National Liberal Democrat News - East Riding Liberal Democrats

Baroness Thomas: 'Disabled people are having their independence snatched away'

Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Thomas writes that new DWP disability assessments might well deprive people of their independence and increase, not decrease, the unemployment rate for the disabled. How has this most unfair situation come about? The Government abolished the old Disability Living Allowance for new disabled claimants a few years ago by gradually bringing in Personal Independence Payments and a new assessment process to make the test "fairer". The old test was largely a paper-based system, whereas the test for PIP is carried out by a "healthcare professional", with points being scored according to a formula agreed by Parliament.

by Baroness Thomas

6 Feb 2016

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Fracking

To all who have been e mailing the Liberal Democrats about Fracking,

6 Feb 2016

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Who's saying what on EU-UK discussion

The "proposed UK-EU settlement" will be published, so we can all read it, then it will be debated by governments on 18-19 February. (BBC website report)

6 Feb 2016

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Helen Korfanty, Lib Dem candidate for Suffolk Police & Crime Commissioner

Suffolk Liberal Democrats select Helen Korfanty as PCC candidate

Helen Korfanty has been selected as the Liberal Democrat candidate for the upcoming election of the next Suffolk Police & Crime...

6 Feb 2016

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DON'T ABOLISH ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCE

Why is this important? A single paragraph in the Local Government Finance Settlement published before Christmas sounded the death knell for attendance allowance (AA).

6 Feb 2016

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If even the DWP isn’t Disability Confident, how will a million disabled people get jobs? – Bernadette Meaden

Nobody would expect a person who suffers blackouts to drive a bus or bin waggon once they had thought through the potentially devastating consequences. But political, cultural, psychological and financial coercion is being used to force people sick and disabled people to work - the government continues to cut welfare, which was calculated originally to cover only the costs of meeting basic needs. Cruel sanctions and strict, inflexible, often unreasonable behavioural conditions are being imposed on lifeline benefit receipt, adversely affecting some of our poorest and most vulnerable citizens; unemployed and disabled people are stigmatised in the media - all of this is done with an utterly callous disregard of a person's capacity to work, and importantly, the availabilty of appropriate and suitable employment opportunities, and this can have tragic consequences.

6 Feb 2016

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