This is the email that I have just sent to my MP ahead of the Welfare Reform Bill activity in parliament this week.
Dear Mr Luff,
I am writing to you once again about the welfare reform bill, which as I am sure you know will return to the commons on Wednesday.
I have received your previous letter dated 11th January 2012 and I am sorry to say I feel that your response was inadequate. In that letter you assured me that the the changes to DLA are the result of one of the biggest consultation ever carried out by the Department of Work and Pensions; however I must inform you that the report which I sent to you and asked you to read proved without a doubt that the government had not only ignored the results of that consultation, but had completely lied about the results in order to claim support where there was none.
You may be aware of a protest that took place at Oxford Circus in London this Saturday just passed. I was one of the people involved in that protest and as a result I have been interviewed by LBC, The Guardian, The Times, The Sunday Times, and many more. I was interviewed live as the top story on BBC London Radio news. I can safely say that there is a lot of interest in our objections to this bill and that the people affected do NOT trust either Iain Duncan Smith or your government. If you care to look I have included links to many of the news stories on my own blog, a link to which is at the end of this email.
I have many objections to the Welfare Reform Bill. By the government’s own admission, the change to PIP will remove support from a great many people. The cumulative effects of this change, and other proposed changes, will be to leave people dependent on more expensive and more acute services. In the end this will cost the government far more than is saved, and will lead to people moving out of communities and back into care homes and institutions.
There are a great many other things wrong with the Bill but what is even more concerning is that way that the government has lied - and I use that strong word quite deliberately - and misled the public to promote their position. They have ridden on the back of scrounger rhetoric from the tabloids, rhetoric which Anne Begg of the Work and Pensions select committee said was being fueled by careless press releases from the DWP. I would go further and suggest that the DWP and the ministers involved are deliberately providing incomplete and out-of-context information to provoke these headlines such as “75% are faking” and other similar attacks.
In short, I do not trust the government, I believe the welfare reform bill to be an irresponsible, mean, penny-pinching and harmful piece of legislation that was drafted without thought or care for the evidence of its impact. I urge you to pause this legislation and review its impact, or at the very least, do not overturn some of the meagre efforts that the Lords have made to mitigate some of its worse effects.
Yours Sincerely,
Steven Sumpter.
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