Summary of our submission to the Public Accounts Committee in 2016 Benefit sanctions and threat of sanction are brutal, have killed people and must be ended. Women, including mothers, and families of colour, are the hardest hit by benefit cuts including the increase in sanctions. It is particularly cruel to sanction, or impose conditions that include the threat to sanction: sick and disabled people, mothers and children where the mother is on Jobseekers Allowance (JSA), mothers of children under five, and full-time carers on Income Support. Asylum seekers were the first to be made destitute … Read more
With friends of Lawrence Bond at his inquest on 16 June 2017. Being found fit for work was kept out of the inquest, which lasted only half an hour. Anne Marie O’Sullivan and her mother Eileen, also bereaved, Unite Community Camden, members of Camden Momentum and other concerned people attended with WinVisible. Read more: Disability News Service interviews Iris Green, Lawrence Bond’s sister. https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/shock-after-inquest-ignores-fitness-for-work-and-jobcentre-concerns/ At a showing of “I, Daniel Blake” in memory of Lawrence Bond, friends spoke about him and against the Work Capability Assessment (February 2017). See Payday’s short film https://vimeo.com/221415708/c5ca5f7c10
People are told that everyone has to have a face-to-face interview for PIP. This is not true. Official DWP guidance sets out exemption from the interview, where there is enough evidence on paper to establish your daily living needs and mobility needs, and/or where the face-to-face interview is likely to be stressful to you. (The guidance also covers the negative situation where they look at your form and think you don’t qualify for PIP, so won’t call you in. Make sure you are using the parts of the guidance which support you getting PIP.) See … Read more
At a film and TV awards ceremony, Ken Loach, director of “I, Daniel Blake” condemns government policies which make people destitute in his BAFTA speech.
PRESS RELEASE . . . PRESS RELEASE . . . PRESS RELEASE . . . Gill Thompson’s legal case for her brother David, who was diabetic and died in 2013 after his Jobseekers Allowance was sanctioned, has just been launched. Gill’s legal team wrote to the Hertfordshire Coroner setting out why there should be an investigation, including of breach of the right to life and of DWP procedure sanctioning claimants (see Leigh Day press release). David’s death was put down to “natural causes” and there was no inquest. Public support through CrowdJustice fundraising has enabled … Read more
Click on link to read our history of six years of benefit actions by the disability movement and bereaved relatives, up to the resignation of Work and Pensions Minister Iain Duncan Smith in March 2016. actions-that-led-to-resignation-of-ids-latest-5-april-2016
Daily Mirror Article, 3 March In Feb/March 2016, bedroom tax cases on disability discrimination, carers and a single mother fleeing domestic violence came to the Supreme Court. WinVisible called a daily vigil supported by many groups, individuals and the people in the cases.
Watch 4-minute interview on London Live here. Bradford to Wrexham 30 protests UK-wide.
