I only have 28 friends and family on Facebook.
I’m a quiet, reserved person most of the time, I have a disabled wife with idiopathic intracranial hypertension and chronic pain syndrome and I have been her carer since 2011.
But due to fighting to prove my wife can’t work, which ended in going to tribunal in June 2015, I have only been my wife’s official carer since then.
We have recently had Personal Independence Payment daily living allowance and carer’s allowance stopped because the Department for Work and Pensions took two points away.
Now we have to go to tribunal for the second time in two years.
The DWP did not fight my wife’s award in June 2015 which gave my wife eight points and entitled her to PIP daily living allowance until June 2018.
But, even though we sent a copy of the tribunal award to the DWP when my wife had a recent PIP medical, the DWP ignored the tribunal’s award to June 2018 and stopped daily living allowance and carer’s allowance on October 9, with no warning.
The DWP also turned down our mandatory review and insisted on withdrawing those two points, even though my wife’s medical condition is worse now than in 2015.
Now my point is this, I only have 28 friends on Facebook, so you can see I move in very small circles, and yet I am aware of three people, friends and my wife, who have all had their PIP stopped and are promised austerity this Christmas from our lovely Tory Party. All three of us wait for our tribunals to come up, and struggle to survive in the meantime. This is actually the second Christmas we have had our benefits stopped.
So, I not only ask how Tories sleep at night, but I ask just how large a scale this stopping PIP for genuinely disabled people is, if I only have 28 friends on Facebook and three of my friends who where on PIP have been taken off at the same time and are all appealing at the same time.
People should be aware that if I only have 28 friends on Facebook and I can account for three people who have had their PIP stopped at the same time, just what message is the Government trying to send the genuinely disabled members of the community?
It is sickening. Three families who just lost PIP at the same time will now struggle.
So, Tories, give yourselves a pat on the back for such a great achievement – targeting the disabled. Enjoy your Christmas dinners and sleep well is my message to you.
Steve Grey
Hill Park, Kellaton