“We are not the party of people on benefits. We don’t
want to be seen, and we’re not, the party to represent those who are
out of work. Labour are a party of working people, formed
for and by working people.”
Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Rachel Reeves,
quoted in The Guardian on March 17th 2015
On 11
October 2013 I sent a letter - and a copy of Severe Discomfort, my novel about a disabled couple unjustly accused of benefit fraud - to the newly appointed Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions...
Dear Ms Reeves,
Dear Ms Reeves,
Congratulations on your appointment to the Shadow Cabinet.
I’m sure you are already inundated with learned papers on Social Security policy, but I fear that claimants’ voices might struggle to be heard in all the economic and ideological arguments. I am therefore sending you something looking at the issues from a different perspective, which I hope you will find a good read. Both ‘Lyn’ and ‘Hilary’ would have high hopes from the appointment of a woman to the role of shadow Work and Pensions Secretary!
I
really hope you will be able to change the whole tone of the debate around
‘Welfare Reform’ and take the shame out of claiming Social Security. In my long experience, there are very few
‘skivers’ out there, just ‘strivers’ who have fallen ill, been made redundant
or taken on the hardest work of all - that of being a carer. Workers claiming benefits are not to blame
for rates of pay too low to support their families and rents unaffordable on
the minimum wage, and those without work did not ‘choose’ to live in a
recession. Making people work for
benefits will destroy real jobs and make employment a punishment.
But I am sure this Government concentrates its barbed rhetoric on the unemployed to distract attention from the fact that many more claimants, and those hardest hit by their cuts, are actually sick and disabled people. What could be crueler than telling someone they are ‘fit for work’ when no job exists that they are well enough to do? And for all the talk that Universal Credit will ‘make work pay’, disabled workers are often less well-supported by it than under the present Tax Credit system.
In fact, there are so many flaws with the plans for Universal Credit that to explain them all, I would probably need to write another book to explain them!
I wish you well.
But I am sure this Government concentrates its barbed rhetoric on the unemployed to distract attention from the fact that many more claimants, and those hardest hit by their cuts, are actually sick and disabled people. What could be crueler than telling someone they are ‘fit for work’ when no job exists that they are well enough to do? And for all the talk that Universal Credit will ‘make work pay’, disabled workers are often less well-supported by it than under the present Tax Credit system.
In fact, there are so many flaws with the plans for Universal Credit that to explain them all, I would probably need to write another book to explain them!
I wish you well.
I received no acknowledgment - not even a compliments slip from an intern - and I guess she never found time to read the book...
