Tories 2015+ Benefit CUTS/Welfare-What are your 5 predictions,to what they will cut??

gemmaking

Tories have stated that if they came into power that they would have cuts on their budget on welfare reforms, for the disability but they didn't give too much detail on where the cuts would be.
Which they will announce this year.

What are your 3-5 predictions/assumptions to which areas, which benefits that you think the cuts will be?

Then we can look back at this in 2017, and see who was correct

rogerblack

Many of the cuts are already announced in universal credit.
However, that's some way off, at the current rollout rate.
Even further off for people who are not single fit unemployed people with no housing costs.

In the lifetime of this parliament.
1) The remaining older people on DLA other than the under 16s will be started to be moved over to a version of PIP without a mobility component. This will be 'because lots of these people have not been assessed in over ten years' and 'to focus help on those who need it most'.

2) Assessed income periods in pension credit will be greatly reduced, and there will be a requirement to report capital or income over a certain level.

3) The benefit cap will be reduced.

4) The 'minimum income floor' - that is - anyone doing work is assumed to earn the minimum wage - will be brought in for anyone claiming JSA and doing self-employed work.
5) over the life of the parliament, means tested benefits will rise by at most 1%, though I could see this being cut to 0. This will be an effective 5-10% reduction. The claim will be made that 'disability benefits' are protected - this is mostly a lie. Even for those in the support group of ESA, most of the money is only uprated at 1%.

6) The warm home discount will be scrapped, and the green deal pushed as an alleged 'better' solution with a small fraction of the money.

7) Alignment of treatment of CA between UC and existing benefits - couples can only have one CA claim between them.

billywilly

rogerblack wrote: »

Many of the cuts are already announced in universal credit.
However, that's some way off, at the current rollout rate.
Even further off for people who are not single fit unemployed people with no housing costs.

In the lifetime of this parliament.
1) The remaining older people on DLA other than the under 16s will be started to be moved over to a version of PIP without a mobility component. This will be 'because lots of these people have not been assessed in over ten years' and 'to focus help on those who need it most'.

2) Assessed income periods in pension credit will be greatly reduced, and there will be a requirement to report capital or income over a certain level.

3) The benefit cap will be reduced.

4) The 'minimum income floor' - that is - anyone doing work is assumed to earn the minimum wage - will be brought in for anyone claiming JSA and doing self-employed work.
5) over the life of the parliament, means tested benefits will rise by at most 1%, though I could see this being cut to 0. This will be an effective 5-10% reduction. The claim will be made that 'disability benefits' are protected - this is mostly a lie. Even for those in the support group of ESA, most of the money is only uprated at 1%.

6) The warm home discount will be scrapped, and the green deal pushed as an alleged 'better' solution with a small fraction of the money.

7) Alignment of treatment of CA between UC and existing benefits - couples can only have one CA claim between them.

Sounds good to me.

colin13

we will all be on street using food banks,,begging ,by the time this government stops squeezing us

dori2o

DLA/PIP- Taxed for all recipients with an income over 50k, or, as with child benefit it will be tapered to a nil award between £50k and £60k

PIP- further detrimental changesto the qualifying criteria.

DLA for those over 65- transition of these claimants to AA.

ESA - abolish contribution based ESA.

Carers - change the rules so that only immediate family can be carers, only 1 claimant per household.

(this change will actually cost the Gov £Billions in additional state care costs, but their argument will be that at least the welfare budget will be slashed)

Access to Work. This will be heavily restricted, a lifetime allowance will be introduced so that help is only provided for a certain period of time, the contributions that claimants and their employers pay towards the help provided will be severely increased.

(this will have the effect of putting hundreds of thousands of disabled people out of work, or at least making it virtually impossible to remain in work, or get back into work where a variety of changes/adjustments are required.)

CTcelt1988

dori2o wrote: »

DLA/PIP- Taxed for all recipients with an income over 50k, or, as with child benefit it will be tapered to a nil award between £50k and £60k

PIP- further detrimental changesto the qualifying criteria.

DLA for those over 65- transition of these claimants to AA.

ESA - abolish contribution based ESA.

Carers - change the rules so that only immediate family can be carers, only 1 claimant per household.

(this change will actually cost the Gov £Billions in additional state care costs, but their argument will be that at least the welfare budget will be slashed)

Access to Work. This will be heavily restricted, a lifetime allowance will be introduced so that help is only provided for a certain period of time, the contributions that claimants and their employers pay towards the help provided will be severely increased.

(this will have the effect of putting hundreds of thousands of disabled people out of work, or at least making it virtually impossible to remain in work, or get back into work where a variety of changes/adjustments are required.)

They can't change the qualifying criteria for PIP just like that. There would have go through parliament and have another consultation. It may happen after all people get reassessed by 2017. I doubt PIP will change by then.

Tigsteroonie

DLA & PIP become taxable income.

CA cannot be claimed by someone themselves entitled to DLA/PIP.

CB & CTC paid for maximum of three children.

rogerblack

CTcelt1988 wrote: »

They can't change the qualifying criteria for PIP just like that. There would have go through parliament and have another consultation. It may happen after all people get reassessed by 2017. I doubt PIP will change by then.

They pretty much can.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/3096/made - for example.
This, was introduced in 2012, in an effort to avoid 'double counting' of people with points.

So, you can only get mental points for a mental condition, or physical points for a physical condition.

The problem is that it specifically now does not count side-effects of medication, amongst other issues.

So, if you are prescribed a medication for a mental illness that makes you unable to safely or reliably do a physical task - even if to not take that medication would cause harm to yourself or others - you do not get those points.
Conversely if you have a physical illness, and are taking prescribed painkillers or other drugs that mean you meet one or more of the mental descriptors (for example if they cause you to be unable to get safely to places).

This is not 'double counting' by anyone sane, especially if the side-effects may attract points, where the original illness may attract none.

You end up just as disabled as someone who 'legitimately' has both a mental and physical disease with the same symptoms, but get radically different points.

Similar tweaks to PIP 'because this is what we meant all along' could easily be made with little consultation.
In principle this may be challengable by a judicial review.

billywilly

dori2o wrote: »

Carers - change the rules so that only immediate family can be carers, only 1 claimant per household.....this change will actually cost the Gov £Billions in additional state care costs.

Why?
The cases that need sorting out, as mentioned above, are those where a couple claim to care for one another.
Why should it cost more money? Are you suggesting that if only 1 lot of carers allowance per household goes through, one of the 'carers' will stop caring?

I have said it many times - carers allowance is ripe for abuse as it stands.

In the real world, caring will not stop, it just won't be made profitable anymore.

billywilly

CTcelt1988 wrote: »

They can't change the qualifying criteria for PIP just like that. There would have go through parliament and have another consultation.

Oh yes they can. The Act itself allows for changes at any time depending on what Parliament think is right. They don't answer to anyone if they want to tweek something - not even the House of Lords - they can easily be overruled.

CTcelt1988

rogerblack wrote: »

They pretty much can.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2012/3096/made - for example.
This, was introduced in 2012, in an effort to avoid 'double counting' of people with points.

So, you can only get mental points for a mental condition, or physical points for a physical condition.

The problem is that it specifically now does not count side-effects of medication, amongst other issues.

So, if you are prescribed a medication for a mental illness that makes you unable to safely or reliably do a physical task - even if to not take that medication would cause harm to yourself or others - you do not get those points.
Conversely if you have a physical illness, and are taking prescribed painkillers or other drugs that mean you meet one or more of the mental descriptors (for example if they cause you to be unable to get safely to places).

This is not 'double counting' by anyone sane, especially if the side-effects may attract points, where the original illness may attract none.

You end up just as disabled as someone who 'legitimately' has both a mental and physical disease with the same symptoms, but get radically different points.

Similar tweaks to PIP 'because this is what we meant all along' could easily be made with little consultation.
In principle this may be challengable by a judicial review.

In that case they will probably lower the walking distance again to 10m.