A government e-petition supported by Ekklesia and written by sick and disabled people and carers, has gained over 100,000 signatures, meaning it should trigger a Parliamentary debate.
A government e-petition supported by Ekklesia and written by sick and disabled people and carers, has gained over 100,000 signatures, meaning it should trigger a Parliamentary debate.
The petition’s organisers are very grateful to everybody who has signed and got them to this stage. But they urge people to keep promoting the petition until it closes on 12 December 2013, as each new signature adds to the democratic mandate when it goes before the Backbench Business Committee for consideration.
Supporter Ian Mearns MP tweeted his congratulations, but added, “Keep the signatures coming up to the deadline Strength in numbers.”
The petition, (dubbed the WOW petition as it was set up to resist the War On Welfare) calls for:
“A Cumulative Impact Assessment of all cuts and changes affecting sick and disabled people, their families and carers, and a free vote on repeal of the Welfare Reform Act. An immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment, as voted for by the British Medical Association.”
The petition was championed by actress and comedian Francesca Martinez, who has cerebral palsy. She said: “With 83 per cent of disabilities acquired, anyone can find themselves with an impairment, or as a carer, and we must make sure that people are adequately supported when in challenging times. This is what a civilised society does. Instead of demonising those on welfare, we should be proud to create a society that provides for everyone regardless of health or ability. We will never forget the many tragic deaths already caused by this government and we will continue to fight in the hope that we can protect those in need from despair, poverty and death. We’d like to thank everyone who signed and shared the petition, and we look forward to the next phase of Parliamentary debate.”
The Welfare Reform Act was proclaimed “the biggest shake up in welfare for sixty years” so it was shocking that for the people most affected by these changes, sick and disabled people and carers, no cumulative impact assessment had been carried out. The Secretary of State had no knowledge or understanding of, and apparently no interest in, how lives would be turned upside down.
In a similar show of disregard for the welfare of sick and disabled people, the government ignored calls from the medical profession to scrap the Work Capability Assessments (WCA) used to decide whether someone can receive Employment Support Allowance (ESA).
At their British Medical Association conference in June 2012, GPs called for the WCA to be scrapped “with immediate effect and be replaced with a rigorous and safe system that does not cause unavoidable harm to some of the weakest and vulnerable in society.”
The WCA process has been blamed for the deaths and suicides of people caught up in it, many of whom are denied the support they desperately need According to the DWP’s own figures ‘between January 2011 and November 2011, some 10,600 claims ended and a date of death was recorded within six weeks of the claim end.’
More recent figures on the deaths of claimants cannot be obtained. The DWP decided to stop publishing them, and a Freedom of Information request was denied. Following this denial a number of people made similar requests, which were then described as ‘vexatious’.
A vast and highly profitable private industry has developed around outsourced disability assessments, with companies like Atos being paid hundreds of millions of pounds from the public purse.
Michelle Maher, one of the petition’s organisers, said: “I became involved because of my cousin who had been living with Parkinson’s for five years, with osteoarthritis and diabetes. Her claim for DLA took eighteen months to settle and she was in sheltered accommodation when she had to attend a tribunal. She was frightened, stressed and confused by the process. Inhumane.”
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© Bernadette Meaden has written about political, religious and social issues for some years, and is strongly influenced by Christian Socialism, liberation theology and the Catholic Worker movement. She is an Ekklesia associate and regular contributor. You can follow her on Twitter: @BernaMeaden