Promises, Promises, Promises - The Election Guide to UK Political Parties Pledges

ELECTION PROMISES - Benefits and Work have produced this wonderful round up of election promises. Here is what they have to say: 

First up, Labour are pledging to abolish universal credit, scrap sanctions and axe the bedroom tax.

They are even offering to take us back to the future, by doing away with the DWP and reintroducing the DSS.

Plus, they are planning to fund 200 community lawyers and a network of law centres.

The Tories, meanwhile, are in a bidding war with Labour over who can offer the biggest increase in the national living wage.

But we suspect that the new work and pensions secretary’s glorious undertaking to “continue to improve universal credit” is going to be less of a vote winner.

Positive PIP Guidance on Chronic Pain

This week the DWP updated their guidance to health professionals carrying out PIP assessments.

It contains a positive change for claimants who have to live with chronic pain.

Up until now, health professionals have been free to make the lazy assumption that claimants who are not prescribed strong painkillers can’t be in much pain.

So, any claims that pain limits their ability to carry out activities can be ignored.

However, the new guidance tells them that “the level of analgesia used does not necessarily correlate with the level of pain.”

The guidance points out that GPs are encouraged not to prescribe strong painkillers for long-term pain because of the harm they can do the patient.

In addition, some patients may be intolerant to analgesics or they may be using other methods of controlling pain.

Health professionals are told that instead of relying solely on the amount of medication as evidence, they should expect the claimant to be able to describe:

• the location,
• type,
• severity and
• variability
• of the pain they experience and the impact it has on their daily life.

So, as always, it’s vital that you give as much detailed evidence as possible about how your condition affects you.

But, provided you do so, the result should be a better chance of getting the correct award without having to go to an appeal tribunal.

An End to Universal Credit, Sanctions and The DWP

Labour are promising sweeping changes to the benefits system if they win an election.

Though, at the moment, it is not at all clear how they would achieve their most headline grabbing offer, the killing-off of universal credit

As the Institute for Fiscal Studies pointed out, so far the details of their proposals do not “amount to anything close to a scrapping of universal credit”.

Nevertheless, the clear undertakings they have given would improve the lot of many claimants.

They include:

*             Scrapping the two-child limit, the benefit cap and the bedroom tax

*             Ending benefits sanctions

*             Removing the 5 weeks wait for a first payment of UC and making an interim payment after two weeks

*             Ending the requirement to claim UC online

*             Hiring an extra 5,000 advisers to help people unable to make an online UC claim

*             Abolishing the DWP and replacing it with a Department for Social Security

For our (very much) younger readers, the DSS was the former name of the DWP until it was rebranded in 2001 by Blair’s Labour government.

So reintroducing the DSS would be a step back in time and could well amount to nothing but a nostalgic PR exercise.

But if the next government genuinely adopted the ethos set out by Margaret Greenwood, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions of “a social security system designed to end poverty, based on principles of dignity and universalism”, then that might actually make a difference.

Here at Benefits and Work, however, we won’t be holding our breath.

Community Lawyers and Law Centres

Labour’s proposal to fund 200 community lawyers and a network of law centres is one that few claimants would find fault with.

Except perhaps to argue that an awful lot more than 200 lawyers are needed.

But it would be a welcome move away from the current policy of making it almost impossible for most claimants to get timely, face-to-face help with their claims and appeals.

Just as importantly, it is very often advisers taking individual cases to the upper tribunal that result in changes to the law. These in turn can help many thousands of other claimants get the benefits they are entitled to.

So, even 200 new lawyers could make a serious difference.

National Minimum Wage Bidding War

Labour and the Tories appear to be involved in a national minimum wage price war as an election draws nearer.

The Tories have now announced a target of raising the national living wage to £10.50 an hour by 2024 and reducing the age limit for eligibility from 25 down to 21.

Labour, however, have described the plan as a “pathetic attempt at catch-up” by the Conservatives.

They point out that Labour’s 2017 manifesto promised a national living wage of at least £10 an hour for all workers over 16 by 2020.

By 2024 that would be worth £10.81.

Either way, it’s a small crumb of potentially good news for those on the lowest pay.

Tories Pledge to Continue to Improve UC

We are tempted to refer to the latest secretary of state for work and pensions simply as [insert name here].

The chances of Therese Coffey still being in post in a few months’ time, whoever wins the election, are pretty slim.

And the chances of her making any difference to anything whilst in post are probably even slimmer.

Her claim that:

“Universal Credit provides a safeguard for the most vulnerable in our society. It supports strivers, who are not content living a life on welfare.”

doesn’t suggest that she is amongst the most insightful or honest occupiers of the post.

Whilst her big offer to voters:

“To continue to improve Universal Credit to ensure people get the money they need in a timely manner, are helped into work, and onto an escalator up to better work.”

is as uninspiring as it is unlikely to be fulfilled.

Perhaps most bizarre of all is her announcement of a:

“£4 million package to support people to find not just any job, but that dream job.”

If your dream job is to be paid huge amounts of money to make entirely meaningless promises, mixed with offensive stereotypes, to a packed conference hall, then we are really sorry.

Therese got there before you.

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