New legal challenge vs Universal Credit — loss of disability amounts

Single mum carer and disabled daughter, ESA woman, lost added disability amounts

Please come along, or support in other ways:  #StopandScrap Universal Credit

Wed 23 January 2019 at High Court, Strand, London WC2A 2LL

Court case 10.30am. Go into court 18 to support the claimants, TD, AD and Ms Reynolds. Cases listed here.  Continues Thursday 24 January, support in court needed.

1.30pm Wednesday: photocall outside court — Facebook event

Called by WinVisible, Single Mothers’ Self-Defence, Disabled People Against Cuts, Mental Health Resistance Network.  Supporters: Maggie Zolobajluk (names banner), Disability Labour, Rev Paul Nicolson (Taxpayers Against Poverty) and others.

The judicial review case is brought by the Child Poverty Action Group.

They have updated the cases background here: http://www.cpag.org.uk/content/universal-credit-disability-and-transitional-protection

• Single mum Ms D is a full-time carer for her disabled daughter, A. She was wrongly cut off Income Support and carers allowance, while waiting for her child’s Disability Living Allowance renewal.  Carers’ benefits are tied to disabled people’s benefits, which are also insecure as they are often needlessly reassessed. The Jobcentre told her to claim Universal Credit (UC). The DWP accepts this was wrong advice, but for some time, mum and daughter lost £140 a month as the UC amount for a disabled child is low (except if very severely disabled).
• Ms Reynolds was cut off Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and also Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), which she appealed later.  She had to claim UC to cover her rent.  She is £180 worse off per month as she lost severe disability premiums.

UC hits women, single mums and kids, disabled people, the hardest. It cuts child tax credits for disabled children by half.  Single disabled mums with disabled children lose £10,000 a year from benefit cuts.  The government is refusing to cover disabled people’s losses.  For new claimants, it’s even worse. But the growing movement against UC and to Scrap Universal Credit has forced them to slow the rollout and make concessions, including for UC to be paid to the main carer of the children, not to the head of household, usually the man – a recipe for domestic violence.

See also: “Universal Credit: a hostile environment for women”, and  https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/universal-credit-its-worse-we-throught by Solveig Francis and Selma James

Contact 0207 482 2496

Single Mothers’ Self-Defence smsd@allwomencount.net

WinVisible win@winvisible.org