Wish I'd known it was free, I've spent £10,000s on leasing over the years and when I finally lose my DLA HRM I'll have nothing to show for it. I could have saved all that money and bought myself a new Mid range Merc, Audi, or BMW. I would have been able to get around then, but it looks like I'll not be going anywhere soon.

I very much doubt you'd be put on ESA with a broken toe, people with no legs are deemed as fit for work. I don't think you need to worry. You should be still able to look for work, whether you can get someone to employ you on crutches is different. I'd be careful of over using the pain killers though, you could do serious damage to yourself.

People in the support group of ESA are exempt from the cap. Unfortunately I doubt those who will be affected are in a position to save enough to help themselves out.

I feel for you. I made the lifestyle choice of breaking my back and having several heart attacks so I could get sickness benefits and a free car (instead of a job paying 3 or 4 times as much and a Mercedes) I also got the council to buy my house at alot lesss than market rate and pull it down so i could get a council house. Next year I'll lose my car, any day i could get a brown envelope and lose my income, plus I'll have to pay bedroom tax. That'll teach me for having a heart attack, losing my job, car, house and becoming a benefit scrounger.

They shouldn't be any problem because your father gets AA. Make sure the council are made aware of this, it is not uncommon for them to not know their own rules.

With universal credit will they recognise the current rules for people over pensionable age? There will be many couples who are at present getting PC who will lose it when UC comes out. With UC the couple rate will be about £111, under the present rules whichever benefit one claims if one of the couple are over the age for PC the couple allowance will be about double. Also will the bedroom tax and council tax be treated as if the couple are of working or pension age. As a final thought on this point a couple on UC will be a lot worse off than single person on PC. Can we keep this thread for UC and if necessary start another for PIP. I know I am part at fault here as I have posted re PIP. Cheers.

As someone with chronic heart disease (plus a few more mobility problems, that allow me to walk but only just) I am heaving to come to terms with the fact that I will be housebound when this comes in. Thank god for the internet; if I didn't have that things would be a lot worse. I am very thankful for the help I've had over the last couple of decades. I had been looking forward to being independent in my retirement, but now know that will not be. I would rather have had the help in my old age instead of my middle age. I know we have not had any feedback as to what will happen, I think we can use what we do know. As with DLA the criteria for IB was not totally different to that for its replacement, but as with IB the replacement benefit will be decided by ATOS; and we all know what happens there.

I thought they where scrapping that.

A Lot more. Plus the losses in the UK car industry will be more than the gains in not paying DLA. Can't find the link but it was something like £640m (or B) to keep all in cars or £660m (or B) loses to car industry of not. They just want us to all go away. Only to pop up for things like the Paralympics.

The phone will probably be routed via a polygraph, but then that wouldn't work for most on cetain drugs anyway. perhaps we could all be called on the Jeremy Kyle show, he seems to have it in for benefit claiments

That's going to be alot of fun. I often forget what i'm saying or what the question is I'm answering. If that makes sense!

A default has nothing to do with SB, that happens 6 years (and a month?) after last payment or acknowledgment of the account. Also reminds me I must write to Cabot about some accounts they claim are mine from a bank I've never had an account with.

I kept my Jalopy (baby FIAT) and put it in a garage well over tens years ago, it needs some work to start it again,but its has no rust, looks like I might need it again. The test for IB was harder than the test for ESA in theory, but once the ATOS factor is applied ESA becomes a lot harder. You can bet the ATOS factor will do the same for PIP.

Thats the problem; Under the new rules what I lose in mobility I should gain in care. I'll lose LRC but should get Standard rate, and I'll lose HRM but should get standard rate, so income should be about the same. Only trouble is I'll lose my car, but then if I don't lose out finacially, my wife could use her DLA to get a car and I'd use mine for fuel and taxis when we can't use car. BUT and a big but it depends on ATOS being honest, and i don't thinkthey knbow how to be.

If you check on the Motability web site you'll see if you have to return your vehicle before the end of your lease you'll get your down payment back on a pro-rata basis. Not sure what the situation would be if you got your vehicle on HP, if it was through the scheme there might be some redress, or you may be able to come to some agreement.

The estimated losses to the UK car industry are far higher than the money that will be saved by getting people off DLA, to say nothing of all the job losses (both to car workers and disabled unable to get to work), and subsequent loss in tax income and increase in ESA and JSA claimants. Therefor the reasoning behind PIP can't be save money as was first claimed, it must be to stop all us scrounging disabled **** from driving around in free cars. The WPMS is not changing, but in all honesty i can't see the scheme being able to survive on the number of cars leased by pensioners and service personnel. I know for a fact that many cars are subsidised by £1000s by the manufactures (mine was by £6000), with only a fraction of the sales they may not do this in the future. Also for the scheme to work cars need to be leased for 3 years, under PIP this won't be guaranteed to say nothing of the damage done by thousands leaving the scheme part way through their leases between 2013 and 2016. I will though finish this post on a high note, those of us who need bigger cars and put down an Advance Payment will not lose out; our payments will be returned on a pro-rata basis.

Well I am gobsmacked, I really did believe that soldiers would not be put through what us ordinary plebs had to go through. So much for the military covenant. I don't think they'll get away with it if they start hitting soldiers and paralympians. They may have got Joe public to believe we are scroungers but no way will they get people to believe our brave soldiers and paralympians are. There may be hope for all of us after all.

Who would be the right person to ask about this whole benefits changes. I used to think i had it all sussed out and was looking forward to a quiet retirment looking after my wife. Now i am not so sure, are we going to lose our pension crdits, will UC have a carers premium? I get it for housing benefit will i get it for CTB? What is the minimum amoung of food one can survive on? Every time you turn on the news or open a newpaper you read of another attack on the poor/sick/disabled!

I know it was Labour that went to war and bailed out the banks, but the Tories would have done exactly the same had they been in power.

They haven't got anything wrong, they know exactly what they are doing. We are talking about highly educated people here, they don't make mistakes of this magnitude. They have engineered this so that they have an excuse to get rid of the welfare state for purely idealogical reasons. France if putting the top rate of tax up to 75%, we are cutting ours and making those most able too pay the cost. Reduction in employment rights, abolition of the minimum wage and welfare state will put the country in the ideal position to take on the Chinese and the Tiger economies.

Labour may have introduced the WCA and ATOS but at that time it was an unknown quantity. It was this administration that when it knew how bad it was renewed ATOS' contract.

That's something; it would be even better if you could get the HCP to sign your notes (which would/should be word for word), as being a true transcript of the WCA. That would be almost as good as a recording.

Trouble is you can't expect soldiers to go and fight for the country, but not guarantee than the support they need if they are injured. But on the same tack you shouldn't expect "ordinary" people to pay into a insurance scheme to support they need if they are injured, and them not pay out. I think this thread is drifting off topic, it's supposed to be on UC which is a bit of a non starter as, as already been pointed out it is neither Universal or credit.

They should be, and still are, but when PIP is introduced things will change. The government brought in the military charter when it was realised many of the disabled who would lose out were from the services. I am pretty sure if they could have vilified the soldiers in same way as they have most disabled, they too would be losing out big time. As I have said soldiers should not lose out, but should not be made a special case all disabled should be decently treated.

I don't think people need to worry about soldiers who have lost limbs losing their benefits, they will be safe as there are special rules for service personel and their families. Soldiers with lost limbs losing benefits would be a road to far even for this administration. You do need to worry though, about those civilians who have had their legs blown of and suffer PTSD because of the acts of terrorism. Having no legs used to automatically get you HRM, under the new rules it will not. For example DLA may have allowed a person with no legs to buy expensive prothetics that helped them walk. This would negate them from PIP, unfortunatly when these legs wear out they would still be deemed as being able to walk under the same thinking that allows ESA users to have imaginary wheelchairs.