Hard Times: Claimant Concerns and Iain Duncan Smith

Our community reporter Spring Heeled Jack has written a series of short articles which we will share over the next few weeks.

Here is the latestĀ installment of Hard Times.


Claimants Concerns

The Scottish Parliament frequently debated and discussed the Welfare Reform Act of parliament, looking at the impact of the Westminster benefit cuts introduced and the effects on some of the weakest and vulnerable people in society.

A cross party Welfare committee met regularly at Holyrood to assess the problems that had arisen.

Many disabled organisations made both written and personal submissions to the cross party welfare committee over several years since the 2012 Welfare Reform Act was in place.

Individual submissions were also made by countless disabled and vulnerable people with these comments filmed for media reports and they were noted for future reference and assessment.

It should be noted that many disabled and others had already contacted their Member of the Scottish parliament (MSP) due to being in great distress at losing benefits whilst remaining seriously ill.

All of this information was made available to the cross party committee who have continued to date to accept written and personal submissions due to the ongoing welfare cuts.

Iain Duncan Smith

The DWP government minister is responsible for every decision made in his ministerial department.

Duncan Smith was in place as DWP minister for six years until he resigned in the middle of March 2016 following a dispute about further welfare cuts.

It should be mentioned that during his time as minister of the DWP for six years, that Iain Duncan Smith was given 11 separate opportunities to come to the Scottish Parliament cross party Welfare committee to explain the impact of current welfare reforms and benefit cuts.

However, Duncan Smith declined to attend on each occasion, which led to the then cross party Chairman Michael McMahon to comment on his disappointment about the matter and his wilful non-attendance.

Mr McMahon also mentioned to the other committee members and the media that the DWP minister had shown disrespect to the committee and to the Scottish Parliament by failing to attend and explain himself.


Article submitted by Spring Heeled Jack.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and not the Digital Sentinel.

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