23/12/2013

Draft letter to MPs - Option 2

Dear …..

I am writing as your constituent to ask you to represent my views in Parliament.

I signed and supported a government e-petition, the WOW petition, which passed the 100,000 signature mark, and on the 10th December 2013 was granted a full chamber debate by the Back Bench Business Committee in the New Year. This in itself is a historic event as it is the first time in the history of this country that disabled people have secured a Main Chamber debate.

The petition calls for a cumulative impact assessment of welfare reform as it affects sick and disabled people and carers, and an end to the Work Capability Assessment, as demanded by the British Medical Association.

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Please add a personal message here to illustrate how this Government's Policies are either directly affecting you, your family, people you know or society and why you believe the Government should properly debate their policies, the effect they are having and the hardship they are causing to specifically targeted groups with UK society. 


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I know you are very busy, but please allow me to present some evidence to support the need for these measures.

The Welfare Reform Act 2012 was promoted as the biggest shake up in welfare for 60 years, so it was extraordinary that no assessment was carried out on how it would affect the most vulnerable people in society. I believe the government now needs to take stock, and face the fact that sick and disabled people have been caused great distress and hardship by measure such as the bedroom tax, the twenty per cent cut in the budget for Disability Living Allowance, the closure of the Independent Living Fund to new applicants, and many more measures. The think tank Demos has calculated that disabled people, already more likely to be living in poverty, will lose around £28 billion over five years. This hardly seems to be sharing the burden of austerity fairly.

As for the Work Capability Assessments, these have been a disaster. The British Medical Association last year called for them to be scrapped with immediate effect. Parkinson’s UK’s research found that almost half of people with a progressive illness, when assessed, are told they will get better and placed in the Work Related Activity Group. This means they are required to prepare for work, and if they are unable to do what is required of them can be sanctioned leaving them with no income. Please remember these are people with Parkinsons Disease and other progressive illnesses.

As my representative in Parliament I am requesting that you attend and speak at this debate so that your constituents and I can understand your views on Government Policy towards sick and disabled people.

22/12/2013

Analysis of the WOWpetition for MP's prior to WOWdebate2014

Dear _____________

As a constituent of yours I noted that at the Backbench Business Committee meeting of the 10th December 2013 e-petition 43154, The WOWpetition, was granted a Chamber debate in the House of Commons in the New Year 2014. This was in fact a historic decision, as it is the first time in the history of this country that disabled people have secured a Chamber debate.
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Please add a personal message here to illustrate how this Government's Policies are either directly affecting you, your family, people you know or society and why you believe the Government should properly debate their policies, the effect they are having and the hardship they are causing to specifically targeted groups with UK society. 


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As your constituent I ask you to attend this debate in the House of Commons in 2014 so that your constituents and I can understand your views as to whether austerity is being fairly imposed on all elements of society, as we have been told that "we are all in this together". Please confirm with me that you will be attending this debate, when its timing is announced, in the New Year.

The Leader of the House, Andrew Lansley MP is aware of the WOWpetition referring to it as "That Petition" in the House on the 5th December in response to a question. If you are not yet aware of this petition it is outlined in depth, to give you the information you need to consider the issues, by the following sections and is still available to read on the e-petitions website (e-petition 43154). 


The WOWpetition calls for

1.     A Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) of all cuts and changes affecting sick & disabled people, their families and carers, and a free vote on repeal of the Welfare Reform Act.

The response received from the DWP upon the WOWpetition reaching 10,000 signatures, stated that the Government had not done a Cumulative Impact Assessment of the effects of the Welfare Reform Bill 2012 because “it is very difficult to do accurately and external organisations have not produced this either.” However, since posting this response, 2 external agencies, “DEMOS” and the “Centre for Welfare Reform” have separately produced relevant CIA’s.
DEMOS’s analysis showed a cumulative loss of income for disabled people of £28.3 billion over the 5 years to 2018. Referring to this analysis, Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope said: “At the moment there’s no place for disabled people in the Chancellor’s aspiration nation. In 2013 disabled people are already struggling to pay the bills. Living costs are spiralling. Income is flat-lining. We know many are getting in debt, just to pay for essentials. What’s the Government’s response?  The same group of disabled people face not just one or two cuts to their support, but in some cases three, four, five or even six cuts. It paints a frightening picture of the financial struggles affecting disabled people in 2013. On top of this the Government is suggesting capping the welfare bill in the June spending review – having already slashed billions.”
Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform, on behalf of the Campaign for a Fair Society, produced analysis that suggested the cuts to benefits and services fell disproportionately on minority groups. The extreme unfairness of this policy is demonstrated if we compare the burden of cuts born annually by most citizens (£467 per person) to the burden on people in poverty (£2,195: 5 x rest of population), the burden on disabled people (£4,410: 9 x rest of population) and the Burden on people with severest disabilities (£8,832: 19 x rest of population).
We believe that the Government either needs to demonstrate that the CIA’s produced are not accurate and produce its own CIA or explain why the austerity measures have been targeted at people, who WOWpetition believe, the Government thought would not fight back.

2.     An immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment, as voted for by the British Medical Association. Consultation between the Depts of Health & Education to improve support into work for sick & disabled people, and an end to forced work under threat of sanctions for people on disability benefits.

The Work Capability Assessment judges the Capability for work or work related activity of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants. We believe the current test is totally discredited, with the Prime Minister saying in October 2013 that its provider, Atos, had "to improve the quality of decision-making" in the face of sustained criticism of both the efficacy and effectiveness of what, WOWpetition believe, is not a tool meant to enable disabled people and help them to achieve what they feel capable of but instead a blunt instrument to reduce the social security bill. We do not believe it is right that in the 21st Century an experimental process has been imposed on sick and disabled people with in some cases fatal consequences. Over 10,000 people have died within 6 weeks of being compelled to submit to what has been described as a “dehumanizing, brutal and aggressive quasi-medical assessment”.
WOWpetition believes that any method for assessing the financial support given, and the life opportunities presented to sick and disabled people needs to be based upon 3 questions: “What do you want to do?” “What stops you from doing that?” “What adjustments can be made to enable you?” Any process that seeks to enable disabled people and give them equality of opportunity, needs to address not just the “supply side” issues of “what can you do” but also needs to address “demand side” prejudices and ensure society provides the opportunities to people facing significant barriers to mainstream employment opportunities, in a fair way that gives people with impairments equality of opportunity. Additionally, any individual trying to enhance their experience should not be penalised/ restricted, as they already face difficulty with employment.
More than anything, WOWpetition wants a system based upon trust. The evidence clearly shows that at approximately 0.7%, Benefit fraud is non-systemic and the overwhelming feeling of grassroots Disabled Peoples Organisation’s, expressed at a summit organised by WOWpetition in London on the 25th October 2013, was that sick and disabled people are sick of being treated as guilty until proven innocent and that the system needs to embody trust, not persecution.
Irrespective of their ability to work, sick & disabled people should be able to rely upon financial support from society that would allow them to experience a good standard of living.

3.     An Independent, Committee-Based Inquiry into Welfare Reform, covering but not limited to: (1) Care home admission rises, Daycare Centre’s, access to education for people with learning difficulties, universal mental health treatments, Remploy closures; (2) DWP media links, the ATOS contract, IT implementation of Universal Credit; (3) Human rights abuses against disabled people, excess claimant deaths & the disregard of medical evidence in decision making by ATOS, DWP & the Tribunal Service.

WOWpetition cannot understand how in the Worlds 6th richest country (by GDP – IMF 2012) the situation can have been allowed to occur where, despite the UK ratifying the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, what is arguably “retrogressive legislation” has been introduced, without being effectively challenged pre-implementation.
At its AGM on April 14 2013, Amnesty International UK passed a resolution on the Human Rights of sick and disabled people in the UK. The resolution (A5) read:
“This AGM calls for urgent action to halt the abrogation of the human rights of sick and disabled people by the ruling Coalition government and its associated corporate contractors.”
It is WOWpetition’s belief that The WRA 2012 was “rushed” through Parliament with the House of Commons using the procedural tool of “financial privilege” to curtail debate and over-turn the amendments tabled by the House of Lords. We believe The House of Lords had taken very relevant advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with the effect that the Human Rights and Equality issues pertinent to the WRA 2012 have been largely ignored. Some overlooked amendments have since been the subject of successful legal challenges, and the Minister for Disabled People has been criticized in open court for failing to consider the effect her policies have on equality of opportunity.
WOWpetition call for the UK to comply with the spirit of its Treaty Obligations and, in line with “Article 4 – General Obligations” of the UNCRPD, strive to achieve full realization of the rights so included in that document without prejudice. As an example of what we would argue is the non-compliance of the UK with this Treaty, we are dismayed that an apparent working definition of “Equality of Opportunity” appears to be, that employers may choose to favour a disabled candidate over a non-disabled candidate. This, we believe, is not what was intended by “Article 3 – General Principles” of the UNCRPD.
In order for lessons to be learnt and safeguards put in place to ensure persons with disabilities are never again to face what we believe is a coordinated onslaught on our human rights and right to life, we call for an independent Committee based enquiry into Welfare Reform.
Most worrying are the comments attributed to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson on Nov 28th 2013, in which he says “It is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16% of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2% have an IQ above 130.”
Is a person’s worth or right of equality to be linked to his measured IQ? Is economic potential the accepted measure of somebody’s value and equality? This comment is not acceptable.

Conclusion

WOWpetition suggests that sick and disabled people are the target of a sustained attack on their human rights and standard of living as it is believed they will not fight back. We agree with Richard Hawkes of Scope who said “At the moment there’s no place for disabled people in the Chancellor’s aspiration nation.” WOWpetition seeks a society where disabled people (through birth, trauma or illness) are given true equality of opportunity and valued appropriately, based upon their intrinsic humanity.
On the 10th July 2013 an Opposition Day Debate on “Disabled people” called for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of the changes made by Government that affect disabled people. We argue that the debate called for by the WOWpetition is significantly different to this debate, based on:
·         Following this debate, The Centre for Welfare Reform has also done what is “very difficult to do accurately” and produced a Cumulative Impact Assessments.  This, and the Demos one previously done, demonstrate how this government’s austerity measures have been unfairly targeted at sick and disabled people. The House needs to debate why disabled people are seen as easy targets by this government or the DWP needs to challenge the findings.
·         It is widely reported that both the new Universal Credit Payment (UC) and the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are in trouble. WOWpetition believe the UK government should take the time to carefully consider the effect the transition to these potentially flawed procedures would have on sick and disabled people and if it is prepared to inflict more excess deaths on these communities.
·         The DWP publication “Fulfilling Potential – The Next Steps” is put forward by Esther McVey MP as a remedy for the exclusion and barriers to society facing disabled people. WOWPetition believes this document is flawed and based upon Esther McVey’s inability to distinguish between the Social Model of Disability and the Bio-psychosocial Model of Disability which, we believe, she seems to think are the same thing. How to enable disabled people to fulfill their potential should be debated in conjunction with relevant meaningful published statistics to identify how best to deliver meaningful Equality of Opportunity to sick and disabled people. How long do we have to wait until sick and disabled are given meaningful Equality of Opportunity, which is a requirement under “Article 3 – The General Principles” of the “UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities“.

WOWpetition therefore asks all MP's that no matter their political position they demonstrate that they are prepared to engage and debate the issue affecting Sick and Disabled People by attending the Main Chamber debate of the WOWpetition in the New Year.

10/12/2013

#WOWDebate2014 moves a step closer


Stand up and fight for the society we want to live in

Stand up and fight for the society we want to live in- WOW Petition by Just Bring The Choc  @RenataBplus3 

An excerpt:


You see, despite the government’s reassurances that they are protecting the most vulnerable in society with the current welfare cuts, it’s simply not the case.

No one is immune to illness or accidents. At some point our body is going to stop working as efficiently, or we’ll accidentally break ourselves. As things stand the government are planning to make cuts to services that disabled people rely on to maintain independent lives, without ever having assessed the cumulative impact of these cuts to the people concerned. One example of this is a fund called the Independent Living Fund (ILF) that ensures that severely disabled people can live independent lives in the community rather than being forced to be moved into residential care. The government tried to take this away fund completely. 5 disabled people challenged the decision in the Court of Appeals and the decision was over-turned on the basis that the government had not taken into consideration duties outlined in the Equality Act. This victory meant that those who are currently receiving ILF will continue to receive it, but as the government has slammed the doors shut on anyone else being able to apply for it, it leaves severely disabled adults vulnerable to local council’s decisions about how best to allocate their resources, and to resulting cuts.

These are not benefit fraudsters, they’re not work shy, they’re just human and disability happened to them, in the same way it could happen to you, or your parents, or your siblings or your children. This is something that the whole of Britain should be up in arms about, but most people don’t even know it’s going on as they are being told so many times that it’s the benefit fraudsters who are being punished by the cuts and people genuinely in need are being protected. That’s about as honest as an MP’s expenses claim form I’m afraid, but it’s a rhetoric that means people can sleep comfortably at night so most people choose to accept it.

- See more at: http://www.justbringthechocolate.com/advocacy/stand-and-fight-wow-petition/

05/12/2013

We Need to Get Cross Party Support - but its a steep learning curve!!!

Rather than bask in the glow of getting 100,000 signatures the workload seems to have trebled!!

All WOW hands are on deck at the moment trying to find ways to encourage cross-party support for a debate of the WOWpetition in the Main Chamber of the House of Commons. The reason this is important is that a debate in the Main Chamber has more status than the alternative of a debate at Westminster Hall and importantly if there is to be a vote on the WOWpetition that can only happen if the debate is in the Main Chamber.

We are trying to use the Change website to encourage people to approach their MP's directly and this is the message put out to the people that have signed the Change Petition so far:

House of Commons Back Bench Business Committee: Allocate a Full Main Chamber Debate to the WOWpetition (e-petition 43154)' on Change.org

Firstly, Thank You for signing this petition and calling for the WOWpetition to be granted a full debate in the Main Chamber of the House of Commons. As I am sure you have also publicised this petition and asked friends and family to sign it as well, I would also like to Thank You for that! I hope that you have also already signed the 

www.WOWpetition.com

but if you haven't please do so now, or at any time right up to it closing on the 12th December 2013. 

Having already done this for us, I would now be grateful if you would consider contacting your own MP directly and asking them to support John McDonnell MP/ Ian Mearns MP/ Ian Lavery MP/ Caroline Lucas MP and many more in their efforts to secure a full debate in the Main Chamber at the House of Commons of the very important issues highlighted by the WOWpetition.com, which WOW, and many others, believe deserve to be properly debated and voted upon. You can do this quickly and easily either: by e-mail using 

https://www.writetothem.com/ 

which allows you to send them a personal message by e-mail; 

or a more personal approach facilitated by 

http://findyourmp.parliament.uk/ 

where you can often find information of your MP's office addresses, phone numbers and Constituency Surgeries (via their websites) enabling you to: ring their office and talk to the MP's staff about this; arrange to attend a constituency surgery (if time permits) to present your request in person; or write down the address so that you can send a letter to your MP. Whilst it is very desirable and some "SPAM" filters have even made it compulsory to write using your own words, WOWpetition have produced a Template which you could use to base your own personal letters upon (but please personalise it as much as you are able to): 

http://wowpetition.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/example-letter-to-mp-for-main-chamber.html. 

However, due to the British Postal System it is imperative that any letter is in the post by first thing tomorrow (Friday 6th December 2013). There is also very helpful information on this website on how you can contact your MP and make your voice heard. 

http://philiplewis.wordpress.com/2013/12/04/if-you-have-signed-the-wowpetition-contact-your-mp-now/

Remember, you are not necessarily asking your MP to support the WOWpetition but instead requesting that they support a full main chamber debate of the important issues raised by the WOWpetition, as WOWpetition deserves that!

Thank you again, 

Onwards and Upwards, 


The WOWpetition

04/12/2013

Example Letter To MP For Main Chamber WOW Debate

Please write a paper letter and send to your MP, only email if you already have a good relationship with them and they habitually read and reply to your emails.

Best of all use this and the briefing note of the previous post and visit your MP in person and ask that they support a DEBATE in the MAIN CHAMBER.

They do not have to agree with WOW, what you are asking them is to agree to a democratic debate, on the record, of mortally serious issues of government policy that directly affect YOU, which is a basic democratic right.

Please do so as soon as you are able, this is TIME CRITICAL.


Dear …..

I am writing as a constituent to ask you to represent my views in Parliament.

I signed and supported a government e-petition, the WOW petition, which recently passed the 100,000 signature mark, meaning that it can be considered for a debate in Parliament. I would like you in the interests of democracy to do whatever you can to make this debate happen in the Main Chamber, and allow the voices of sick and disabled people and carers to be heard.

The petition calls for a cumulative impact assessment of welfare reform as it affects sick and disabled people and carers, and an end to the Work Capability Assessment, as demanded by the British Medical Association.

I know you are very busy, but please allow me to present some evidence to support the need for these measures.

The Welfare Reform Act 2012 was promoted as the biggest shake up in welfare for 60 years, so it was extraordinary that no assessment was carried out on how it would affect the most vulnerable people in society. I believe the government now needs to take stock, and face the fact that sick and disabled people have been caused great distress and hardship by measure such as the bedroom tax, the twenty per cent cut in the budget for Disability Living Allowance, the closure of the Independent Living Fund to new applicants, and many more measures. The think tank Demos has calculated that disabled people, already more likely to be living in poverty, will lose around £28 billion over five years. This hardly seems to be sharing the burden of austerity fairly.

As for the Work Capability Assessments, these have been a disaster. The British Medical Association last year called for them to be scrapped with immediate effect. Parkinson’s UK’s research found that almost half of people with a progressive illness, when assessed, are told they will get better and placed in the Work Related Activity Group. This means they are required to prepare for work, and if they are unable to do what is required of them can be sanctioned leaving them with no income. Please remember these are people with Parkinsons Disease and other progressive illnesses.

I believe that the least Parliament can do is to debate these issues in the Main Chamber, and would be very grateful if you, as my MP would ensure that this debate takes place. Please notify John McDonnell MP's office of your support as soon as possible so he may inform the Backbench Business Committee that the debate has wide cross party support.


With best wishes for Christmas and the New Year,
  

03/12/2013

WOWpetition - Contact your MP - We need your help.

Tuesday, 3 December 2013


Today at the House of Commons Backbench Business Committee John McDonnell MP, Ian Mearns MP and Ian Lavery MP secured a backbench business committee debate of the WOWpetition.

Huzzah

The issue is that the debate may either be held in Westminster Hall or the Main Chamber of Parliament and the key factor in this decision is the amount of cross party support that the WOWpetition receives.

Therefore, WOW needs you. (if you need to identify who your MP is and how to contact him use http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ ?)


Please contact your MP by e-mail, letter or phone before next Tuesday and ask him to support a Main Chamber debate on the important issues contained in the WOWpetition (e-petition 43154).

You are not asking your MP to support the WOWpetition but instead asking him to recognise that the important issues it addresses are deserving of a full debate in the Main Chamber.

We have secured a Backbench Business Committee debate of the WOWpetition. Lets make sure it is a full debate in the Main Chamber.

If you wish to contact your MP and discuss the WOWpetition in his surgery we have prepared a briefing document you can base your discussion around. Please do not copy and paste this in it's entirety into an e-mail to your MP as it is likely to be intercepted by the spam filters and disappear into the Ethernet. It is best to either print it off and use it as the basis for a face to face discussion with him or use it to harvest ideas for your own individual message to your MP.

======================================================================

WOWpetition Briefing on the Need for a Backbench Business Committee Debate of e-petition 43154.


On Saturday 30th November 2013 Government e-petition 43154, also known as the WOWpetition, was signed for the 100,000 time and qualifies to be considered for a debate by the Back Bench Business Committee. John McDonnell MP has agreed to make representations to the Backbench Business Committee in support of a debate of the WOWpetition.

The WOWpetition calls for

1.     A Cumulative Impact Assessment (CIA) of all cuts and changes affecting sick & disabled people, their families and carers, and a free vote on repeal of the Welfare Reform Act.

The response received from the DWP upon the WOWpetition reaching 10,000 signatures, stated that the Government had not done a Cumulative Impact Assessment of the effects of the Welfare Reform Bill 2012 because “it is very difficult to do accurately and external organisations have not produced this either.” However, since posting this response, 2 external agencies, “DEMOS” and the “Centre for Welfare Reform” have separately produced relevant CIA’s.
DEMOS’s analysis showed a cumulative loss of income for disabled people of £28.3 billion over the 5 years to 2018. Referring to this analysis, Richard Hawkes, Chief Executive of disability charity Scope said: “At the moment there’s no place for disabled people in the Chancellor’s aspiration nation. In 2013 disabled people are already struggling to pay the bills. Living costs are spiralling. Income is flat-lining. We know many are getting in debt, just to pay for essentials. What’s the Government’s response?  The same group of disabled people face not just one or two cuts to their support, but in some cases three, four, five or even six cuts. It paints a frightening picture of the financial struggles affecting disabled people in 2013. On top of this the Government is suggesting capping the welfare bill in the June spending review – having already slashed billions.”
Dr Simon Duffy of the Centre for Welfare Reform, on behalf of the Campaign for a Fair Society, produced analysis that suggested the cuts to benefits and services fell disproportionately on minority groups. The extreme unfairness of this policy is demonstrated if we compare the burden of cuts born annually by most citizens (£467 per person) to the burden on people in poverty (£2,195: 5 x rest of population), the burden on disabled people (£4,410: 9 x rest of population) and the Burden on people with severest disabilities (£8,832: 19 x rest of population).
We believe that the Government either needs to demonstrate that the CIA’s produced are not accurate and produce its own CIA or explain why the austerity measures have been targeted at people, who WOWpetition believe, the Government thought would not fight back.

2.     An immediate end to the Work Capability Assessment, as voted for by the British Medical Association. Consultation between the Depts of Health & Education to improve support into work for sick & disabled people, and an end to forced work under threat of sanctions for people on disability benefits.

The Work Capability Assessment judges the Capability for work or work related activity of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) claimants. We believe the current test is totally discredited, with the Prime Minister saying in October 2013 that its provider, Atos, had "to improve the quality of decision-making" in the face of sustained criticism of both the efficacy and effectiveness of what, WOWpetition believe, is not a tool meant to enable disabled people and help them to achieve what they feel capable of but instead a blunt instrument to reduce the social security bill. We do not believe it is right that in the 21st Century an experimental process has been imposed on sick and disabled people with in some cases fatal consequences. Over 10,000 people have died within 6 weeks of being compelled to submit to what has been described as a “dehumanizing, brutal and aggressive quasi-medical assessment”.
WOWpetition believes that any method for assessing the financial support given, and the life opportunities presented to sick and disabled people needs to be based upon 3 questions: “What do you want to do?” “What stops you from doing that?” “What adjustments can be made to enable you?” Any process that seeks to enable disabled people and give them equality of opportunity, needs to address not just the “supply side” issues of “what can you do” but also needs to address “demand side” prejudices and ensure society provides the opportunities to people facing significant barriers to mainstream employment opportunities, in a fair way that gives people with impairments equality of opportunity. Additionally, any individual trying to enhance their experience should not be penalised/ restricted, as they already face difficulty with employment.
More than anything, WOWpetition wants a system based upon trust. The evidence clearly shows that at approximately 0.7%, Benefit fraud is non-systemic and the overwhelming feeling of grassroots Disabled Peoples Organisation’s, expressed at a summit organised by WOWpetition in London on the 25th October 2013, was that sick and disabled people are sick of being treated as guilty until proven innocent and that the system needs to embody trust, not persecution.
Irrespective of their ability to work, sick & disabled people should be able to rely upon financial support from society that would allow them to experience a good standard of living.

3.     An Independent, Committee-Based Inquiry into Welfare Reform, covering but not limited to: (1) Care home admission rises, Daycare Centre’s, access to education for people with learning difficulties, universal mental health treatments, Remploy closures; (2) DWP media links, the ATOS contract, IT implementation of Universal Credit; (3) Human rights abuses against disabled people, excess claimant deaths & the disregard of medical evidence in decision making by ATOS, DWP & the Tribunal Service.

WOWpetition cannot understand how in the Worlds 6th richest country (by GDP – IMF 2012) the situation can have been allowed to occur where, despite the UK ratifying the UN Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2009, what is arguably “retrogressive legislation” has been introduced, without being effectively challenged pre-implementation.
At its AGM on April 14 2013, Amnesty International UK passed a resolution on the Human Rights of sick and disabled people in the UK. The resolution (A5) read:
“This AGM calls for urgent action to halt the abrogation of the human rights of sick and disabled people by the ruling Coalition government and its associated corporate contractors.”
It is WOWpetition’s belief that The WRA 2012 was “rushed” through Parliament with the House of Commons using the procedural tool of “financial privilege” to curtail debate and over-turn the amendments tabled by the House of Lords. We believe The House of Lords had taken very relevant advice from the Equality and Human Rights Commission, with the effect that the Human Rights and Equality issues pertinent to the WRA 2012 have been largely ignored. Some overlooked amendments have since been the subject of successful legal challenges, and the Minister for Disabled People has been criticized in open court for failing to consider the effect her policies have on equality of opportunity.
WOWpetition call for the UK to comply with the spirit of its Treaty Obligations and, in line with “Article 4 – General Obligations” of the UNCRPD, strive to achieve full realization of the rights so included in that document without prejudice. As an example of what we would argue is the non-compliance of the UK with this Treaty, we are dismayed that an apparent working definition of “Equality of Opportunity” appears to be, that employers may choose to favour a disabled candidate over a non-disabled candidate. This, we believe, is not what was intended by “Article 3 – General Principles” of the UNCRPD.
 In order for lessons to be learnt and safeguards put in place to ensure persons with disabilities are never again to face what we believe is a coordinated onslaught on our human rights and right to life, we call for an independent Committee based enquiry into Welfare Reform.
Most worrying are the comments attributed to the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson on Nov 28th 2013, in which he says “It is surely relevant to a conversation about equality that as many as 16% of our species have an IQ below 85, while about 2% have an IQ above 130.”
Is a person’s worth or right of equality to be linked to his measured IQ? Is economic potential the accepted measure of somebody’s value and equality? This comment is not acceptable.

Conclusion

WOWpetition suggests that sick and disabled people are the target of a sustained attack on their human rights and standard of living as it is believed they will not fight back. We agree with Richard Hawkes of Scope who said “At the moment there’s no place for disabled people in the Chancellor’s aspiration nation.” WOWpetition seeks a society where disabled people (through birth, trauma or illness) are given true equality of opportunity and valued appropriately, based upon their intrinsic humanity.
On the 10th July 2013 an Opposition Day Debate on “Disabled people” called for a Cumulative Impact Assessment of the changes made by Government that affect disabled people. We argue that the debate called for by the WOWpetition is significantly different to this debate, based on:
·         Following this debate, two independent organisations have done what is “very difficult to do accurately” and produced Cumulative Impact Assessments.  These demonstrate how this government’s austerity measures have unfairly targeted sick and disabled people. The House needs to debate why disabled people are seen as easy targets by this government or the DWP needs to challenge the findings.
·         It is widely reported that both the new Universal Credit Payment (UC) and the Personal Independence Payments (PIP) are in trouble. WOWpetition believe the UK government should take the time to carefully consider the effect the transition to these potentially flawed procedures would have on sick and disabled people and if it is prepared to inflict more excess deaths on these communities.
·         Paul Maynard MP, who referred to WOWpetition as “extremists” using the protection of Parliamentary Privilege, made reference in this Opposition Day Debate to the DWP publication “Fulfilling Potential – The Next Steps” and implied it was a remedy for the exclusion and barriers to society facing disabled people. WOWPetition believes this document is flawed and based upon Esther McVey’s inability to distinguish between the Social Model of Disability and the Bio-psychosocial Model of Disability which, we believe, she seems to think are the same thing. This document should be debated in conjunction with relevant meaningful published statistics to identify whether it really is a tool in leading to meaningful Equality of Opportunity for sick and disabled people and how long it is to be before sick and disabled are given this meaningful Equality of Opportunity, defined appropriately. This is a requirement under “Article 3 – The General Principles” of the “UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities“.
As outlined earlier, WOWpetition calls for much more than a Cumulative Impact Assessment and to refuse a debate dismisses and trivializes the other very real concerns of the Sick and Disabled Community.

WOWpetition therefore ask you to support a Main Hall Backbench Business Committee debate of the important issues contained in their e-petition 43154 and engage with our plea for a New Deal for Sick and Disabled People based upon their needs, abilities and ambitions.