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Stef Benstead

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Let justice roll like a river, righteousness like a never-ending stream

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    • Dec 11, 2019
    • 4 min

    PIP: locking chronically ill people out of disabled benefits

    PIP isn’t supposed to be about diagnoses. But even with my diagnoses, I have major difficulties getting benefits assessors from a range...
    • Dec 11, 2019
    • 5 min

    Learning to live with chronic illness without independence

    Recently I failed a PIP appeal. I get standard rate mobility - which at one point the Tribunal were minded to take away - but was...
    • Dec 11, 2019
    • 4 min

    PIP: maintaining poverty, removing choice

    The point of extra-costs disability benefits is to meet some of the costs experienced by people with disability, in order to raise them...
    • Jan 17, 2019
    • 4 min

    How is PIP expenditure high, when disabled people are struggling?

    The Office for Budget Responsibility has recently reported that spending on PIP, the Tory’s new extra-costs disability, was 20% higher...
    • Nov 12, 2018
    • 6 min

    PIP appeal – overprepared fraud?

    I had a PIP appeal today. I’ve been waiting for it for ten months. I don’t think it went well. There are some points in my favour: the...
    • Feb 27, 2017
    • 4 min

    Governments have no right to be ignorant

    The government still doesn’t know what its talking about. But this time it’s almost seven years on from when it gained power, and its...
    • Dec 12, 2015
    • 9 min

    The government’s rationale for PIP shows it doesn’t understand disability

    On Thursday the government released its response to the consultation on Personal Independence Payments (PIP), the successor to Disability...
    • Aug 23, 2013
    • 4 min

    The importance of medical evidence for disability assessments

    When it’s their word against yours, medical evidence is what proves you’re not the one lying. Medical evidence is what says that you are...
    • Aug 17, 2013
    • 4 min

    Conservatives have ignored their history on disability benefit reform

    A new disability benefit should reflect the policy intent that the important factor is not the medical condition but the effect that it...
    • Jun 15, 2013
    • 4 min

    Mobility scooters aren’t an adequate replacement for legs

    A couple of weeks back I wrote about a recent experience using trains as a disabled person. As one reader pointed out, part of my problem...
    • Jun 6, 2013
    • 4 min

    The government doesn’t understand disability

    On Monday the government started the roll-out of its new disability benefit, Personal Independence Payments. According to the government,...
    • Mar 29, 2013
    • 3 min

    Disabled man is not a fraud

    Yesterday, the Daily Mail ran the astounding story that a disabled man qualified for the benefits he received.  Their surprise was great...