Latest Press Releases
| ROBERTSON CONCERN AT WELFARE WARNING |
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| Tuesday, 08 November 2011 00:00 |
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The withdrawal of Incapacity Benefit must be based on medical need says Moray’s MP, Angus Robertson.
The local MP’s comments have come as a report by Sheffield Hallam University warned that the UK Government’s welfare reforms would leave “countless” households facing “untold distress” as the entitlement to incapacity benefits is cut by 115,000 by 2014. Angus Robertson MP said: “ The drastic changes being imposed by the UK Government on the welfare benefits system is causing serious hardship for households in Moray and untold distress for people who are genuinely sick and unable to work. “ The withdrawal of Incapacity Benefit from individuals must be based on medical need not some arbitrary target set by Ministers in Whitehall. The Tories and Liberals seem to be saying that the number of claimants needs to be cut by 2014 by 115,000 regardless of whether 115,000 people have been wrongly assessed in their current entitlement! “ To put it into perspective people do not turn up at Dr Gray’s Hospital to be told ‘we’ve reached our quota of sick people so you can’t get treatment’, by the same measure benefits for the sick cannot have quotas applied either! “ My constituency mailbag is getting more and more cases from people in distress because they are genuinely ill and unable to work but they are having their benefit entitlement questioned and cut. “ People do not choose to be ill and while it is right to ensure that people are properly assessed for benefit entitlement, it is just wrong to put an arbitrary figure on how many people should receive it. If people are too sick to work they should we should support them if they are not they should be supported back to work. “ Return-to-work initiatives can benefit both the economy and the individual, but people should only return to the workplace when they are genuinely able and when correct support measures are available. “ The SNP back a move to a benefit regime that uses resources efficiently but provides support where it is needed. Genuinely sick or disabled individuals must not become an easy target for Conservative and Liberal cuts.” |
