benefits dla etc

sharmaine

I received this email re the above. You may want to read it.

Benefits and Work
This is the final newsletter in the No More Benefits Cuts Campaign. We will be deleting all the email addresses from this list on Friday afternoon.
However, if you want to stay informed about government plans for DLA and AA there are details of how to sign up for our free fortnightly newsletter below.

Within hours of our announcing our 100 days campaign, news of the danger to DLA and AA spread across the internet on blogs, forums and social networking sites and you began to make your voices heard.
• Contributions to the Big Care debate website went from a few hundred to over 4,000, almost all hostile to the plans for disability benefits.
• Many disability charities were unaware of, or reluctant to admit, the existence of the threat. But a deluge of emails from you made them realise that they had no choice but to respond to the green paper.
• Almost 22,000 people signed a petition protesting against threats to DLA and AA on the No 10 website – the petition remains open until 7th December.
• Virtually every MP in the UK received faxes and letters from you expressing your anger and concern.
• Motions criticising the attack on disability benefits were laid before the Scottish and Welsh assemblies.
• Questions were asked about the future of DLA and AA in debates in the House of Lords and the House of Commons.
• Lord Ashley of Stoke warned that “any attempt by the Government to withdraw these benefits, or any benefits at all, will be very strongly resisted by disabled people, by their organisations and by many Members of both Houses of Parliament”
• The Conservatives announced that they would oppose plans to incorporate AA into funding for the National Care Service.
• Forced into the open by the growing clamour, Health Secretary Andy Burnham announced that he had ‘heard the concerns and worries about disability living allowance’ and “I can state categorically that we have now ruled out any suggestion that DLA for under-65s will be brought into the new National Care Service.”
So, in just one hundred days, and with no support whatsoever from claimant- bashing tabloids, you have forced the government to rule out any hopes it had of snatching DLA for under-65s to fund the National Care Service. And you’ve also finally forced them to disclose, even if only by omission, that DLA for people aged 65 and over, as well as AA, is still under threat. All this whilst proposals are still at the green paper stage, when ministers would normally expect only a few professionals and specialist organisations to even notice their existence, let alone express an opinion.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
We hope that all the disability charities that took part in the green paper consultation will publish their responses online. Perhaps you could encourage any charity with which you have a connection to do so? If they don’t, we will be making freedom of information requests for copies of their submissions.Aside from that, it’s now largely a question of waiting to see what is in the white paper, if it is indeed published early next year.
We don’t yet know what role – if any – Benefits and Work will have if the white paper poses a serious threat to disability benefits. We’re hoping that disability charities will show real determination and leadership in their opposition to any proposed cuts and that we will be irrelevant.