UK: Save Our DLA

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I wasn't quite sure which board to put this on so if it is in wrong place can someone move it for me?

Threat to AA and DLA. Links to people who write about this stuff a lot better than I can:

- http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/disabi ... wance-(dla)/dla-aa-cuts
- http://www.benefitsandwork.co.uk/disabi ... wance-(dla)/dla-aa-cuts/dla-threat-faq
- http://lisybabe.blogspot.com/2009/08/save-our-dla.html

While I'm happy for people to get income high enough to live on if they cannot work or highly struggle with employment, I've literally no idea what I'm meant to be spending all the money I get from DLA on. I can live more comfortably than I've ever lived in my life on less than half of what I get (if income support and housing benefit is also included). As it happens, I'm saving it for paying tuition fees for university so I feel it's going to a good and fair purpose (as with sufficient mental health I would have earned those fees myself over the last year and I'm all for increased funding for postgraduates). However, if not for this I'd either leave it in a bank or feel tempted to commit benefit fraud and go travelling.

Perhaps people should be free to do what they wish with low mobility and low care funding but beyond that I feel there really should be another reason for handing it out and this should be monitored. For example, my schizophrenic brother who is on DLA has about £16,000 sitting in his room which he will never spend, yet people obviously worked so he could get that. Meanwhile, my best friend spends every penny of her DLA on alcohol, she would be far better off if she had half the money and could only get drunk twice a week, instead of literally every day.

This attitude really makes me angry. People who spend DLA money on booze should have their benefits stopped. It makes me sick. My boyfriend is unable to work and his conditions will worsen the older he gets. He has a bad back and no feeling in his right leg from when he was trampled on by a horse in his teens. He has had to have 2 operations to remove swollen discs from his lower spine and has been told he will have to have a third disc removed at some stage. He also has ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease which he suffers from so chronically, he lives off soups as everything (even the soups) is making him ill. He can't even eat lettuce, let alone drink alcohol!! He is currently having infusions if Infliximab as well as taking Azathioprine to try and inactivate his condition. He is constantly tired and weak and yet he has been refused DLA! You need to tell your friend about my boyfriend and tell her to pull her finger out of her bum and sort herself out as she is actually fortunate enough to be well enough to drink alcohol and receive benefits for the pleasure of it, whereas crippled people like my partner don't get help. I wager that the reason why DLA is possibly under threat is because this coutry has spent too much DLA on funding alcoholics drinking habits (in my eyes not a disability, but a lifestyle choice like taking drugs) when they could actually be getting help!! Go figure?

I can't believe that your partner has been turned down for DLA, did you appeal it?

Yeah, Fiz, there is certainly that possibility. But that means DLA should only be tightened up in that regard. At the moment I'm below the breadline, and claiming ESA isn't going to help me much. The only income I have coming in right now is DLA. If that were to stop, well...

Certainly there are plenty of people on DLA who shouldn't have it. But there are also plenty of people who aren't on DLA who should be; scrapping it altogether will make a bad situation much worse. And even worse is that it is in the government's interest to encourage people to want DLA scrapped and anyone on it being workshy scum!

Last edited by Sslaxx on 08 Aug 2009, 11:44 am, edited 1 time in total.

It has been appealed on several occasions and he has been refused every single time. But we will reapply for it soon again I think as his health is deteriorating quite badly. For me this is very sad as he is only 34 years old and has been this way since he was 21. He was told he would never be able to work again when he was only 24.

I completely agree, it should only be tightened up in that regard.



Again, I completely agree with this statement. A lot of the wrong people are receiving and a lot of the people that need it are not getting it.



The last thing I want is for DLA to be scrapped. I know a couple of people on it and, thankfully, these are people who need to be on it. Again, I agree that scrapping DLA will make a bad situation much worse. If you actually look at the number of genuinely sick people who are unable to work and require DLA next to those that can work and don't need DLA, it's a very small proportion. Scrapping DLA will make the lives of these people even more difficult and could actually contribute to their deaths as they will not be able to care for themselves properly, depending on the condition. I just think that, sometimes, those in authority seem to be heavily misguided as to what a disability is and who should receive DLA. For example, they seem to think alcoholism (in my eyes, a lifestyle choice i.e. self-inflicted like drug abuse) is a disability and that's a waste of money that could be going towards someone with a genuine illness e.g. schitzophrenia or crippling back problems. They are simply funding the alcohol abuse. What should happen is what happens with drug users - seek help or benefits will be stopped. But it's believed to be unethical to do this - why? It's a drug addiction and this is how drug addicts addicted to other things get treated. The only differences between alcohol and other drugs is that (obviously including nicotine in this point) it is legal (and by far the most dangerous I might add) and, to my knowledge, the only drug that you drink.