Benefits and Work are reporting that the "linking rules" for disabled people, which provides some security for those who take up employment but are unsure what the impact may be on their health/impairment, are being stopped:
Linking rules which allow incapacity benefit (IB) claimants to return to their previous rate of benefits if they try work and have to stop again on health grounds are to be scrapped from 31 January.
From that date onwards any former IB claimant who stops work will no longer be able to take advantage of the 104 week linking rules and will, instead, have to make a fresh claim for employment and support allowance. They will be eligible only for the assessment rate for the first 13 weeks of their claim, a lower amount than they would have been entitled to if they had been covered by the linking rules, as they were promised they would be at the time they started work.
This information came via this blog post from Social Worker To-Be (itself via a tweet from ).
More on this when I have it.
Un-bloody-believable!
Yet again, the Tory government are targeting the disabled.
I refuse to use the term coalition government. It's a Tory one. The LibDems have lost all credibility.