UK, Open Letter, Re: Cold weather payments and other support for chronically ill and disabled claimants.

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PERMISSION TO FORWARD, RE POST AND USE IN NEWSLETTERS

This is an open letter to my MP, Dr Berry, Re: Cold weather payments

and other support for chronically ill and disabled claimants.

I hope that it will be forwarded and re-posted as widely as possible in

order to encourage individuals and groups representing people with M.E. to

write to their MPs with a similar message.

You can find your MP here http://www.writetothem.com/ and, due to the bad

weather, I would suggest e-mail. It is usually the format

surnameinitial@... but you can also write: Name and

constituency of MP, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA

If anyone needs any further help in composing a letter or making contact

with their MP, let me know and I'll try to help.

---------- Forwarded message ----------

Date: 2010/1/10

Subject: Re: Cold weather payments and other support for chronically ill and

disabled claimants

To: berryr@...

Dear ,

I am motivated to write to you, during this exceptionally bad weather, to

request that you ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the Rt

Hon. Yvette , to ensure that people in receipt of ALL state benefits,

as a matter of emergency, receive cold weather payments.

One question leads to another: Will you ask the Right Honourable Lady, who

is said to have had M.E. (*Myalgic Encephalomyelitis*) herself and should,

therefore, understand the problems of immobility, being housebound or

bedridden, why it should be that people claiming Income Support, who are

sufficiently fit and able to be seeking work, should be entitled to cold

weather payments and free prescriptions etc., when they are less likely to

need them, while those claimants of disability benefits, such as Incapacity

Benefit, who are unable to work and more likely to require them and

sometimes have to go without because they can't afford the fee, nor even the

discounted " season ticket " , are not automatically given them?

And another: Will she suspend all medical tests for the new Employment and

Support Allowance (ESA), which are causing great hardship, reliance on

charity, debt and consequent despair amongst people erroneously found to be

fit for work, using the Draconian work Capability Assessment test, which is

clearly invalid and unreliable until, at least, the next election and,

further, consider retaining Incapacity Benefit, or some alternative benefit,

which recognises that there are people who are willing but not able to work

and who need appropriate support?

In anticipation of there being a question of affordability, may I suggest

that Government, rather than robbing to pay , thinks of

transferring some extra revenue from those who are warm, healthy, well

nourished and comfortable to those who are not. It is an old idea, which I

do not claim as my own but it is one that I commend.

Yours sincerely

drjohngreensmith@...

Dr H Greensmith

ME Free For All. org