Welfare reforms
The Statement includes £4.8bn worth of welfare cuts, aimed at getting people into work, detailing changes announced by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions last week. These are worrying changes, likely to negatively impact many brain injury survivors.
The Statement’s own equality analysis estimates that a staggering 96% of families who will financially lose out from the reforms have someone with a disability in the household.
Furthermore, the Department for Work and Pensions’ own estimates indicate that the changes to make it harder to qualify for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) will result in 150,000 missing out on receiving Carer’s Allowance or the Universal Credit Carer Element.
Headway’s Chief Executive Luke Griggs issued a response to the cuts last week, which can be read here.
Following the Spring Statement Luke Griggs further commented:
“When announcing these cuts, the Chancellor referenced living in an uncertain world, but there is a lot of certainty too. I'm certain that investing in community-based rehabilitation, including vocational rehab, can help people living with disabilities to return to work or education.
“I'm certain that short-term cost cutting is less effective than investing in long-term solutions.
“I'm certain that more charities will fall, more people with disabilities will suffer, and the cost to the public purse will rise as a result. And I'm certain I'm saddened by all of it.”
In addition to changes announced last week, the Spring Statement included the unexpected change that the Universal Credit health element rate will be frozen for new claimants. This means future brain injury survivors who go on to claim Universal Credit will not receive the same level of financial support.
NHS changes
The Chancellor also followed up on the government’s plans to abolish NHS England (with its operations to fall under the control of the Department for Health and Social Care). She said that money saved from that will go directly into improving the experience of patients using the NHS.
Ahead of the Statement, Luke Griggs wrote to the Chancellor, making the case to support the Headway network and Budget for Brain Injury.
The Chancellor’s Spring Statement included no new measures to support brain injury survivors directly.
What is Headway doing in response?
Headway is writing to the Work and Pensions Secretary about the worrying impact of the cuts. We will also be responding to the consultation on the changes, which runs until Wednesday 25 June.
We have also raised both our concerns about the cuts and the need for investment in community-based reablement services in meetings with MPs in recent weeks.
