“As a charity at the forefront of the fight against muscle disease, the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign has urged the government to consider that many disability benefits are intended to help meet the extra costs of living with a disability.

“We welcome the intention in the 21st Century Welfare consultation paper to simplify the complex benefits system, and to make the process more efficient. And we are pleased to note that one of the stated objectives of the reforms is “supporting carers and enabling disabled people to have an equal role in society.

“But any reform to the Disability Living Allowance must be carried out with the intention of promoting independence and quality of life for people with a disability more effectively, rather than as a cost cutting measure targeted at some of the more vulnerable people in our society. At the same time, fraudulent claims should be rooted out and the consequent savings used to strengthen and enhance support for carers and people living with disabilities.”

Robert Meadowcroft,
Acting Chief Executive and Director of Policy and Campaigns,

Muscular Dystrophy Campaign

We regret that benefits will increase in line with Consumer Price Index rather than Retail Price Index as a measure of inflation. The different could mean about £130p/a to each carer by 2015. Carers and disabled people need more not less financial support.

Furthermore, we would like to see greater support to help carers and disabled people work, rather than simply being subject to more testing about their capability which can often be wrongly assessed causing undue stress.

We understand the financial pressures on Government, but public funding cuts must not be aimed at carers and families, who are emblematic of the Big Society they hope to foster. Research shows that cutting support for carers will very quickly cost more money than is saved. Carers who do not receive support are more likely to suffer physical and mental breakdowns. When this happens, the original patient requires emergency hospital admission or expensive residential care and the carer becomes a patient as well – meaning costs spiral.

Carole Cochrane
Chief Executive Officer

We are happy to add our support to your campaign – alongside the following statement from the National Pensioners Convention’s General Secretary, Dot Gibson:

The NPC has worked with Carer Watch over the past year to defend the rights of disabled people and their carers. The support provided by the Disability Living Allowance is essential to those who need extra help to maintain their independence and mobility in later life, and cutting it will be an act of pure cruelty that will have a devastating impact on some of the most vulnerable members of our society. The government must be made to think again.

All the best
Neil Duncan-Jordan
NPC

Regards,
Dave

.

Throughout its history Soundings journal has been at the forefront of rethinking welfare policy. In the last decade Britain has been subjected to levels of reform that have undermined the old welfare consensus established in the years following the second world war. The issue of conditionality has shifted from being a reciprocal agreement to becoming a punitive method of controlling and monitoring claimants. The collapse in the value of benefits contributes to the fear and anxiety of being made redundant or becoming sick or disabled. The old welfare safety net is in tatters. The Disability Living Allowance is one of the last remaining universal benefits paid to those who are working and those who are not working and based on the principle of need. We know that the Labour Movement will need to create a new welfare system for the future, one that is not run for profit by business, which keeps people out of poverty and which while requiring a fair reciprocity does not punish or impose workfare. This is a major undertaking but it will be built on benefits like the DLA and for this reason we need to defend it as a priority.

Jonathan Rutherford
editor Soundings

Carers own income could well be hit, as Carer’s Allowance and other benefits are based on the disabled person receiving Disability Living Allowance at a certain level. People’s experiences of medical tests for Employment and Support Allowance and Incapacity Benefit have not been positive, and poor medical assessment could spell financial disaster for carers and their families.

Making savings to the welfare bill in this way is deeply unfair – hitting the most vulnerable in our society particularly hard, people who are already struggling to make ends meet. Caring is something we will all have to do at some point in our lives and Carers UK will continue to campaign for the contribution that carers make to families and society to be fully recognised and to ensure that carers get the practical, financial and emotional support they need.

Jan Cole, Carers and Parents Support – Asperger East Anglia

Anne Begg
Chair of the Works and Pensions Select Committee

Disability Living Allowance was specifically named in the Emergency Budget as a benefit that was being targeted and where substantial savings could be made. Many groups/organisations representing the disabled people and carers are reporting that this has caused an immediate wave of anxiety and concern.

DLA is an essential benefit that was specifically designed to provide financial support towards the extra costs incurred by people living with a disability.  DLA payments have enabled hundreds of thousands of disabled people to maintain a degree of independence and quality of life that would have otherwise been lost to them.Because Middle and Higher rate DLA are both also passport benefits to enable family members to claim Carers Allowance, removing or reducing DLA will not only have an enormous financial impact on disabled people it will also impact on their carers – a double blow which will especially hit hard those families on the poverty line.

It is even more alarming that the Coalition plan a new regime of  ’non medical tests ‘  as happened with Employment Support Allowance. A ‘test’ which was designed to throw 1 million people off sickness benefit altogether. It is a ‘test’ you are planned to fail.  

Of course we want the aspiration of work to be open to disabled people and carers but with rising unemployment coupled with cuts to social care support services, realistically how many will find work and how soon? We are concerned that the most severely and enduringly ill people will be subject to threats and sanctions for not finding work and have incomes reduced as a result.  

CarerWatch thank the groups, organisations and individuals who have signed below to support us.  

Sign to support this campaign here

Dear Carer Watch,

Thanks for your information. We too are very opposed to the government’s proposals around DLA and other benefits. You can see our approach on our website .

We are happy to support work on this area.

Best wishes,
Anne Kane, Policy Manager  

Inclusion London have their analysis of  How the Budget will damage the lives of Deaf and Disabled Londoners