It is utterly senseless, and morally unsupportable, to impose penalties on those who have been signed off work due to mental health issues and who are still struggling to find work after 18 months (Autumn statement 2023: key points at a glance, 22 November), because this will include, self-evidently, people with long-term, severe and intractable mental health issues.
The Tories have eviscerated our mental health services and driven into unemployment tens of thousands who might otherwise have recovered more quickly. So a high proportion of people affected by this legislation will have been signed off sick in the first place thanks to a government that chose not to help them stay healthy and employed. But instead of redressing the balance in favour of the sick and vulnerable, Jeremy Hunt has doubled down: punish the sick.
I know from experience that money worries, and the sense that the state is unsympathetic if not hostile, are in themselves serious barriers to recovery from mental ill health. And both are unavoidable for anyone reliant on universal credit. Dealing with the Department for Work and Pensions is enough to drive healthy people into depression and despair; for those already struggling, it can be catastrophic. No one can have any confidence that the new policy will be administered effectively, fairly or humanely, because no DWP policies are.
One can only hope that this legislation will be robustly challenged in the Lords and the courts. And the Labour party must explicitly pledge to undo it.
Stephen Butler
Tadcaster, North Yorkshire
• Re your article (Thousands on disability benefits to lose extra £5,000 a year in autumn statement, 22 November), I wish to highlight some of the difficulties that those of us with mobility issues encounter at work. There can be significant structural barriers that need to be faced on a daily basis. In my current, newly refurbished workplace, the accessible toilets are located behind heavy inaccessible doors. If people with a disability are to be forced to look for work, employers should equally be forced to provide us with a workplace that meets our needs, not merely box-tick.
For many people, staying at home and living on benefits is the only option. Rather than wielding a metaphorical whip, surely the job of the government is to ensure that more workplaces are accessible to a wider range of people?
Name and address supplied
• “Anyone choosing to coast on the hard work of taxpayers will lose their benefits,” says the chancellor (Unemployed who ‘refuse to engage’ could lose benefits in Hunt crackdown, 16 November). He seems to be unaware that very many people claiming benefits have been paying contributions right up until they have had to make a claim. I worked from the age of 16 until my mid-50s, when a brain injury forced me to give up work as a teacher, something I was loth to do. Anyone who thinks that living on benefits is “coasting” knows nothing about the realities of living this way.
Carolyn Sutton
Glastonbury, Somerset
• So welfare claimants who “refuse” to engage with their jobcentre or take work offered to them may lose their benefits, according to the chancellor. I look forward to Nadine Dorries and Boris Johnson being made to repay the benefit of their tax-funded salaries, having refused to engage with their constituents for several months.
Debbie Cameron
Formby, Merseyside
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