'Universal Credit' vs Shared Humanity

(Blog editor's note: I had hoped to use image from

https://www.google.com/search?q=monty+python+images+cartoon&client=firefox-b-d&sxsrf=ALeKk03m1sRSVSf5c2RGYsSktQQweaFQcA:1604485804151&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=j_aAUkR25RqvyM%252CNJFoqwtJ-XavBM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kTlvMYIPkpalIaRLfwl2DdU-AMmWQ&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjx8Jyz1-jsAhUTHcAKHfcOA_IQ9QF6BAgKECs#imgrc=j_aAUkR25RqvyM

here with caption: "Universal Credit: quasi- or virtual police state," but Blogger is not allowing me to do so. Sorry.)

A Universal Credit claimant has written me in response to the below and yet-to-be-published-in-print letter to Hereford Times:

Subject: Thousands will see five big changes to Universal Credit in November - check now - Birmingham Live

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/big-changes-universal-credit-november-19196317 

In reference to the last letter you posted it should be noted that this month sees changes in UC payments that will benefit those also eligible for PIP,  finally stop the punitive reductions for those who are paid weekly or fortnightly and recognises the problems in transitioning from various legacy benefits by (small) financial awards...

Although the article is just over 24 hours old it also seems that Sunak has also now agreed to extend the Covid-19 payment of an extra £90pcm as part of the revised furlough scheme.

As you are aware, as a UC claimant subject to the Benefit Cap due to my rent being fixed just under the pre-2015 LHA/HB maximum I do not receive any extra monies from the DWP at this time. 

Nor do I get any leeway... unlike other renters in my halfway house who are in receipt of legacy benefits and have had no contact or demands from the DWP since last February I am still required to undergo mandatory, sanctionable, telephone or face-to-face interviews to explain my job searches and failure to gain employment.

Quite why my mental health or wellbeing differs from those in almost identical circumstances but on older forms of benefits has yet to be explained.

Subject: Re: Talking Point by Dr Jonathan Godfrey, and MPs explain opposition to Rashford's meal plan

 

Noting a Resolution Foundation report suggesting that "unemployment among 18 to 29-year-olds could hit 17% by late 2020, and ... the mental health risks linked to lockdown and economic insecurity," Dr Jonathan Godfrey also notes:

"The proportion of adults experiencing poor mental health has increased by 80% among 18 to 29-year-olds compared with a year ago, the biggest increase of any age group." (Talking Point, Oct. 29, 2020, p68)

One 23 year-old apparently not experiencing poor mental health is Marcus Rashford (born 31 Oct. 1997), raised in a very public spirited environment for a life outside football as well as MUFC stardom. Speaking of one of his recent plaudits, Rashford said that he  "had a voice and a platform that could be used to at least ask the questions."(1)

That contrasts heavily with how Universal Credit (UC) claimants are treated. UC’s ‘Claimant Commitment’ and ‘digital by default’ infrastructure micro-manage the lives of claimants and UC functionaries.(2) That makes mutual recognition of a shared humanity extremely difficult: the Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) mindset is that the claimant’s low income and not low wages is ‘the problem’. More UC claimants are penalised in the UK and more severely than by Magistrates’ and Sheriff’s courts, with loss of benefit extending to years of what I’d call debt slavery and Law Professor Dr David Webster refers to as ‘Benefit Sanctions: Britain’s secret penal system’.(3)

Then along comes Covid-19 lockdown and greater universality of low income. Tory Government responds by increasing Universal Credit levels but not the levels of the benefits it is designed to replace.(4)

Against this backdrop and Rashford’s campaign to extend free school meals eleigibility to school holidays, Hereford & South Herefordshire MP and First Secretary to the Treasury Jesse Norman says he “has nothing but respect for Marcus Rashord, both as a footballer and as a campaigner. But it is really important to look beyond the headlines.” (Hereford Times, Oct. 29, 2020, p5)

Yes, indeed it is vital to look beyond the headlines, especially those generated by government press releases, and to consider the differences in ‘authority’ between an Old Etonian MP and a top sportsman who delivered food parcels as a youngster!

Alan Raymond Wheatley, BA Interdisciplinary Studies (Major: Sociology)

(Postal Address and telephone number submitted, too)

Note
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Rashford#Recognition
2. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&ei=5hOgX7rYGqTaxgODoqrgCQ&q=%22universal+credit%22+micro-manage&oq=%22universal+credit%22+micro-manage&gs_lcp=CgZwc3ktYWIQA1CNgwNYjYMDYKCZA2gAcAB4AIABR4gBhQGSAQEymAEAoAEBqgEHZ3dzLXdpesABAQ&sclient=psy-ab&ved=0ahUKEwi645u9heTsAhUkrXEKHQORCpwQ4dUDCAw&uact=5
3. https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/resources/benefit-sanctions-britains-secret-penal-system
4. https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/news/2020/september/dwp-response-coronavirus-inquiry-inadequate-says-work-and-pension-committee

 

 

The Observer: "Mother searches for answers a year after her daughter set herself alight in council housing office"

I flag this up now with thanks to Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty, as urgent after having missed it yesterday while I was offline.

The Observer

Public sector cuts

Emma Graham-Harrison and Maeve Shearlaw

Sun 8 Sep 2019 09.00 BST Last modified on Mon 9 Sep 2019 15.13 BST

Mother searches for answers a year after her daughter set herself alight in council housing office

"This didn't need to happen — that's the thing that hurts," said Melanie's mother.
Photo: Karen Robinson/The Observer

Grieving mother still has questions over daughter's death which followed months of anxiety over eviction threat

It is a year since Melanie Smith* walked into the housing offices of Barnet council and set herself on fire.
Yet her mother, Marie Bennett,** fears vital lessons that could protect others have not been learned. “This didn’t need to happen – that’s the thing that hurts,” Bennett said. “I don’t think anyone has taken on board that they could maybe prevent other deaths.”
Bennett is also still waiting for answers to her questions, including about Smith’s final conversation with council housing officers, after having experienced months of anxiety about being evicted from her home of two decades. “No one has told me who spoke to her that day, or what was said,” she explained....
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/sep/08/unlearned-lessons-death-of-woman-housing-mental-health-crisis

Whoever Melanie Smith spoke to in the housing office of London Borough of Barnet Council in September 2018, it would not have been "Conservative members of the House of Commons from whom the Whip has been withdrawn and Amber Rudd." Those Members of Parliament "all voted for the cruel pressures she and millions of other tenants are now suffering," argues [retired] Revd Paul Nicolson of Taxpayers Against Poverty.

"Council officials administer laws that render low income tenants powerless," observes Paul Nicolson. 

"Government policies have stripped the housing market of truly affordable housing. Housing and other benefits have been shredded. Rent arrears are inevitable and landlords merciless. 83,700 evicted families, many of them unemployed, with 124,000 children are now in temporary accommodation in England, up 74% since 2010. They are made one offer of a permanent home which they are compelled to accept, sometimes miles from their long term home.

"Some are forced into the private sector with unaffordable rents, others into property not fit for habitation.

"If they refuse that one and only offer, they are deemed intentionally homeless and the council withdraws from its duty to house them."

Regarding Paul's comment that landlords are merciless, I note that a Direct Line Landlords Insurance advert fuels landlords' loss of mercy. Targeted at landlords whose tenants' rent arrears lead to lost sleep for the landlord, the advert says, "We will pay all the unpaid rent until the tenants are out." How does that relate to Advertising Standards? What does such advertising do to tv viewers' moral norms?

I would add though, that Barnet Tory Council has been especially keen to support Barratt Homes at the expense of LB Barnet's council housing stock.

In my own 2005/06 past as a domiciliary care worker, after I struggled for over a year attempting to support vulnerable adults while

• council cuts had rendered in-service training virtually non-existent and 
• Jobcentre 'administrative errors' left me without Jobseekers Allowance top-up to declared part time earnings for months, rendering me in danger of rent arrears-related eviction

I observed that care workers were likely to be punished for their in-work negligence while 'key decision-makers' never were, and so I resigned from that work with greater determination to campaign for justice for those affected by cuts that were occurring even before 2010.

NB:
* and **: Names changed to protect family privacy