that nice, sensitive Michael Gove...

Just over a week ago (10 September) the Education Secretary, Michael Gove was asked this question by Luciana Berger MP in the House of Commons: "What can he and his Government do to ensure no students turn up to school embarrassed because they don't have the right clothes?"

He said he had recently visited a food bank in his Surrey Heath constituency. He went on: "I appreciate that there are families who face considerable pressures. Those pressures are often the result of decisions that they have taken which mean they are not best able to manage their finances."

Ms Berger said she was "appalled" by his remarks. "People I have met are ashamed to have to turn to food banks. I vehemently disagree it is because they have mismanaged their finances." In 2012 Ms Berger who is the MP for Liverpool Wavertree, made a short film in 2012 Breadline Britain which centres around this issue.

The Trussell Trust, who run almost 400 food banks in the UK, have some statistics about the work that they do: Since April 2012 they have seen an increase in the numbers of foodbanks of 76% but a 170% increase in the numbers of people given emergency food. That number is 346 992 in 2012/13 and relates to the period up to April 2013. That is to say the figures are before the benefit changes came in.

The Trussell Trust see the main causes as the rising cost of living, static incomes, underemployment and unemployment, all things that lead to increasing numbers of people hitting a a crisis causing them to turn to the Trussell Trust.

The Executive Chairman of the Trussell Trust, Chris Mould says: "The sheer volume of people who are turning to foodbanks because they can't afford food is a wake-up call to the nation that we cannot ignore the hunger on our doorstep. Politicians across the spectrum urgently need to recognise the real extent of UK food poverty and create fresh policies that better address its underlying causes. This is more important than ever as the impact of the biggest reforms to the welfare state since it began start to take effect. Since 1 April we have already seen increasing numbers of people in crisis being sent to foodbanks with nowhere else to go."

Old habits die hard

So Vodafone are at it again, that is, not paying their taxes.

According to Robert Peston, the BBC's business correspondent in: "one of the biggest deals in corporate history", Vodafone have just made themselves and their shareholders the rather tidy sum of £84 billion.

However due to the way the company is structured they will not be paying the UK government any tax revenue. This all quite legal. They are selling their 45% stake in Verizon wireless to the US telecoms group Verizon Communications. The US business is owned by a Dutch holding company. They will be paying $5 billion in tax to the US government.

So worldwide, Vodafone's shareholders are set to receive £54 billion. In the UK dividends will be to the tune of £22 billion. The shareholders will however be expected to pay tax on their dividends

Depression, Discrimination, and (no) DSS

Last year I became depressed. Really depressed. Clinically can’t-get-out-of-bed just-want-to-die depressed. So depressed I could no longer handle my job and had to go on long-term sick leave for several months.  

I got sick pay but it came nowhere near to paying my rent and living costs, but I found out I was entitled to housing benefit. Now all I needed was a letter from my live-in landlord to prove I lived there and paid rent, as I had no tenancy agreement.

The landlord refused to give me a letter. He told me that if he did he would have to pay taxes and raise everybody’s rent, and “you don’t want that, do you?” “No” I said, intimidated.

Since he wouldn't give me a letter and the rent was paid in cash, leaving no paper trail, I could not prove I paid rent and so receive housing benefit. Over the next few months I spent my life savings (around £1000) on living and rent. Most of the time I was still too depressed to get out of bed.

As my savings started to run out, I panicked and started looking for flats. All I see is

NO DSS
NO DSS
SORRY NO DSS

Some don’t say this. So I call up and ask, explaining my circumstances – and they tell me “NO DSS”.

My fragile depressed mind could not cope with this constant rejection, nor the quickly looming threat of homelessness. I had no one I could stay with.

I try a local homeless centre, who only had very limited flats in obscure places with old men. As a young woman who has had a lot of bad experiences, this does not feel safe to me. I am scared and frightened and can’t cope and just want somewhere safe to live.

Desperate, I decide to lie. I start pretending I’m still working when I call potential landlords. The first flat I see is hellish, 14 stories up in the middle of nowhere with a balcony I could see myself jumping off.  The second, however, seemed perfect. Nice room, nice area, nice kitchen. Unfortunately like the last landlord the landlady lived-in and demanded cash-in-hand. But my money was almost gone and I needed to move fast, and I was able to claim housing benefit at this address, without her knowledge.  

A few weeks after moving in she became suspicious of my presence in the house. Although I had planned to make myself scarce during the day, my depression got the better of me and I spent too many days in bed. She was heavily pregnant so she didn't work.

She pulls me aside one day and starts shouting and demands to know if I’m on DSS. I deny everything. She says if she finds out I’m on DSS she will kick me out.  She won’t tell me why she would kick me out.

Because she is a live-in-landlord it is perfectly legal for her to evict me for any reason with ‘reasonable notice’ – which can mean any time.

Being threatened with homelessness again, being watched at home and forced to be out the house eight hours a day, pretending I’m at work, with nowhere to go, no money and no one to talk to - sent me into a suicidal tailspin.

Between visit’s to A&E and the Samaritans, I applied to council housing, stating my depression made it really hard for me to live with people and I couldn't cope anymore. It took forever and was a real struggle to get together. Exhausted but victorious, I handed the application in. The sour-faced assistant told me it would take 13 weeks just to look at my application. My application had several signed statements saying I was suicidal and my housing stress was the major contributor to this. I was advised that if I wanted it any sooner than this, I would have to make myself homeless. Then they might put me in a hostel. Or something.

Needless to say I couldn't cope with making myself homeless. The council was true to their word and didn't get back for 13 weeks, by which time, thankfully I had found accommodation. A friend’s landlord took pity on me and agreed to rent out the small room to me, knowing I was on DSS and was struggling to find a place to live. I can only imagine this was because she met me as her tenant’s friend first, realised I was a decent human being and not ‘DSS scum’.

I’m now four months into my tenancy, complete with a real tenancy agreement, and I love my new flat. So a happy ending for me. But my happy ending was due to sheer luck, and the story could have turned out a lot differently. And I’m sure has turned out very differently for lots of other vulnerable people.

I am still so frustrated that it is perfectly legal to discriminate against people on housing benefit in this way. Perhaps it would not be a problem, if the government was not relying so heavily on the private sector ‘to provide’ for DSS tenants, whilst offering no incentive for doing so or penalties for not doing so. Furthermore, despite low rates of occurrence ‘benefit fraud’ is never out of the papers, but I have yet to read about the private landlords who are dodging taxes and exploiting vulnerable tenants.  

Smoke and mirrors

Evasion of tax is illegal, avoiding paying tax is not, hence the numbers of people who earn their living as accountants.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines tax as : n 1 a compulsory contribution to state revenue, levied by the government on personal income and business profits or added to the cost of some goods, services, and transactions.

I am a tax evader. I buy my fags duty free from under the counter. This is really common where I live and nearly everybody I know buys their roll ups this way.

But I am not::

• Google
• Amazon
• Starbucks
• Apple 
• Thames Water 
• Vodafone     

These multimillion pound companies avoid paying tax out of principle.

So who's criminal?

It gets worse before it gets better

I felt a bit guilty when I heard the ruling that the ESA Work Capability Assessment was unfair to people with mental health problems.

I've recently gone through the same process for depression. However - unlike the court claimants - I was lucky and spared the much-dreaded interview, and was fully successful in my claim.

Despite my experience, I wholeheartedly agree that the process is unfair on people with mental health problems. Here’s why.

I have a Masters in Social Policy, so I know a fair bit about benefits, and I did my dissertation on mental health, so I’m pretty clued up about that too. But there was no chance that I would have been able to fill out the necessary forms without an advice worker helping me over several sessions.

Fortunately I also happened to have a slew of evidence – GP notes, psychiatrist reports - from previous desperate (and failed) attempts to get appropriate housing and treatment. They were not easy to get and I found it distressing repeating ‘my story’ to stranger after stranger.

I had two advisers from separate organisations tell me that I should bring someone with me to the Work Capability Assessment interview – not for moral support, but to take notes due to regular reports of interviewers just making stuff up and ignoring evidence given.

Sorry, what? Seriously? Like the process wasn't already stressful and difficult enough, I also had to ensure I could protect myself against fraudulent reports made by the government against me. (no, paranoia is not one of my symptoms, but no prizes for guessing who would win that court case)

Luckily I was spared that misery, but that didn't stop me fretting about it for weeks.

The whole application was a complete nightmare to pull together, making my depression worse, when I just wanted to focus on pulling myself together. Getting better. So I wouldn't have to be on benefits.

Isn't that the point?

Work Capability Assessments discriminate against vulnerable claimants

So judges have ruled today in favour of two claimants with mental health problems who claimed  that the test for sickness benefit would discriminate against them. The law requires that the government should make reasonable adjustments to avoid discrimination. The judges at the Upper Tribunal ruled that the Work Capability Assessment puts people with mental illness, autism and learning difficulties at a substantial disadvantage.

Work Capability Assessment (WCA) tests, are designed to measure a person's entitlement to Employment and Support Allowance. ( ESA) They are supposed to determine whether someone is fit for work. They are run by a French company Atos on behalf of the government. They have proved controversial with the claimants being subjected to these assessments. In fact, according to the the government's Public Affairs Committee, the Department of Work and Pensions' decisions have been overturned in 38% of appeals.

Lawyers for the two individuals who won their legal challenge today argued that where the claim is from someone with a mental health problem, it should be the government's responsibility to seek additional medical evidence. Under the current system, evidence from a professional, such as a GP or a social worker,is expected to be provided by the claimants themselves. There is no obligation for the DWP to collect this evidence, even on behalf of the most vulnerable - apart from in rare cases.

Almost 20 000 people are assessed each week for ESA in England , Wales and Scotland - these are figures provide by the DWP. More than a third of these people are claiming primarily for mental health problems, meaning thousands of people each month are going through a process that puts them at a substantial disadvantage.

UK charities; Rethink Mental Illness, Mind and the National Autistic Society all intervened in the case to provide evidence based on the experiences of their members and supporters. Mind's chief executive Paul Farmer said: "The judgement is a victory, not only for the two individuals involved in this case, but for thousands of people who have experienced additional distress and anxiety because they have struggled through an assessment process which does not adequately consider the needs of those with mental health problems."

A spokesperson for the DWP said: "We disagree with today's ruling and intend to appeal."

Fiddling while Rome burns

So the country is in a mess, I think we can all agree on that. So what are the Tories doing about it? OK we all know that there is a Coalition Government but the Conservatives are the major partner, both in numbers and influence.

So instead of concerning themselves with addressing the multitude of problems our country face, the Tory party are doing what they do best; bickering among themselves about their favourite subject - Europe and the European Union, endlessly. They have been banging on about this for weeks. 

Truth be told they have been banging on about this for forty years! We joined what was then the Common Market in January 1973 and they have not stopped bickering about it since.

This week the new unemployment figures were released. The Office for National Statistics announced a small increase in unemployment to 2.52 million.

The numbers of NEETS (Young people not in employment, education or training) is just under one million. That is more than one in seven 16 to 24 year olds. This is according to the Work Foundation who go on to say: "The UK has experienced the fastest rise in youth unemployment of any country in the G8 since the start of the recession and now has the third worst levels in the OECD."

There are 660 000 people in the UK affected by the bedroom tax.

According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, in a report out this week: "Income inequality increased by more in the first three years of the crisis to the end of 2010 than it had in the previous twelve years." 

The report goes on: "After taxes and transfers, the richest 10 per cent of the population in OECD countries earned 9.5 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent in 2010, up from 9 times in 2007."

So are the Tory Party occupying themselves with these problems? No, they would prefer to posture and preen and endlessly discuss something that isn't going to happen until 2017 if at all!