GREEN PARTY

FAIR IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR

Probably six months to go to the general election and time to start talking and writing about the issues we'll be needing to highlight during the campaign.

People all too easily dismiss the Green Party as just being about the environment, so I suppose it is just pandering to the stereotype to record my delight that on Thursday night Lewes Town Council voted unanimously in support of my motion asking it to sign up to the 10:10 initiative. However our party is also very much committed to social justice and I've just put together a letter based on the Green Party's reaction to the government's Social care White paper:-

Social Care – Keep it Fair

With up to 11 million disabled people in the UK and approximately 5.2 million carers in England the government's Social Care Green Paper will clearly affect many Lewes residents.

The Green Party opposes the unfair means-testing of benefits. We support universal benefits with fair, equal and uniform access to care because investing in people's wellbeing helps keep them from deteriorating. Entitlement should be based on need, so as well as opposing means-testing we oppose care-charging. Assessment of entitlement, whether at national or local level, should not be driven by the bonus culture which often accompanies the involvement of the private companies or pseudo charities.

Disabled people should not bear the brunt of ‘difficult financial choices'. If spending cuts are necessary they should not affect services provided to older and disabled people. Care and support must be available free at the point of use. We believe that leaving the provision of services chiefly in the remit of Local Authorities increases the risk of such funding being spent in other budgetary areas when no real provision for ring-fencing is provided. Thus a national and universal system of funding is essential.

The Green Party opposes the disempowerment of disabled people by withdrawing or reallocating Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Attendance Allowance (AA), as these benefits allow disabled people to self-direct their independent living options. DLA and AA are currently easy to claim. Making AA means-tested would discourage claims and we believe the government is more interested in stigmatising claimants of means-tested benefits than in promoting benefits entitlement. The argument that the benefit is complicated to apply for should not be used to replace it with an even more complicated means tested benefit. The vast majority of disabled people and disability organisations have made clear their opposition to the removal of DLA and we support them in that. We also believe that £53 per week Carer's Allowance is inadequate - indeed, a cruel indictment of the government’s disregard for family carers.

Green proposals include:

• More resources for carers and respite care for both carers and those cared for by them. Given that Department of Health figures recognise that family-based carers save the NHS £87 bn per year UK-wide, a serious lack of consideration of the needs of family-based carers suggests a surrender of the welfare state to the market.

• A guarantee that disability benefits and financial provision for carers will not be reduced. Family-based carers can offer greater specialised knowledge and commitment to the care and support of loved ones than an army of paid care workers on cover shifts and with limited in-service training. It does seem also that the requirements of people with invisible disabilities such as mental health problems, learning disabilities and autistic spectrum conditions have been ignored. Such service-users are more sensitive to changes regarding the identity of the carer, while market-driven ideas of 'accountability' lead to excess time being devoted to bureaucracy rather than actually attending to helping vulnerable adults.

The Green Party believes that most people want a fair system of social care and fair is what my party thinks is worth fighting for.