Changes to disability benefits have making headlines recently. RNIB's UK Parliamentary Manager, Matt Davies, provides an update.
Welfare Benefits Uprating Bill
Reducing the rate of increase for most benefits from inflation to one per cent for the next three years means a real-terms cut to the income of those surviving on benefits. While the Government promised to protect disabled people from this cut, the reality is that many blind and partially sighted people are still facing a reduction in their benefits.
While some specific disability benefits, like Disability Living Allowance (DLA), are exempted from the change and will continue to rise by inflation, the same is not true for Employment and Support Allowance (ESA). For ESA, those in the Support Group will see a small part of their benefit protected, but not the majority of the payment. And those in the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG) will not get any protection. Added to this, disabled people are disproportionately more likely to be living in poverty and claiming other benefits, such as housing benefits, so they will be hit by changes to other benefits.
Personal Independence Payment
Blind and partially sighted people have been campaigning about the new benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which will replace DLA for those of working age. December and January brought great news for RNIB - we were successful in getting the Government to rethink their approach to PIP for blind and partially sighted people.
What else is coming up in Parliament
Of course, there are other issues expected to be big news in Westminster over the coming year which will have a big impact on blind and partially sighted people. There is already draft legislation on reforming provision for children and young people with special educational needs, which is likely to start its passage through Parliament soon.
The Government has been carrying out a review of the Communications Act, which will turn into a piece of legislation either this year or next and could contain provision for improved audio description for blind and partially sighted people. And, last but certainly not least, social care continues to be a difficult issue for all parties in Parliament and we can expect the upcoming legislation on social care to be a hot topic for the foreseeable future.
Article published in NB magazine March 2013.