Teenager with ADHD disgusted at government's plans to slash disability benefits
Plus: Reform UK on Fracking could pit local party against the national party
Hello and welcome to The Blackpool Lead on Wednesday, 9 April.
This week we’ve been speaking to the people most affected by the issue that made up such a big chunk of our reporting on Sunday - the Jameson Road landfill.
Some of the stories of how this has affected people are horrendous. We’ll be reporting on that issue, in-depth, again this coming weekend.
Today, though, we report on the impact Labour’s welfare reforms could have in Blackpool. Our challenges as a town are well-documented, and the impact is forecast to be severe enough that both Labour MPs have vowed to vote against the plans.
And we also have news on Reform UK’s fracking policy when it comes specifically to Fylde.
This could be the first Labour government to oversee a big rise in child poverty
By Michael Holmes
A Blackpool teenager who said he is unable to work because of his attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has accused the government of treating the younger generation “as replaceable” in the light of proposed welfare cuts.
Duncan McGuinness, 18, of Coronation Street, receives personal independence payments and universal credit and said “the fact that the government even plans to strip it away is disgusting”.
He told The Blackpool Lead: “I rent my own place, pay the same bills and pay council tax just like other adults.”
It comes after Rachel Reeves confirmed further changes to welfare in her spring statement, prompting criticism from charities.
The Office for Budget Responsibility said the Chancellor’s benefits reform plan will save about £4.8 billion in 2029-30, lower than the government’s claim last week of a more than £5 billion saving.
The main savings are expected to come from tightening Pip eligibility, cutting payments for around 800,000 claimants.
Some 370,000 people currently on disability benefits will lose on average £4,500 per year in 2029/30 as a result of the changes, according to the government’s impact assessment.
Other savings are expected to come from cutting the level of health-related universal credit, which will be halved for new claims from next year and then frozen for both new and existing claimants until 2030.
Under changes to Pip, from November 2026, people who do not score at least four points on the daily living part of the payment – relating to whether they need help with activities such as preparing food and washing and bathing – will lose their payment.
Duncan said: “I can understand wanting to cut funding on some things but disabled people’s benefits is not the way to go.”
Duncan is originally from Manchester and moved to Blackpool in 2020 with his mother when his grandmother died.
He went on to live in supported housing and spent his 18th birthday homeless, looking for a place to live.
He then spent Christmas and New Year in a hostel alone. “It was horrible,” he said.
While Duncan, who now lives in a town centre flat, has been able to work in the past, he said he can no longer cope with employed life.
His ADHD triggers bouts of depression, as well as anxiety so severe he feels he cannot get on the bus on his own or speak to strangers.
While Duncan said he needs state support to survive, he believes he is luckier than some ADHD sufferers, who “can be an adult but think and act like a child”.
“It’s horrible to hear of people genuinely suffering,” he said. “I’m fortunate because I don’t have bad stuff happening to me currently but I can’t imagine what would happen if they overhaul the overall system.
“The government acts like feelings aren’t a thing and genuine mental health disorders just aren’t there.
“What they are planning on doing is not going to work. We will see a rise in unemployment and a rise in homelessness.
“There will be people out there working on Pip - that’ll be the next thing they (the government) will go for.
“It’s kind of stupid. How can you say that someone with ADHD can struggle but someone with bipolar or autism can’t?”
Duncan, who has a medical prescription for cannabis, which helps to alleviate his condition, continued: “The government is giving you two choices - work your arse off for your whole life for a company that doesn’t appreciate you, or you don’t work at all and you rely on the moron card.”
Duncan said he was diagnosed as a young child and, while he called it a condition that can be a “super power in some ways because it helps you learn things quickly”, such as, in his case, musical instruments like the guitar and piano, “there are so many more things that come with it”.
He said: “I remember times my mum would ask me to go to Aldi. It was 30 minutes away. I would take three hours. I remember walking around town just because my brain goes on its own little adventures.”
While Duncan believes there are people on benefits who are gaming the system, there are many more like him - just “playing the cards we were dealt”.
The teenager spoke out as figures from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) revealed more working-age people do not contribute to the economy because they are too poorly in Blackpool than any other area of England.
Some 16.9% of people aged 16 to 64 in the resort are classed as economically inactive because of both short and long-term sickness, behind only Clackmannanshire in Scotland.
Some 17% of the town’s population claims disability benefit, House of Commons Library data adds, while residents are more likely to be depressed.
Blackpool also reportedly has the highest proportion in England of people with mental health conditions including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia.
The government said it will “guarantee” people found to have limited capability for work and work-related activity before next April and who keep that status after reassessment will not see their universal credit health element entitlement changed.
Work and Pensions Secretary Liz Kendall said people on universal credit “with the most severe disabilities and health conditions that will never improve” will not be reassessed for their benefits “to give them the confidence and dignity they deserve”.
But there are also fears that society’s poorest people will struggle in light of the fresh reforms, with the government’s impact assessment estimating that 250,000 more people, including 50,000 children, could as a result fall into poverty by 2029/30.
It comes as a record number of children in Blackpool were found to be living in poverty last year, according to new figures, which were branded “heartbreaking”.
Some 9,054 under-16s in the town were in relative poverty in the year to March, figures from the DWP show, up from 8,352 the year before and the highest since comparable records began in 2013/14.
It means 36% of youngsters in the resort were in homes where the income was below 60% of the average and where child benefit was claimed alongside one other household benefit.
The charity Save The Children said that, without immediate action, “this could be the first Labour government that oversees a significant rise in child poverty - a record no one wants”.
It described the latest figures as a “source of national shame”.
The End Child Poverty coalition said the data should be a “stark warning” to politicians and said record-high numbers of youngsters in poverty “isn’t the change people voted for”.
Reeves said, however, that she is “absolutely certain” the reforms will not force people into poverty.
“We know that if you move from welfare into work, you are much less likely to be in poverty.”
Oxfam’s domestic poverty chief Silvia Galadini said the poverty figures are “as damning as they are heartbreaking” even before the welfare reforms, “where the Chancellor chose to remove vital security and safety from those who need it the most instead of taxing the super-rich”.
She added: “It is unconscionable that the government is cutting social security while willfully ignoring the huge potential revenue of a tiny tax on the super-rich, one that is overwhelmingly backed by the British public.”
Labour’s Blackpool South MP Chris Webb this week published a report “detailing the devastating impact of the cost of living on childhood” in his constituency.
It comes after he and his Blackpool North counterpart Lorraine Beavers told The Blackpool Lead they will rebel against their own party and vote against the welfare cuts.
Webb said: “Families in Blackpool South are doing everything they can but the financial pressures they are under are simply unsustainable.
“We need urgent action from the government to ensure that every child in Blackpool has the opportunities they deserve.”
He said cuts to Pip would “push even more people in Blackpool into hardship and deepen the struggles of families already on the brink”.
One of Webb’s constituents, named only as Natalie, said: “Recently I’ve been signed off sick with (ill) mental health and I have struggled massively to afford the food and bills.
“My eldest just started a new high school and I couldn’t afford a blazer. She has been in trouble multiple times, resulting in her not wanting to be in school.
“My eldest can’t attend what activities her friends can because we can’t afford it.”
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The news in headlines 🗞️
Housing developers told to pay for local healthcare (BBC)
Jury out in trial of governor accused of inmate fling (BBC)
Plans for £65 Multiversity education campus approved (LancsLive)
Blackpool Council still hasn't finished investigation into Tiffany's Hotel death after 18 months (The Gazette)
If you saw our long-read on Sunday about the smell coming from Jameson Road in Fleetwood, then you may be interested to know there’s a protest taking place in Poulton-le-Fylde on Thursday.
This will taking place during a full meeting of Wyre Council. Be at the Civic Centre, Breck Road, Poulton, at 6.30pm.
You can also catch up with what we wrote below.
Reform UK local party sets itself at odds with the national approach over fracking
By Luke Beardsworth
The Fylde branch of Reform UK has risked setting itself against national party policy in declaring themselves against fracking in Fylde.
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