Invalidity Benefit - 11 comments
According to the BBC,
Prime Minister Tony Blair says getting one million incapacity benefit claimants back to work within 10 years can be "a win for everyone".If it can encourage people who are capable of working, using both carrot and stick, into the labour force, while protecting those who are genuinely incapable of work, then that's a pretty obvious, and a pretty sound basis for reform.
He spoke out as ministers prepare to unveil plans to cut benefits for claimants who refuse to take part in back-to-work schemes.
The more severely disabled people will receive a higher rate of benefit and have no obligation to look for work.
Nobody's saying it will be easy for many of these people to find work - especially with lingering symptoms and side-effects of their sickness - but at least a job search can begin, people have something to aim at, to train for, and can try to change their lives. I can't take seriously the idea that these measures should be resisted because there are "only so many jobs" - the idea that the economy is of fixed size, and that every vacancy is taken - and therefore that it's either not worth bothering, or that looking for work will only serve to put someone else on the scrapheap. Reform has to be tried first, then we'll see what the employment consequences are.
I also can't really take anyone seriously who claims that the Government - or rather Tony Blair personally - is "blaming, attacking and bullying the poor and the needy", that we should turn a blind eye when so many people's lives are marked by unending poverty, apathy, and boredom, and that this unreformed system - which permits severely disabled people to live in poverty - should be funded in perpetuity by taxing the evil Rich. It belies a lack of empathy for the people concerned - who become mere victims of society, and pawns to be played in one's own game of ideological politics - as well as a deadening conservatism.
OK, that became more of a rant, but you get the idea.
Update: I know, it's called incapacity benefit.
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11 comments so far...
He's not actually going to do anything though is he? This is for public consumption rather than for actual policy changes. Remember workfare?
Ah, such touching faith in Tony Blair. Tony Blair, of course, favoured cuts across the board in invalidity benefit - so harming the weakest. That's your socialist for you.
Any concesssions were squeezed out of him by some resistance even amongst ministers, and the fact that he had smaller majority of parliament this time round - although the fact that he had a majority at all with such a paltry percentage of the vote is pure lunacy anyway.
OK, here we go: instead of a reasoned critique of the proposals, or indeed of the principles involved, we get more demonising of Blair. Is there something wrong with ministers having a role? No, far more important to you are the personal views of TB himself, which I don't believe are a matter of record (I may be wrong). Far from resembling a shaky compromise, the proposals seem internally consistent, and not even particularly controversial.
What you demonstrate is a sentimental attachment to "the weakest" without any obvious concern to offer them new opportunities, or a route out of poverty, because they are - as I suggested above - a political pawn to be used in an ideological New/Old Labour-style battle, which is far more important to its participants than the people who actually need money and jobs to live.
I don't like the electoral system, but those are (or were) the rules that applied back in May. As a result we have a government that disconcerts a lot of people by its ability to act.
Disagreeing with cuts in incapacity benefit that would effect those incapacitated (the weakest in the overall job market) is "sentimental"? I call it fairminded and in accordance with social democratic values.
You call it my "sentimental attachment".
I simply pointed out a fact, as stated by Polly Toynbee, that Tony Blair backed much tougher Thatcherite reform (as usual to out Tory the Tories) including cuts across the board. That was opposed by various ministers - a good thing. And such garbage would not have got through even today's PLP.
If the current proposals help out those that can work to do so, all well and good, but those who have no chance of getting a full time properly paid job should not be made to suffer any more hardship.
Whilst Blair was seemingly thwarted from doing his worst, it remains to be seen what actual effect these plans, if implemented, will have.
I do think sentimentalism is the right word to use when well-intentioned measures to help those who can work, and to reduce dependency, are condemned just because some - who can work and refuse to be helped, but are sheltered by their victim status - may lose out.
Nobody can guarantee work, let along full-time, well-paid work, but that's no excuse for people not to try to look, and especially not to remain as a claimant of a benefit that is intended to compensate for illness and incapacity. At the very least those who can work should move to jobseeker's allowance (JA), so a more accurate picture of incapacity can be seen. Furthermore, JA isn't there for people who aren't able to earn a higher wage from gainful employment, i.e. it's not a minimum income. If you can work, you should, even if it is for less than the JA, not least because of all the other non-wage benefits of employment as against unemployment.
If TB's original plan involved sticks and no carrots, and offered nothing to those in poverty and condemned not to be able to work, then I'm sure he'd get the criticism he'd deserve.
As someone with a parent who claims and receives Incapacity Benefit I find that the Government's plans for reform should hopefully improve the current situation. Periodically my Mum's benefits are reviewed, revoked and she is made to reapply. Her benefits are always reinstated and back-dated as her claim has a sound basis - she has artificial hip and knee joints and chronic arthritis. Sadly this process is very stressful and very upsetting for someone who is already a vulnerable person who has spent their entire working life in nursing caring for the vulnerable. I welcome any improvements in the targetting of these benefits that can be made, rather than the current longstanding policy of withdrawing benefits and seeing who shouts the loudest.
I am one of the 'work shy'. I have post-traumatic-stress-disorder and have twice in the past year tried to commit suicide. The last time, I was supposed to gwet a social worker to help with housing issues.... and guess what.... nothing has happened.
The real issue here, is not work, but the complete failure of the mental health services.
And if the issue is to end poverty, then the simple answer is to increase the benefits and to properly enforce the disability discrimination act.
But that will not please the rich, and therefore is not an option for this right-wing government.
And I do find it offensive the way in which the government is trying to re-label clinical depression as 'stress'.
The problem for me isn't the principle - getting people back to work if they can makes perfect sense for them and society, but the practice.
If it isn't done right (and doing it as a cost saving excercise will make it harder to do right) then people who aren't capable of work could be pushed into it (damaging their health) or punished because there are few employers around who will take on people who may have unreliable attendance.
Ultimately it will be successful if it is about support rather than compulsion. I know plenty of people who would love to be able to work.
And if the issue is to end poverty, then the simple answer is to increase the benefits and to properly enforce the disability discrimination act.
Maybe, but this only makes sense once those who can work and can be helped into the job market, and those who are abusing the system, are taken off incapacity. Increasing these peoples' benefits would increase the burden upon everyone else, encourage dependency, and encourages the idea that a benefit is at all comparable with a wage. If incapacity benefit is just for the incapacitated - whether mentally or physically - then of course we should raise payments to minimise poverty, and I can't think of any economic argument against this. For the others though, benefit increases are the wrong solution.
That makes no sense. You clearly have no idea about how incapacity benefit works.
And I would suggest that you suffer from the same arrogance as the party you support. In fact you are little better than a tory.
But rather than trade insults have a read of a doctor's perspective http://nhsblogdoc.blogspot.com/2006/01/preventing-benefit-fraud.html
and if that doesn't change your mind then perhaps you should consider facing up to the fact that you are ideologically right-wing.
It's because I'm not involved 'on the ground' and am not, in that sense, an expert, that I try to stick to principles, in the belief that the policy will be enacted fairly and properly.
If you're not interested in this 'high-level' approach, or your view is that it's just hot air, then there's probably not much point in us continuing the discussion here.
My chief objection is to the idea that because those on IB are adjudged the most vulnerable in society, then any attempt to reform the system other than giving everyone a big present can be immediately labelled as "right wing", a now-meaningless term that is still so frightening for the leftie that he must abandon any attempts at reform, leaving the ideological cynic with a warm smile on his face, but leaving those on IB to fend for themselves, their problems reduced merely to one of money.
I've got no overriding reason to support cutting the IB budget, but I'm sure as hell not going to back a policy that indiscriminately pays out extra, including to those who may not need to claim IB, or that is based on the belief that life on benefit is as good as it gets.
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