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The Hardest Hit protest

Defending disabled people’s futures

On 11 May Citizens Advice joined disabled people, their friends, families and supporters to march on Westminster to protest about proposed cuts to benefits and services.

Up to 8,000 people joined the Hardest Hit demonstration making it the biggest protest ever by disabled people. Under the Government’s Welfare Reform proposals, disabled people will be the hardest hit – losing an estimated £9 billion over the lifetime of this Parliament.

At the mass lobby of MPs that followed, disabled people had the opportunity to tell their MPs how these proposals would affect their lives and urge them to oppose these cuts.

We are currently lobbying for amendments to the Welfare Reform Bill’s proposals about Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). Calling for improvements to ESA is also one of the key planks of our Fair Welfare campaign. Last year (2010/11), Citizens Advice Bureaux dealt with over 200,000 queries about ESA – a 37 per cent increase on the previous year. The majority of these involved severely sick and disabled people being found fit for work by the flawed Work Capability Assessment that is used to determine the level of work people can do.

What do we want?

In relation to ESA, we are calling on the Government to:

  • Improve the Work Capability Assessment so that it is accurate, and those who are too ill or disabled to work are not left without support.
  • Withdraw the proposal to limit entitlement to contributory ESA to 12 months for some claimants (see box below for details).

The 12-month limit will affect people in the work-related activity group who get contributory ESA, it will not apply to people in the support group who are not expected to work again.

Currently, people who are too ill to work who have paid enough national insurance contributions can get contributory ESA indefinitely, or until they are well enough to work. Contributory ESA is not means-tested so any savings or partner’s earnings are ignored. Income-related ESA is also available, but only if a person’s partner earns below £150 a week, and if they have less than £16,000 in savings.

Evidence suggests that 94 per cent of people in the work-related activity group who get contributory ESA are unlikely to return to work within a year so would risk losing their ESA if they have savings or a partner who works. For example, a couple where one earns £150 and the other is sick would lose their ESA of £94.25 – an income drop of almost 40 per cent.

What you can do

See our Fair welfare campaign for details of how you can help:

  • If you have recently claimed ESA or are about to and have not yet had a medical test (work capability assessment) – take part in our survey.
  • If you are about to be moved from Incapacity Benefit to ESA – fill in our claimant diary.
  • Use our sample letters to write to your MP to express your concerns.
  • If you will be affected by these cuts – tell us your story.

For more information

 

See our Fair Welfare Campaign