Friday 30 April 2010

UK Election 2010 - Welfare Issues

With the last leadership debate over and just a week to go before the country goes to the polls what do the three main party's manifestos have to say on welfare issues that concern the blind and visually impaired?

An Action for Blind People blog post by Kevin Nuttall, "What do you want? - A fist, a truncheon or a nightmare?", details how Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats address State Retirement Pension, Winter Fuel Payments, Tax Credits and getting people off benefits and back into work. Click here to read the post.

In brief it says:

State Retirement Pensions:
  • Labour and Conservatives - re-link State Pension to earnings.
  • Lib Dems - re-link State Pension to earnings.

Winter Fuel Payments:
  • Labour - will ‘continue’ Wpayments.
  • Conservatives - will "protect" payments.
  • Lib Dems - will extend them to severely disabled people.

Tax Credits:
  • Labour - increase the Child Tax Credit and lower maximum working hours to qualify Working Tax Credit from 30 to 16 hours for people aged 60 or over.
  • Conservatives - will stop paying tax credits to families with incomes over £50,000 per year.
  • Lib Dems - will fix payments of tax credits for six months at a time and target payments to "those who need them most".

Getting people off benefits and back into work:
  • Labour - more jobs, supported work and training.
    £40 per week "Better-off in Work" guarantee.
  • Convervatives - "Work Programme" to those on benefits
  • Lib Dems - no mention in manifesto
Visit the Action for Blind People site for full details and opinion.


For a comprehensive view of your rights as a disabled voter the RNIB have put together a guide for all blind and visually impaired voters, cclick here to visit their pages.  Disability need not be a barrier to your democratic right.


Manifestos:
You can view the full manifestos online by clicking the links below.

Labour manifesto
Conservative manifesto
Liberal Democrat manifesto

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