Written evidence from anonymised CLP0005

Firstly, I love that you think everyone has reasonable and fair access to a computer or phone line who would like to give this evidence, and is comfortable with business English. Please do account for how this will bias your evidence, and feedback to the teams who address access to democracy for the whole British public.

In reference to whether these payments have been helpful as a whole, at the income level where they are most helpful, you are taking about the difference of doing a shift or two and using this to pay for a bill for which you may be cut off. This isn’t dignified help and it’s not useful in the long term. The uncertainty of receipt dates made this like a “windfall” payment. One found not plan that it would happen, the PIP and energy money can in a variety of ways, and this does not assist financial planning in budgets where the amount given makes a substantial difference.

It was woefully evident that those responsible for the project outcomes had never been on a budget where this amount mattered, without recourse to safety netting.

I cannot comment on the economic benefits of the US system, but at least this was done quickly, without minutiae around qualifying rules, and was done when it mattered. The problem of a human with low to no resources needing resources immediately is best fixed by offering assistance quickly and definitively, instead of waiting and thinking and debating who is most deserving.

The effect of this dithering amount meant a lot of us used these payments to pay late fees and interest. Congratulations – you just paid the financial industry whilst giving false hope to the poor.

Schemes such as this were simply more evidence during the handling of the SARS-CoV-19 pandemic that the government does not, as a body of people, care if people with disabilities live or die. The evidence of this has been building for years, and it is becoming more and more clear that you see us as numbers to contain, not people to grow.

Personally, I have moved from being on the brink of qualifying with a professional degree, to become in 5-10 years a higher rate taxpayer, to someone who is struggling to eat, wash, and work enough hours to even get to a place where I may complete my qualification. You’ve spent £0.25 million on my education, but because the government presumably has some sort of KPI metric around disability, I am now miles away from returning to complete and, for your benefit, become a productive member of the economy.

The government’s desperation to wish away disability is neither realistic, nor an intelligent way to make our experience and skills matter. The government’s offer to us for help with the cost of living was inadequate but unsurprising.

I will freely admit I cost the government more now due to the impact of economy’s policy on my health, than I did beforehand. I have lost two final offers for good salaries which could have allowed me to privately fund care, because the government couldn’t keep the currency stable that week.

The answer to your questions are complex because the cost of living was impacted the people to whom this payment was most useful in a completely different way to the upper classes in our country. All of these issues knit together, and one one thread is torn, it has the capacity to tear apart the whole garment. I know I am costing wider society more, because I am more unwell, because I didn’t do well out of the pandemic or the support packages. This will affect my credit and purchasing capacity for 5-10 years. With the additional stresses mentioned, this has the capability to rule me out of ever accruing meaningful capital.

I would continue but frankly the issue often makes me too cross to concentrate. I do hope you meet the aims of your committee.

April 2023