We want Support, not Sanctions (Click here to tell your MP if you agree) The report into Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) that I’ve spent much of the last year producing has been released today. It reveals one more piece of the jigsaw of attacks on the dignity and livelihoods of disabled people under this Government (the scrapping of Disability Living Allowance, the closure of the Independent Living Fund, the notorious Work Capability Assessment and the equally infamous ‘Bedroom Tax’ being others). I have looked at the experience of sick and disabled people like myself, subjected to an aspect of ESA policy that promised to empower us, lift us out of poverty and include us in society. That is, the creation of the Work Related Activity Group (WRAG), which sends us on back-to-work schemes as a condition of receiving sickness benefit (or ESA). Just 5% of us in the WRAG on the main scheme – the Work Programme - have moved into work since 2011. I wrote this report to
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