Some pictures from the No ESA Cut lobby outside parliament today. More to follow.
The welfare reform and work bill returns to the House of Commons today, where a government plan to cut the Employment and Support Allowance disability benefit rate by £30 a week for people in the work related activity group may be returned to the bill after the House of Lords blocked it.
There is a tweetlist here to share during the debate in parliament today.
Photos © @skinnyvoice
Video:
Video transcript:
Paula Peters, Disabled People Against Cuts
I’m here to highlight the absolutely appalling policy that George Osborne wants to implement to cut the Work Related Activity Group of Employment and Support Allowance to Jobseekers’ Allowance Levels which is a devastating move for over half a million disabled people, especially cancer patients, people like MS patients and people like that who need that additional money for their support needs around their disability, money to eat, money to get to hospital appointments.
To cut the WRAG group of ESA is a totally draconian, callous, inhumane move that will have a devastating impact on many lives
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I’m Eilidh Whiteford, I’m the SNP’s social justice spokesperson and the reason that I’m here today is because obviously the amendments that the Lord’s passed in the last few weeks that could reverse those cuts to disabled people are coming back to the commons so it is really important that we’re in the debate this afternoon.
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My name is Neil Gray I’m the SNP MP for Airdrie & Shotts and the SNP’s Westminster spokesperson for fair work and employment and I’m here today to show solidarity with disabled people who are opposing the government’s attempts to remove the ESA WRAG, and also the reporting obligations on child poverty. We believe that those are incredibly damaging and we want to see the Lords amendments stand.
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Paula Peters
Vote No to ESA WRAG cuts. Say No and do the right thing by disabled people for once in your lives.
This proposed ESA cut is a truly disgraceful act, perpetrated by a vindictive government against some of its most defenceless citizens. Disabled people were traditionally paid additional benefits to help them with the inevitable extra costs of disability, and to allow them to cope with the practical difficulties they face every day. These are the facts of life for the disabled. Nothing in these spiteful mean-minded policies will change will change a single fact of this need. By reducing the additional benefits paid to a disabled person to the same level as an able-bodied claimant, is to place that disabled person below the financial benefit level of a healthy claimant. And to do it in cold blood. Despicable.
True that. And there’s stuff all support in jobcentres too now. IDS is just going to dump people in those places and make them go on pointless work courses with charlatans like Reed