Briefing: Welfare Reform Bill 2011 – Report stage

Mothers and grandmothers writing to the Lords have made a difference to their discussion about the Welfare Reform Bill. We have just sent a new letter to them (below), highlighting some key points for the debate which is continuing this week and then after the holidays, from 11 January 2012. If you would like to write to them about your personal situation and how the Bill will affect you or your loved ones, that would be invaluable. Below our letter, is a list of emails: members of the Lords dealing with the Bill (some are in the government), some who are putting amendments, and others who are Crossbench (no political party), Labour or Liberal Democrat, and more likely to vote for amendments.

If you do write, please send us a copy. For more info and to see the personal letters other women have written, go to http://globalwomenstrike.net/content/mums-letters-lords

Kim

Single Mothers’ Self-Defence

 Briefing

Welfare Reform Bill 2011 – Report stage

By Legal Action for Women, Single Mothers’ Self-Defence and

WinVisible (women with visible and invisible disabilities)

Tel: 020 7482 2496 Replies to: win@winvisible.org

Dear Members of the Lords,

Women are coming to us very distressed about the Welfare Reform Bill and how it will affect them. They are terrified by total insecurity -- from the cuts to housing benefit and the benefit cap, to impossible jobseeking, work and childcare conditions, under the threat of sanctions applied to unwaged and low earner alike.

They fear their benefits will be cut off and they and their families will be forced into unbearably overcrowded homes, or they will be made homeless, destitute and even end up on the street.

Women, who have the first responsibility for families and are often keeping an eye on elderly neighbours and other vulnerable people in our communities, are already exhausted and overworked. They feel desperate. Living costs are soaring and they can’t afford to put the heating on. Food banks have become a reality for many women who have recently lost their jobs. Vital local services are disappearing – afterschool clubs, homecare, day centres – at the same time as they will be forced away from loved ones by compulsory back-to-work schemes, and the housing benefit and overall benefit caps.

The Bill will have life-threatening consequences, many more than hit the headlines. Regardless of what amendments are lodged for Report stage, we ask you to:

Defend mothers, other carers and those we care for. Oppose the abolition of Income Support, forcing mothers to “prepare for work” as soon as the child is one, and into jobseeking as soon as s/he turns five (clause 57).
Income Support is the only benefit which recognises that mothers (and other carers) are not unemployed. A new mum and teaching assistant says: “I have a colleague who commutes to work in a Camden school from outside London . She leaves home every day at 5.30am and gets home at 7 or 7.30, by which time her three-year old is in bed. So she only sees her at weekends and is paying £12,000 a year to someone else to look after her. This is no life for a mum or child. I want to be able to raise my daughter myself, not farm her out and never see her."

Keep Child Benefit out of the benefit cap – mothers earn it, children need it! (Clause 94, Bishop of Ripon and Leeds ). Child Benefit must remain universal – just like the NHS and free education. It should not be paid according to income, but in recognition of mothers’ contribution to society, and society’s responsibility for children and their carers. “Well-off” mothers earn it too – we all deserve the security of money we can call our own to support our children, including when the father is violent or uncaring.

Oppose the benefit cap. Already, as housing benefit doesn’t cover all housing costs, many of us go without food or heating to make sure the rent is paid so we don’t end up on the street. Extortionate rents by greedy landlords greatly inflate the housing benefit bill. Cap the landlords, not us! Families of colour forced to move to white areas have been under siege in their own home from horrendous racist attacks, including against children.

Oppose increased prostitution and criminalisation. It is ironic that the Bill makes a moral point of banning Jobcentres from advertising sex industry jobs (clause 139), while its cuts will force more and more women and girls into the sex industry. Everyone knows that poverty drives women into prostitution – for many it’s the only way to support our children, pay for education or even a hot meal. How many more will be criminalised and imprisoned as a result of going into prostitution because their benefits were cut?

Oppose abolition of the Social Fund and thereby oppose domestic violence. The Fund is a lifeline to women and children fleeing domestic violence, ill and disabled people leaving hospital including those with mental illness, and newly-released prisoners, enabling them to set up a new home. People increasingly rely on this fund in emergencies. The government is shedding responsibility for vulnerable people, passing it to local councils with no legal duty to help and no ring-fenced funds. How many more women and children will fall prey to sexual and other violence from partners, fathers or step-fathers they cannot leave because they are dependent on them for food or shelter? How many ex-prisoners will be driven back to prison because they have no housing and no income to live on?

Uphold entitlement to disability and carers’ benefits. Sick and disabled people, and carers, need financial and housing security to survive. Cruelty to cancer patients is happening now – those on chemotherapy have to prove they are too ill to work. Recently, we heard of one woman with cancer found fit for work by the notorious company Atos, when she was due to start chemotherapy the following week. Just before Christmas, women in the Support Group of Employment and Support Allowance are being called in for examination. Fears for the future are making mothers of disabled children sick with worry; this is having a terrible impact on the children. Women with mental health problems and degenerative disabilities are panicking and near-suicidal. Psychiatrists and other professionals warned about this in May: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/may/31/consequences-benefit-changes-mental-health

Oppose the abolition of Disability Living Allowance which will deprive an estimated 700,000 disabled people of benefit, including who use the money to manage in waged work. The concession allowing people in residential homes to claim the mobility component, does not change this.

We support Lord Ramsbotham’s amendment for benefit payments to prisoners (after clause 99). Baroness Corston criticised the increasing imprisonment of mothers and other women, mainly for crimes of poverty. It is inhuman that mothers and others coming out of prison won’t be allowed time with family to re-establish relationships, but will have to start “back to work” schemes immediately as a condition of benefit.

We support the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust anti-poverty amendments. See http://z2k.org/

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