Hundreds of thousands of disability benefit claimants will see payments axed or reduced

12:54pm Thursday 13th December 2012 in News © Press Association

Disabled people's minister and Wirral West MP Esther McVey Disabled people's minister and Wirral West MP Esther McVey

Hundreds of thousands of disabled people will see their benefits axed or cut in the next three years, the Government has said.

Ministers are reforming disability payments because, they say, some claimants have not been recently assessed and may now be suitable for some work.

They believe that by cutting benefits for some recipients they can divert money to those in more need, scrapping the 20-year-old disability living allowance (DLA) and replacing it with personal independent payments (PIPs).

Disabled people's minister and Wirral West MP Esther McVey told the House of Commons: "By reforming the system, ensuring it is fit for the 21st century, we can use the money we spend on disabled people more efficiently and effectively to help those most in need."

She added: "By October 2015 we will have reassessed 560,000 claimants.

"Of those, 160,000 will get a reduced award and 170,000 will get no award. However, 230,000 will get the same or more support."

Ms McVey said claimants receiving lifetime or indefinite DLA would not be reassessed until October 2015 at the earliest - after the next general election.

Labour backed reform but shadow minister Anne McGuire insisted: "The assessment needs to be the right one."

The annual bill for DLA is £13.2 billion a year, shared among 3.2 million adults.

In her Commons statement, Ms McVey said the changes would make the system "more transparent, objective and fair" and insisted that the Government had listened to the "huge" response to its disability benefits consultation.

She told MPs the checks would be introduced more gradually, adding: "We are now to undertake a significantly slower reassessment timetable to ensure we get this right.

"It will be phased in, starting with the North West and parts of the North East of England from April 2013."

Comments(25)

JimmyMercury says...
1:46pm Thu 13 Dec 12

How do these people sleep at night? Won't be happy until old, disabled and the unemployed all kill themselves.

Just as well really as they can't afford to eat or keep warm anyway!

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WirralAl says...
1:48pm Thu 13 Dec 12

She added: "By October 2015 we will have reassessed 560,000 claimants.

"Of those, 160,000 will get a reduced award and 170,000 will get no award. However, 230,000 will get the same or more support."

Sounds like they already have a target figure of 330,000 people before they have checked what their needs are.

They do need to review the people who get some allowances such as free cars but this already looks like a witch hunt.

Blaggers beware.

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bloodtub says...
2:10pm Thu 13 Dec 12

its time to get those that fiddle there way to an easy life off the sick ,and give more to the people that need it,

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Positive thinker says...
3:39pm Thu 13 Dec 12

Well put bloodtub
There the ones who make all the
noise

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zephsgranddad2 says...
3:47pm Thu 13 Dec 12

I don't know if it is better to vote UKIP and get out of the EU or to go all the way in and close the Palace of Westminster.
ONE set of blood sucking politicians is more than enough
The Commons acting as the BLAME EXCHANGE is not giving value for money




in and

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dave301bounty says...
4:50pm Thu 13 Dec 12

Its those who cheated the system years ago ,got their cash ,they have caused misery for a lot .I wish I could /would be allowed to give names ,to my knowledge I do know 3 rats who are fiddling ,have been for years ,and no concience at all ,so we are all going to suffer while this shower in power sort out ,what ? the system stinks like the cheats ,who will carry on regardless .

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Positive thinker says...
7:25pm Thu 13 Dec 12

The pubs at Charing Cross to name a few are full of these fiddling scumbags,can't work because of there disability but they get up early and never miss a day of drinking and smoking the dirty filthy rats,no doubt there will be someone on this blog defending them well there as bad if not worse

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Jimrob says...
10:04pm Thu 13 Dec 12

"By reforming the system, ensuring it is fit for the 21st century, we can use the money we spend on disabled people more efficiently and effectively to help those most in need."

I assume, by this statement, "those in most need" means people like the present Culture Secretary and all other PM's who are constantly and consistently milking the Expenses System for their own gain.

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don't look back in anger says...
10:49pm Thu 13 Dec 12

Funny how they know the figures who'll be taken off it or have it reduced, but they don't know how many of the 230,000 will gain from it. They'll be digging the dead up next and sending them to work.

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bloodtub says...
8:37am Fri 14 Dec 12

why is it the some one who has lost there legs fighting for this country ,will try to keep working and will not let the fact they have no legs stop the leading a normal life and not claiming benefits but other that have nothing wrong with them are allowed to stay on the sick for years is why were in this mess time to help the sick not the cheats

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sandals_wearer says...
9:45am Fri 14 Dec 12

"Ministers are reforming disability payments because, they say, some claimants have not been recently assessed and may now be suitable for some work."

DLA and PIP (unlike Incapacity Benefit and ESA) are not income replacement benefits and are available to people in work. So why is the government spin machine mendaciously talking about suitability for work?

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sandals_wearer says...
9:49am Fri 14 Dec 12

"Disabled people's minister"

Oh well, I suppose the blame for that Guardianesque non-capitalisation lies with the PA, not the Globe.

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don't look back in anger says...
11:11am Fri 14 Dec 12

bloodtub wrote:
why is it the some one who has lost there legs fighting for this country ,will try to keep working and will not let the fact they have no legs stop the leading a normal life and not claiming benefits but other that have nothing wrong with them are allowed to stay on the sick for years is why were in this mess time to help the sick not the cheats
And what about the 15,000 who have been taken off their disability but have since died. They were classed fit to work, How do you work that out. About 25% will suffer from this change and yet it's been proved that only 1% are cheating. So how is that fair. I'd bet anything your a Tory voter. Shame on you if you are with a name like Bloodtub. I don't recall to many who drank in there voting Tory.

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don't look back in anger says...
11:36am Fri 14 Dec 12

bloodtub wrote:
why is it the some one who has lost there legs fighting for this country ,will try to keep working and will not let the fact they have no legs stop the leading a normal life and not claiming benefits but other that have nothing wrong with them are allowed to stay on the sick for years is why were in this mess time to help the sick not the cheats
My friends seven year old daughter has had two brain operations, and still has a tumour on her brain. She suffers from fits and has had to have the bathroom altered for her needs. She is still under constant care of Alder Hey specialists and yet she's had her disability taken from her and her parents have lost the mobility car that is used heavily for her hospital appointments. Tell me if that is fair. This government are looking for any way of getting people off DLA no matter who they are. Shame on you for supporting these changes when a child and her family have been targeted in this way.

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bloodtub says...
11:41am Fri 14 Dec 12

you dont understand why do we have millions of people on disability payments how many are to ill to work ,its no about who you vote for it about whats right ,give benenit to those who need it not to those who are not disabled but think that they the system i there to be abused and people have no shame when claiming there is no money left ,cut have to be made so cut those who milk the system and hopefuly the will be somthing left for those in real need ,fraud is fraud no matter were your from ,

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don't look back in anger says...
12:39pm Fri 14 Dec 12

bloodtub wrote:
you dont understand why do we have millions of people on disability payments how many are to ill to work ,its no about who you vote for it about whats right ,give benenit to those who need it not to those who are not disabled but think that they the system i there to be abused and people have no shame when claiming there is no money left ,cut have to be made so cut those who milk the system and hopefuly the will be somthing left for those in real need ,fraud is fraud no matter were your from ,
My friends child needs it desperately but this Government has taken it from them and the specialists at Alder Hey are appalled by this. The Government are playing with the minds of people by accussing every one of being scroungers and cheats and people like you are falling for it.

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don't look back in anger says...
12:46pm Fri 14 Dec 12

My friends seven year old daughter has had two brain operations, and still has a tumour on her brain. She suffers from fits and has had to have the bathroom altered for her needs. She is still under constant care of Alder Hey specialists and yet she's had her disability taken from her and her parents have lost the mobility car that is used heavily for her hospital appointments. Tell me if that is fair. This government are looking for any way of getting people off DLA no matter who they are. Shame on you for supporting these changes when a child and her family have been targeted in this way

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EddieGremlin says...
2:12pm Fri 14 Dec 12

Pulling the plug on DLA to promote fitness is like pulling the plug on a life-support machine to promote immortality.

I sincerely hope that none of you 'bleeding heart TAX PAYERS' ever fall ill or have a need for the assistance you are helping destroy with your blinkered attitude.

After all your the only ones who pay your taxes aren't you?

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Debbie65 says...
2:37pm Fri 14 Dec 12

speaking as a disabled person , i was run over and degloved by a forklift truck leaving permanent ugly scarring and pronounced limp to my left leg, i am livid with all the cuts to the disabled in our country , This government , who care nothing about "us normal working class/ disabled people". The idiot who runs the country would rather have us out on thew street desolate , starving and hungry while giving our benefit money to i dunno Syria for arms to blow each other up , or give to India , the fastest improving nation in the world. He really doesnt care , he should go into wards , in this country , to see how we cope with our injuries and see how we juggle our money so we can have a roof over our head, heating and food in our bellies before he squanders our money, but would he ? Ha more chance of seeing a flying pig,. This government need to go, all of them , and get new blood in who care about THE UNITED KINGDOM , sod the rest.

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tarrow says...
12:26am Sat 15 Dec 12

Wirral West MP Esther McVey
How to commit political suicide

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djrimmer says...
1:42pm Mon 17 Dec 12

I used to think that Ms McVey was an OK politician but she now seems to at the beck and call of her chosen political party....... another one bites the dust!

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dave301bounty says...
7:35pm Wed 19 Dec 12

I am seeing two people / rats laughing at this crackdown ,they are on full rate mobility ,and coining it at little side jobs to put it ,a little exra for the hols ,I will put their names on a lamp post when i can ,a pair of ladders so it cant be pulled down ,because it seems to me no one is stopping these robbing rats ,you should have seen their grocery troley in the supermarket in new brighton it was full and i mean FULL booze and other stuff ,lots of money .

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sandals_wearer says...
7:47pm Wed 19 Dec 12

I'm afraid I don't understand your point dave301bounty. Are you unhappy that someone getting the mobility component of DLA (a non means tested benefit) has a job?

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bickyboy says...
9:55am Thu 20 Dec 12

The very fact that McVey is already telling us how many people will qualify for the new payments blows the credibility of this exercise right out of the water. The government has already decided how much money it wants to save, and to achieve that aim they plan to stop disability payments to tens of thousands of claimants regardless of need.

One further point. I recall during the debate about the closure of the Remploy factories that one contributor suggested it was "patronising" for anyone to suggest that the factories should stay open rather than for the workers to seek work on an equal footing with able bodied employees. How does that person feel now about their comments, given the news that over a thousand ex-Remploy workers are now seeking jobs, and so far only 63 have found work?

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dave301bounty says...
5:10pm Sat 22 Dec 12

no Sandal ,What it is ,I know that these ,persons are claiming full rate ,of dla ,yes FULL rate ,that means ,they cant work ,according to the dla worklines but these persons are working ,and getting a good wage ,/cash in hand .and i know quite a bit more ,but not allowed to say ,have had it taken off .

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