Wednesday 24 July 2013

Work and Pensions Committee inquiry into Housing "reforms"

If your fingers are not worn to nubs writing letters to MPs, taking part in consultations and generally letting me know how welfare reform is affecting you, then here's another good cause for your keyboard.

The cross party Work and Pensions Committee are holding an enquiry into how all of the housing changes introduced as part of this government's welfare "reforms" are affecting people.

Many of you have written to me with heartbreaking stories or farcical stories. PLEASE consider submitting them to this review. It's an independent, non-partisan committee and if we don't tell people how we're affected by these changes, how will they ever know?

It's so easy to say "Oh, what's the point? Nothing will change, they won't listen" but at some point they WILL listen, things WILL change and we will say that we never gave up. Please take just a few more minutes to send in your views.

http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/work-and-pensions-committee/inquiries/parliament-2010/housing-costs/

3 comments:

  1. Will do sue but we shouldn't have to run the welfare reform bill that should be the job of the government
    the way i see it is that we the sick and disabled know everything about welfare and the government knows nothing

    it's a pity were not running the country in getting the jobs done that need doing in a fair and square way and making people happy along the way


    Homeless woman with learning difficulties, Asperger syndrome forced to live in tent
    .http://www.redditchadvertiser.co.uk/news/10565649.Homeless_woman_with_learning_difficulties__Asperger_syndrome_forced_to_live_in_tent/?ref=mr

    need i say more

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    1. Hmm, i know this isn't a nice question and i mean absolutely no disrespect to anyone, but let's imagine poor Lee Rigby had survived the attack that killed him, but he had some disability or mental disorder as a result of being run over and hacked at by knife-wielding maniacs. What are the chances of the government treating him as a special case and saying, it's ok Lee, you don't have to work, here are lots of benefits. Do you see what i'm getting at? Lee Rigby was a wonderful, brilliant person, who died in a terrible terrible way that cannot be repeated again in this or any other country, and Lee Rigby is a national hero, but had he survived and been disabled, the government wouldn't have cared two jots about him. What a sick political joke we are suffering these days, you couldn't make it up.

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  2. I just copied some statements from the website 'ConDem Nation'. These are just some of the issues that are discussed...... Under the Tories homelessness has shot up 31%. The Universal Benefit Payment is forcing families to move into squalid housing, typically defined as the lowest 33% of houses by rental value in an area. Given that 46% of private rental homes are deemed sub-standard, this is cruel. The Tories spent a year demonising benefit claimants with their “curtain pulling” stigma, even though £66bn goes unclaimed every Parliament in benefits. The numbers of homes built under the Tories are at levels lower than any time since the Second World War. The number of working households now relying on Housing Benefit to make their rent payments has doubled. In each of the 2 years of Tory Rule, private rents have grown by more than 4%. At least 570,000 more households (1.2 million people) were forced into fuel poverty in a single day. The number of families on housing waiting lists is now at a record high, after Grant Shapps failed to solve the lack of affordable housing supply. Private landlords are recouping a record amount of £42bn a year from tenants, yet the Tories only answer was to cap housing benefit, instead of capping private rents. A Bedroom Tax on families with wounded soldiers, disabled or elderly who require extra space for their treatment is callous. It is not hard to see that the Con-Dem Coalition is wrong.

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