"Quite improper and quite unprecedented" - Baroness Hollis

Last night, the Lords voted strongly against three aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill. They were:

1. Change the new time limit on contribution-based ESA from one year to a minimum of two years. The Government's proposal meant that anyone who's been sick for a year this April would immediately lose their benefit entitlement. With the Lords' amendment, they will have a year to find out how changes will affect them and try to put other provisions in place if they're not going to get better.

2. Remove the time limit altogether for cancer patients. The Government wanted the one-year limit above to apply to everyone, even those struggling against cancer.

3. Protect ESA for severely disabled children. Currently, children who will never be able to earn a living and make NI contributions have a guarantee of benefits to support them in adult life. The Government wished to remove their guarantee.

During last night's debate, it became obvious that the Lords had done a far better job of researching the issues. Lord Patel, who led the challenges, produced case studies and statistics whereas the Minister for Welfare Reform (Lord Freud) had only "hearsay" and vague "estimates".

Among many strong statements in the House of Lords, Lord Patel said

"If you are going to rob the poor to pay the rich we have entered a different form of morality".

Controversial shadow work and pensions secretary, Liam Byrne, admitted the Coalition has

"Crossed the basic line of British decency"

All the charities, the disabled group who compiled the "Spartacus Report", and most of the Lords breathed a sigh of relief and went home for a well-deserved rest.
Then Lord Freud did something no Government has done before. He tabled a series of amendments, which would override the decisions taken in Parliament that day.

The House was, at this late stage, sparsely populated - mostly by Conservative supporters, whom Freud had presumably told to stay behind. His first amendment was passed.
Disabled children will no longer be protected.

Outrage at his evident skullduggery was so strong, Freud declined to present his other two amendments, though he will do at a later stage.

What Freud did was legal, but so against the principles of British government, it has never been done before. Parliament had debated, taken decisions, and that should have been the end of it for the day. Lord Freud used (abused?) the rules to score points. Such gamesmanship has its place - in sport, for example - but goes entirely against the principles of a fair and just democracy.

As Baroness Meacher said on Radio 4 this morning:

“The British public do not accept that banks screw up and very severely disabled people pay the bill.”

Her words encapsulate the whole purpose of this blog, and - we believe - the feelings of normal British folks like us. What we have now seen is that our current Government is prepared to wring out the last few quid from vulnerable adults and children, while failing to tax wealthy institutions for their errors. And will go to any lengths to do so. I'm not exaggerating when I call this sinister - dictators in recent history have overthrown democracies using similar moves. We are still a democracy.
Our voices do count and we can still be heard.

Please campaign against these continuing cuts to the weakest and most vulnerable. The government should be doing more to recoup losses against the banks and multinationals which caused the problem. Please campaign.

What can I do?

• Tell your friends! We're so used to a fairly honest Government, most don't believe this could happen.
• Pester your MPs, calling their attention to the comments by Meacher, Hollis and Patel. 
• Pester the Lords, urging them to support moderation of the Welfare Reform Bill.

You can do this easily with WriteToThem.com. We have a link in the right-hand sidebar. What you say does matter.

Don't forget you can also sign Pat's Petition asking the government to stop and think about the impact these cuts have on disabled people.

Write to your MP ... NOW, please!

I've sent the following letter to my MPs, using WriteToThem.com, to draw their attention to the "Spartacus Report" which highlights that the Government broke the law in their eagerness to take money off sick people.

There are links to the report in the post below this. When you write, please customise your letter to suit your views and circumstances. There's only a couple of days left - make them count!

I am sure you've heard of the "Spartacus Report" (the Responsible Reform document) compiled by a group of severely disabled Britons in response to the Welfare Reform Bill.

The report demonstrates that the coalition Government's “official consultation” was poorly executed, taking 2 weeks less than the legal requirement, and was not even completed before the Welfare Bill was presented to Parliament.

Further, the consultation respondents were almost unanimous in their response to some points, and that:-

74% of respondents were against the proposals but open to discussion;
19% had mixed views, agreeing with parts of the proposal;
Only 7% supported them fully.


Several points were raised by many respondents, including that the government’s motivation in proposing these reforms was perceived to be a saving of 20% from disability benefits. When the overall fraud rate of DLA is estimated at 0.5%, surely it is clear that this will cut benefits from those who need it.

The 'Spartacus' report shows clearly that the Government deliberately ignored the findings of its own consultation, cynically used the Christmas holiday period to force a Bill through illegally, and aims to wrest support away from those who need it most - at a rate of 1 in 5 vulnerable people.

Since [ my area ] is home to a slightly above-average level of disabled residents, these moves will impact terribly on existing services and strangle economic activity in the towns.  [ Please write something about your own constituency instead ]

Moreover, it's not the first time this Government has failed to honour its legal obligations: I remind you of last year's disregard for equal opportunities, which the Government admitted when challenged by the Fawcett Society - and then ignored.

I urge you, as my representative, to challenge the Coalition at every cavalier turn and to stop the Welfare Reform Bill until it has been competently reviewed.

There's a Write To Them box in the sidebar, just to the right of this post. Just put your postcode in and WriteToThem.com will do the rest.

The Spartacus Report and an Uncaring Media?

Yesterday's publication of the Spartacus Report, entitled Responsible Reform: A Report on the Proposed Changes to Disability Living Allowance went largely unnoticed by the mainstream media. As we told you yesterday, via the SaltandCaramel blog the Spartacus Report is “a consultation based on the answers from 523 groups – local authorities, national charities, legal groups, user led organisations, health care professionals and businesses” in response to the government’s “official consultation” held over Christmas of 2010 about proposed changes to the benefits system which see the eradication of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and the creation of a Personal Independence Payment (PIP). The “official consultation” was poorly executed taking 2 weeks less than the legal requirement and was not even completed before the Welfare Bill was presented to Parliament.

I would have thought that simply highlighting these two very clear violations of Parliamentary protocol would have been enough to secure the Spartacus Report huge media coverage. I was wrong. The mainstream media simply ignored it choosing instead to focus on celebrity chef Anthony Worrall Thompson being arrested for stealing cheese from Tescos; a matter that is clearly of national importance.

The question is why the mainstream media chose to ignore the publication of an important document with major implications for millions of citizens in the UK? We know the government doesn’t care about people; you only need to look at its failure to undertake a gender equality audit of the 2011 budget, an "oversight" which also contravened Parliamentary process. The Fawcett Society mounted a legal challenge and the government acknowledged its failure to follow policy but without any consequence. Surely, in the wake of this, and other, signal failures to follow procedure, yet another instance of their cavalier disregard for due process would be enough for major news coverage?

Social media, on the other hand, spent Monday banging the drums in a desperate attempt to get the mainstream media involved. This was the asinine response of Channel 4 News’ John Snow via tweet Monday afternoon:

Brilliant people behind the Spartacus report - but we need more info; case examples etc to render such a report newsworthy. I've seen it!

Apparently, it is beneath the mainstream media to do some actual research themselves and find a specific case example they can use for a “hook.” Frankly, 10 minutes on twitter could have gotten them a “case study” without doing too much actual work. 10 minutes on Mumsnet would have found hundreds of case studies and it’s not like stealing threads from Mumsnet is a new thing [waves madly at Matthew Wright and the Daily Mail]. Hell, Mumsnet actually has a helpful section entitled: Media/nonmember requests for this very purpose.

But, really, do we need a “case study” to make the point that the government has once again ignored the research and continues to spread untruths. Even ignoring the substance of Spartacus, the simple issue of the government again riding roughshod over parliamentary procedure is newsworthy in itself. What this really comes down to is a question of who controls the media and what the mainstream media is actually for.

The media’s failure to hold the government accountable is making it increasingly irrelevant. Instead, social media via twitter, Facebook and blogs has publicised the Spartacus Report to the extent that today it is actually a news item covered in the Herald Scotland, (although to be completely fair the Guardian, Daily Mail and Mirror did run stories on the weekend but that was mostly because Boris Johnson disagrees with the changes to DLA rather than the Spartacus Report itself).

We need to make the media more accountable for reporting stories and for getting their facts right when they do so. The government’s policy of deliberately isolating vulnerable people from their support networks is something that the media has power to change but since it is choosing not to, we must do it for them.

See below for some brilliant blogs on the Spartacus Report which we need to advertise via social media. But, please also write letters to your MP quoting these blogs [and the report itself] and letters to your local paper. Let’s get this story into the mainstream press:

Email your MP: at Write to Them and let them know about more coverage from campaigners and bloggers here:

Legal Aware Criticism of the cuts from a legal perspective.

Left Foot Forward wants action that reflects the report.

Flash Says... has ideas for letters to your MP

Diary of a Benefit Scrounger follow for all the breaking updates about the Spartacus Report

TUC agrees with Boris a more detailed breakdown of The Major of London's objections.

Tom Pride compares the Spartacus upraising to ancient Roman history.

The Small Places highlights the objects raised by Human Rights groups against the cuts.

Carons Musings hosts a clip from 5 live where Maria Miller, Minister for Disabled People and Sue Marsh discuss the cuts.

PCS Euston Branch

The Camel's Hump outligns how you can join the campaign.

20 Something Mum explains the impact DLA makes when you have a disabled child.

Learning Disability Coalition supports the Spartacus Report

BombasticSpastic "From today, Government may of course continue to ignore us. But they can never say they didn't know what they were doing."


Since writing this piece, the following news media have run stories on the Spartacus Report: The Guardian and Daily Mail

Easy Read Version of the Spartacus Report now available here at United Response