can be exasperating and time-consuming as it goes along. As it happens, all the people I spoke to in the Department of Work and Pensions were extremely helpful, but this again could be simply “luck of the draw”. Good luck!
Welfare Reform Bill suffers three heavy defeats in the House of Lords amidst success of the Spartacus Report campaign
The government suffered an extraordinary threefold defeat on its Welfare Reform Bill in the House of Lords last night (11 January 2012), as campaigners and peers combined successfully to oppose cuts that would hit sick, vulnerable and disabled people particularly badly.
With a few exceptions, the Liberal Democrats voted with the government as they generally have throughout the divisions in the Lords on the welfare bill, but their support was overwhelmed by a big turnout from Labour and crossbenchers. Crossbenchers Lord Patel and Baroness Meacher, and Labour peer Baroness Lister, were among those who fought an expert rearguard action against the coalition, with a few Liberal Democrats also rebelling. Crossbenchers have also been furiously lobbied by disability campaigners arguing that they should not be made to suffer for the economic crisis.
The votes are a huge triumph for Sue Marsh, Dr Sarah Campbell, Kaliya Franklin, and other disabled activists and researchers who, this Monday, published the ‘Responsible Reform’ report (#SpartacusReport). This research document caused an Internet sensation with their #spartacusreport campaign, as it galvanised charities, NGOs, politicians from all parties, churches, medical professionals and public figures into lobbying for a substantial rethink on welfare reform. Peers and MPs were subsequently inundated with pleas to stop welfare and disability cuts this morning, with thousands of copies of the report exposing the sham of the government’s consultation on Disability Living Allowance (DLA) being sent on to decision-makers and policy experts. The Catholic Archbishop of Southwark, Peter Smith, also expressed serious concern.
Plans to means-test employment and support allowance (ESA) payments for disabled people after only a year were rejected by peers. The means test would have applied to cancer patients and stroke survivors, and was denounced by Lord Patel, a crossbencher and former President of the Royal College of Obstetricians, as an immoral attack on the sick, the vulnerable and the poor. “If we are going to rob the poor to pay the rich, then we enter into a different form of morality,” He also said: “I am sympathetic to cutting the deficit, but I am highly sympathetic to sick and vulnerable people not being subjected to something that will make their lives even more miserable.”
The government was defeated by 224 votes to 186, even though Lord Freud, the welfare minister, claimed that the cost of the amendment would be £1.6bn spread over five years. The other defeats were over plans to time-limit ESA for those undergoing cancer treatment, and to restrict access to ESA for young people with disabilities or illness. Lord Freud countered that the 365-day time limit was not arbitrary and was similar to limits imposed in France, Ireland and Spain, and struck a “reasonable balance between the needs of sick, disabled people claiming benefit and those who have to contribute towards the cost”.
The defeats do not augur well for the government’s chances in future votes in the Lords on the bill, which includes housing benefit caps. The bill is at report stage before returning to the Commons.
In addition to last night’s humiliating defeat, the Conservative Mayor of London has been revealed to have opposed disability cuts; major charities, the TUC, the thinktank Ekklesia and others are calling for a legislative pause; and both the Scottish Government and the Welsh Assembly are declining to pass the traditional consent legislation for the UK parliament on the Welfare Reform Bill.
The House of Commons has the power to reverse the Lords amendments. Royal Assent is currently timed for March 2012.
The 'cooking test' of the Disability Living Allowance
The Disability Living Allowance is a social security benefit intended for adults and children with a long-term illness or a disability. The rules for the allowance are in relation to difficulties with mobility and care. There is no requirement for either payment to be made in respect of actual expenses nor for anyone to actually be providing help. Some components of the allowance must be claimed before the age of 65 (but can continue if claimed before this age).
There are three care components. These generally increase from the lower to the higher in line with increasing amounts of care needs. A claimant will need to show that it would reasonable for him or her to have help from someone due to illness or disability. For example, this involves considering whether a claimant could prepare and cook a meal for one person given the raw ingredients. It does not matter whether you cook or not; it is whether you could that matters. No set meal is listed in the rules but generally you should consider whether you could peel and chop two kinds of vegetables, put these into small pans, put something under a grill and safely get the meal together onto a plate.
You would be expected to make some concessions to make things easy for yourself, for example, using a “slotted spoon” to lift things out of a pan and sit at a chair or stool to prepare or cook the food. If you can only cope with heating up convenience foods or making snacks due to your disability or illness this should not count as cooking.
To fail the cooking test, as a consequence of his or her disability, a young person cannot prepare a cooked main meal for himself without help.
This help could be, for example:
• reading instructions and labels, guidance to follow a recipe
• identifying, weighing and measuring ingredients
• putting basic food safety and hygiene into practise
• using sharp knives, hot pans, cookers and other equipment safely
• recognising when food is properly cooked or safe to eat
• timing it all so that everything’s ready together.
Case law on the cooking test increasingly shows two opposing strands of opinion amongst the Social Security Commissioners. Some take the view that it is a purely hypothetical test of a person’s ability to perform certain standard activities. Others consider that the test is a more subjective one of a person’s ability to prepare a meal taking into account alternative methods of cooking as well as kitchen aids and adaptations.?? The DLA cooking test is, in fact, set out in s. 71(1)(a)(ii) Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act [1992]. A person is entitled to lower rate DLA care component if, because of their disability, they ‘cannot prepare a cooked main meal for [themselves] if [they have] the ingredients’.
There is little dispute that the test is objective in as much as it is irrelevant that a person might never wish to cook a traditional main meal or might not be able to afford to cook with fresh ingredients. It is also clear that a person is assumed to be willing to learn to cook and cannot pass the test simply because their partner has always cooked for them (R v Secretary of State ex parte Armstrong, 4.4.96). The subjective approach is illustrated in CDLA/5686/1999 where Commissioner Rowland decided that devices and unconventional methods could be taken into account. The same Commissioner, in CDLA/17329/1996, said that ‘one must look at the individual claimant in his or her actual circumstances’, holding that if a claimant has an adapted kitchen that enables them to cook, they should not pass the test.
Although there are some areas of conflict in the case law, there are still many aspects of the cooking test that are straightforward and undisputed. For example, some disputes concentrate on physical issues rather than cooking difficulties caused by mental disability. Ability to plan a meal, motivation to carry it through, ability to read ingredients, to prepare things in the right order, to time the cooking and know when food is ready, should all be taken into account.
