THE most injured sufferer of London’s 7/7 bombings faces dropping his job and residential – after his entry to work help was minimize.
Towards all the percentages Dan Biddle, who misplaced each legs, his left eye and spleen within the suicide explosion at Edgware Highway Station in 2005, has been in a position to go to work.
Getty Photos – GettyEmergency service staff at Edgware Highway Station after a suicide bomber detonated on a London Underground practice in 2005[/caption]
However he can solely run his enterprise which helps firms entice, make use of, retain and progress disabled candidates, as a result of he was receiving 40 hours every week help via a mixture of bodily and psychological well being help from the federal government grant, Entry to Work.
For the final 4 years the Division of Work and Pensions has allowed Dan to make use of his devoted spouse, Gem, to do 40 hours every week as his help employee, because of the reality she is aware of all of the debilitating triggers that come type Advanced PTSD.
She helps Dan, who’s wheelchair certain, attend to appointments, handle the signs of C-PTSD and handle the every day points that come up from having such server bodily and psychological well being subject and most vital is there when he suffers the consequences of complicated PTSD brought on by the bombing that just about claimed his life 20 years in the past placing him in hospital for almost 12 months.
However this 12 months civil servants have minimize his Entry to Work by greater than half – to simply 13 hours every week – that means the couple have misplaced three quarters of their family earnings consequently.
And Dan reveals he’s not the one disabled employee to face swingeing cuts.
A marketing campaign, backed by Britain’s Obtained Expertise winner Misplaced Voice Man who additionally receives Entry to Work funds to assist along with his comedy profession, is combating to reverse the cuts.
And MPs are offended {that a} 7/7 sufferer who needs to work is being hit.
Tory MP Joe Robertson says: “Our nation has simply remembered the tragic occasions of seven/7 with its 20-year anniversary. Now we study that the Labour authorities are reducing help for these residing with the devastating accidents and don’t have the time to fulfill with the victims.
“Labour misplaced management of their welfare spending after they misplaced the battle towards their backbenchers final month. Everyone knows that spiralling welfare prices want to come back down, however this can’t be off the backs of people that genuinely want help.”
London bombings sufferer Dan, 46, from South Wales, advised The Solar: “Due to my bodily incapacity I need assistance with carrying stuff and getting out and in of buildings.
“I want some help with driving and the crux of it’s the emotional help I get because of the triggers that set off my PTSD which happen a number of occasions a day a depart me feeling distressed and extremely anxious”
“I just about work seven days every week as a result of it’s the one factor that I can attempt to use to attempt to maintain the psychological well being somewhat bit below management.
“However I can solely do this with the help I get from Gem, a serious a part of her position round working my enterprise helps handle the influence that 7/7 has had on my psychological well being. I endure from the impacts of the trauma of the day 24 hours a day, seven days every week, so Gem’s enter is essential to permit me to work.
“The disabilities minister principally admitted that the price of incapacity profit is spiralling uncontrolled. However that is nearly like a witch hunt.
“I’ve bought to have my declare reassessed. That may take anyplace as much as 100 days. So, I’m going to lose my enterprise. I’m going to be out of full-time work.
“With out my Entry to Work, I might be made homeless.
I just about work seven days every week as a result of it’s the one factor that I can attempt to use to attempt to maintain the psychological well being somewhat bit below management
Dan Biddle
“So now I’m going to be a much bigger drain on society as a result of I’m going to want advantages and housing. I’m going to want all these various things.”
On the night time that Dan learnt that his ATW hours had been slashed an ambulance needed to be referred to as as a result of he thought he was having a coronary heart assault.
He says: “I had pains in my chest, numbness in my arm, two huge incisional hernias that caught out. It was the stress of all of it.”
Dan is offended that his advantages to assist him work are being minimize whereas the Authorities is spending over £5 million a day on housing and taking care of unlawful migrants.
He says: “The nation is spending all this cash on migrants who don’t contribute to society.
“Whereas disabled individuals who face numerous challenges however who’re making an attempt to point out what may be achieved are having their skill to work taken away.
The nation is spending all this cash on migrants who don’t contribute to society.
Dan Biddle
“When tales like this break, it furthers the anger in regards to the migrant state of affairs.
“Since you see all that cash being ploughed into the lodges and the telephones and the meals and all of the issues like that.
“After which the federal government goes ‘oh, we’re going to chop again on Entry to Work, we’re going to chop again on the incapacity profit.
“But we’re funding individuals who arrive illegally, come right here with nothing and get all the things.
“And people which are making an attempt to construct a life and construct a enterprise and work, they’re getting all of it stripped again.
“They’re going to pressure folks out of labor, which is completely counterintuitive to what the Labour authorities mentioned they have been going to do.
I want some help with driving and the crux of it’s the emotional help I get because of the triggers that set off my PTSD which happen a number of occasions a day a depart me feeling distressed and extremely anxious
“What profit is society going to get from all these folks simply sitting at dwelling doing nothing?”
Virtually 62,000 folks within the UK obtained Entry to Work help final 12 months.
Earlier this 12 months disabilities minister Sir Stephen Timms hinted that large modifications have been coming to AtW.
In accordance with marketing campaign group the Entry to Work Collective when funds which have been made for years now come up for renewal they’re being handled as new purposes and are being minimize.
Comic Lee Ridley, who as Misplaced Voice Man gained Britain’s Obtained Expertise in 2018, suffers from cerebral palsy and can’t communicate.
He receives Entry to Work however, as but. his funds aren’t below menace.
Disabled individuals who face numerous challenges however who’re making an attempt to point out what may be achieved are having their skill to work taken away
Dan Biddle
Lee says: “What’s occurring to folks like Dan Biddle is totally disgraceful.
“Dan is doing precisely what we’re all the time advised we should always do – he’s contributing to society, working a enterprise, serving to different disabled folks get into work.
“And the federal government’s response is to slash his funding so severely that he may lose his enterprise and his dwelling.
“On prime of this, the federal government retains making an attempt to justify cuts to PIP by saying that Entry to Work is there to get folks into employment.
“It’s full nonsense! Each techniques are failing badly. You may’t minimize one important help system and level to a different damaged system as the answer.
“It isn’t our fault that we want a bit more cash than non-disabled folks to outlive and work.
Dan is doing precisely what we’re all the time advised we should always do – he’s contributing to society, working a enterprise, serving to different disabled folks get into work
Lee Ridley
“I’m not going to get higher magically simply because my advantages or ATW help have been minimize. None of us are.
“The federal government has a duty right here. They’ll’t simply champion our successes and ignore us once we need assistance. Now isn’t the time to chop advantages and help and put lives in danger.
“If something, folks like Dan show that disabled folks can contribute an terrible lot to society – however solely once we’re given the correct help to take action. Take that help away, and also you lose all the things.”
Dan has lodged an enchantment towards his minimize and even earlier than his renewal was due he requested to fulfill Liz Kendall, Work and Pensions Secretary however obtained a ‘condescending letter’ again.
He says: “Below a Tory authorities, I met many of the Division of Work and Pensions ministers from Ian Duncan Smith onwards. They usually made the time to speak to me, to hearken to me, to debate what was happening.
“However to be advised by Liz Kendall that she’s unavailable as a result of diary commitments, I discover that disgraceful.”