RISHI SUNAK TALKING ABOUT BENEFIT CUTS AGAIN

I have posted before about this but I have severe depression and anxiety and these pronouncements by Rishi Sunak always makes both worse. He is now talking about removing some PIP entitlement to force people to pay for therapy to try and improve their medical condition. Is this viable? What do the experts on here think

I just wanted to say I can completely relate to it making your mental health worse. It's so scary and anxiety-inducing when they say things like that. I think it's important to remember that a lot of it is bluster - a lot of things have been said over the years that never came to pass, they were said purely to try and win votes from the 'people on benefits are all scroungers' brigade. Solidarity. <3

Mr Sunak comes from a privilege life and has no idea how disabled/Ill people live and what they have to live with. He said this morning we are a "Sick Note Culture", the man makes my blood boil!! He has no idea about the real world... Therapy is really expensive and there are already long waiting lists, I am waiting for therapy and i still haven't been given an appointment date and its been 18 months!! The man needs to resign or needs to be replaced ASAP!! The man doesn't even know how much a bottle of milk costs!! This man should not be running the country!! The rich will just keep getting richer!! While the normal people keep struggling!! Sorry for the rant but the man makes me real mad!!

You can always tell their is an election looming when the Government and the right-wing media start denigrating the sick and disabled.

As someone who suffers from long-term mental health conditions, I understand your anxiety and always feel demonised when such headlines start appearing.

My feeling is though, that this is just the usual Tory Mouth Piece trying to appease certain factions within the party and its members. In reality, something like this could never get off the ground and would be open to legal challenges.

Pip is designed to help people with the extra cost of living due to their disability.
For example, someone with a disability who can not get out of the house as much as say, someone who is able-bodied, faces far more expenses. i.e heating and electricity, travel costs, water usage, and toiletries are just a few examples. These are costs that receiving Pip is supposed to go towards helping.
There is already a consultation in place due to the fact that many disabled people receiving PIP are receiving inadequate support due to the fact that the rising cost of living is eating into their benefit money and therefore the amount is not sufficient to support people towards the intended purposes of PIP.

Now, for the Government to be saying that they are considering removing PIP payments to someone and instead paying one-off payments towards the cost of adaptions, when you think about it makes no sense....Having a Grab Rail in your bathroom for example does not remove the disability, paying for disabled-friendly kitchen utensils for example does not remove the disability. You score points for having aids on a pip form, therefore it makes no sense for the Government to now suggest that it would remove entitlement once aids and adaptions where in place.

The suggestion that the Government will pay for people with mental health conditions to have therapy also seems like nonsense, the Public and the private sector cannot already cope with the almost 2 million people who have been waiting for access to mental health services, where is the government going to find all these magical therapists from?
And Besides, therapy is not a magic bullet in a one-cap-fits-all all.
Even if these proposals did go ahead, the Payment of Pip would have to be in place whilst the claimant waited and underwent treatment and then there would need to be kind of assessment to state that the therapy had been 100% successful and the condition no longer existed and therefore support was not needed....

As I say, almost 7 million people are waiting for NHS hospital treatment and 2 million people waiting for mental health treatment, the chances of this government or the next government making a dent into these numbers over the next 10 years is pretty slim. It is going to take obscene amounts of money to increase capacity and that is not going to happen over the next parliament...

So whilst I share your fears when the Government and the right-wing media keep lashing out at sick and disabled people as if we are responsible for the poor state of the NHS and the nation's health and the ballooning Welfare bill, try to remember this is just the Government trying to abdicate responsibility for the complete state this country is in after 14 years of Tory Government and lack of spending on public services....Its all soundbites to appease certain sections of society and the media and to try and paint labour into a corner in the upcoming election on what Labour will do with welfare...
The Tories can not defend their record on Public services, Health, housing, the rising cost of living etc etc and so they have very few policy areas where they can try to get one over on the political parties.
I hope this brings some reassurance to you....
I feel your anxiety though as a fellow disabled claimant