In every campaign there are highs and lows. Sadly, this week has been one of the low points in the Welfare Reform Campaign.
On Wednesday, MPs threw out an amendment from the House of Lords which would have exempted cancer patients from the government’s proposal to time limit Employment and Support Allowance. To cap it all, the government then took advantage of a rarely used parliamentary device to try to limit further opposition from the Lords to their plans.
A few high profile Liberal Democrat MPs – including the party’s former leader, Sir Menzies Campbell – joined Labour MPs on Wednesday in voting for an exemption for cancer patients. Unfortunately it wasn’t enough to stop a government victory.
However, the campaign against time limiting isn’t over. We may have lost this week’s vote, but we know that the public are still right behind our campaign. A YouGov poll carried out on behalf of Macmillan this week found that over 70% of people believe that there shouldn’t be a time limit on the amount of time that someone with cancer can receive benefits. And almost 90% of people felt that the Government has a moral duty to ensure that cancer patients are not pushed into poverty by the welfare cuts.
The Bill will now go back to the House of Lords. The government’s procedural manoeuvring means that the Lords won’t be able to table the same amendments again. But there may still be some scope to table amendments that provide some form of extra protection for people with cancer. Over the next few days, we’ll be working with supportive politicians to see if we can find a way forward. As ever, I’ll keep you all posted!
There are some positives though to take from this week. Over the course of the last week hundreds of Macmillan campaigners, supporters and staff have either signed our petition or sent emails, tweets or letters to the MP. All this support has been a huge help to our campaign. We didn’t quite get the result we wanted, but we made sure that our messages were heard in the right quarters. The campaign goes on!
