To consider the following Motion in the names of Councillors J C Lawson and Marchington;
“This Council notes:
1) The Government has published a Green Paper, which includes proposals to change disability and long-term sickness benefits. This includes Personal Independence Payment (PIP);
2) PIP is claimed by nearly 3.7 million people in England and Wales, which includes residents in Kirklees. PIP is a benefit not linked to being in work or out of work but instead designed to help people with the additional unavoidable costs of having a disability. It is used by people who need daily help because of a long-term illness or disability or mental health condition. Many disabled people rely on PIP to cover the cost of getting to and from work, paying for essential equipment and for meeting their social care charges;
3) PIP is a non-means tested benefit, meaning that claims are not affected by an individual’s income, capital or savings. It consists of 2 parts: a daily living component and a mobility component. Depending on their assessment, individuals may receive one or both components;
4) The Government’s Green Paper proposes that PIP will be focused more on those with higher needs and reports suggest that eligibility criteria will be tightened. This may mean that individuals judged to have lower needs will no longer be eligible for the daily living component of PIP. In effect, it may mean that some individuals could lose entitlement to the daily living element of PIP and potentially other entitlements linked to this award. If an individual loses the daily living component, it will directly affect their caregiver, as the carer may become ineligible for Carer’s Allowance or the carer element within Universal Credit. Furthermore, the Government’s Spring Statement indicated that they wish to freeze the health element of Universal Credit for existing claimants until 2030 – meaning it will no longer increase with inflation, resulting in a real terms loss of income for over two million households;
5) Responding to the Chancellor’s Spring Statement and the publication of the Government’s impact assessment for their planned cuts to disability benefits, the Joseph Rowntree Foundation state that the cuts to health-related benefits risk pushing 250,000 people into poverty, including 50,000 children;
6)
People who struggle to even wash their hair may have
their payments reduced by an average of £1,720 per year. It
is estimated that 370,000 people with disabilities will no longer
qualify for PIP under the Government’s new assessment
rules.
This Council believes that:
· Some of these changes will have a negative impact on the lives of Kirklees residents;
· These changes amount to nothing less than an attack on those living with disabilities and health conditions – who need PIP payments and health-related Universal Credit, to live independent, dignified lives;
· Freezing, reducing and removing these payments will have a catastrophic impact on million of households who, due to disability and ill-health, face some of the highest rates of material deprivation in the UK.
This Council, therefore, resolves to:
1) Instruct the Leader of the Council to write to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, expressing the Council’s grave concerns about the impact of these changes and urging them to reverse their decision to target those with disabilities and health conditions with cuts to their support payments;
2) Follow the example set by Stockport Council in developing a strategy to maximise the number of people claiming benefits they are entitled to in Kirklees, by using existing resources, including the Council website, the Council’s newsletters, notices in local newspapers and council social media feeds;
3) Ask the Council’s scrutiny function to convene a Task & Finish Group, to identify likely impacts on the local population and to assess the likely demand for support from the Council and its local partners.”
Minutes:
Item withdrawn.