Petition update
Join me this Thursday to act against #benefitsanctions
Mar 17, 2015 — Britain’s biggest union, Unite, will demonstrate outside the Department for Work and Pensions throughout the country during a day of action against the industrial scale of benefit sanctions and the cruelty it imposes on the vulnerable.
http://www.unitetheunion.org/growing-our-union/communitymembership/day-of-action-against-sanctions/day-of-action-against-sanctions---contact/
I will be attending in London and bringing with me a picture of David, and would dearly love others to join me or provide me their stories to be represented.
I will be handing in the petition at the DWP in SW1 calling on the Prime Minister to investigate the widespread use of benefits sanctions.
If you wish for your story to be known please contact me direct at gill.a4u@outlook.com
As things stand money can be cut for arriving late at a Job Centre, missing an appointment to go to a funeral, or even failing to apply for a job – while waiting to start a new job.
Minister Nick Boles stated there should be a rethink on benefit sanctions, then later retracted and the Prime Minister's official spokesman indicated there would be no review of the sanctions system.
The government still seem to feel that Benefit sanctions are effective and all support was there for the vulnerable, quoting statistics and percentages.
This is not a numbers game, these are real people and should be treat with dignity. All those stories out there must heard.
Commenting Liane Groves, Unite Community National Organiser, said:
“This government has lost all sense of proportion on benefit sanctions, treating claimants worse than common criminals fined in the courts. Decisions on guilt are made in secret with the claimant not even allowed to be present to explain their case.
Far from helping people back into work sanctions undermine physical and mental health. They cause hardship, damage relationships, create homelessness and drive people to food banks, payday lenders, and to crime”
Punitive sanctions have resulted in over 2m people having their welfare payments cut or stopped without warning over the past two years, leading to increased poverty, misery and even death.
I want to know how ministers who claim everything is done to support the vulnerable can justify actions that leave people destitute, driving them to food banks, and leading to starvation and death.
All three Select Committee Inquiries have now been held the report is expected to be delivered this month before deciding what to do next to stop these draconian measures.
Do we want to live in a society where the vulnerable are victimised – I certainly do not.
Again I thank you for your kind support and we must never give up in memory of those who have died and those still suffering.
Many thanks
Gill
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