RUGBY ANTI-CUTS PROTESTERS JOIN CAMPAIGN AGAINST WELFARE REFORM BILL

 Last Friday, members of Rugby Against the Cuts joined campaigners from across Warwickshire to protest against the Welfare Reform Bill which is going through Parliament this very week.  “This Bill is trying to make the poor and disabled pay for an economic crisis they did not cause,” Rugby Against the Cuts spokesperson Pete McLaren claimed today.  “A number of us from Rugby, including members of the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition (TUSC) and the Green Party, joined the protest outside the Constituency Office of Leamington MP Chris White.  It is his Government which is pushing through these attacks on the Welfare State,” he continued, “and protest organisers ‘Disabled People Against Cuts’ targeted Leamington because it is a Tory marginal.”

“In the event, Chris White cancelled the planned surgery, so we gave in a long letter detailing the adverse effects of the Welfare Bill, including:

• Introduction of Universal Credit which will bring compulsory workfare and caps on housing benefit and other payments, leading to increased poverty and homelessness.
• Moving people from Incapacity Benefit to Employment Support Allowance through punitive and unfair compulsory work capability assessments which are carried out by Atos, a ‘private for-profit’ company who are declaring that those who need 24-hour support, and those with terminal cancer, are ‘fit for work’ in order to meet government targets and reduce disabled peoples’ income drastically
• The introduction of a much stricter sanctions regime with the loss of benefits for up to 3 years, a risk particularly to people with learning disabilities or mental health needs who find it difficult to cope with the demands of looking for work at the same time as having little prospect of finding any.
• Replace Disability Living Allowance (DLA) with Personal Independence Payments (PIPs) with the explicit aim of cutting entitlement by 20%.”

 “The Welfare Reform Bill that Chris White and other Tory and Lib Dem MPs support has suffered a number of defeats in the House of Lords recently as people begin to realize just how draconian these cuts will be.  Whilst these cuts are being forced onto the poorest and most vulnerable, the richest people, whose banking friends helped cause the economic crisis, are actually seeing their wealth rise,” he concluded.

NOTES

§  Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) can be contacted at www.dpac.uk.net/

• Rugby Against the Cuts was set up by local trade unionists and political activists on September 22^nd.  Officers were elected as above
• Rugby Against the Cuts meets on the second Thursday of every month, 7.30pm, at the Three Horse Shoes, Rugby
• Rugby Against the Cuts can be contacted on 07881 520626, at rugbyagainstthecuts@googlemail.com, or through our web site at http://rugbyagainstthecuts.blogspot.com