Personal Independence to cease to exist

The government is looking at modifying the benefits bill passing through Parliament following a backlash from over one hundred Labour MPs, with the Government relying on the opposition to have any chance of passing the bill.

The modification accepts that the current bill is unfair to those people currently in receipt of Personal Independence Payments, PIP, on the grounds that the payments exist to make them personally independent.  A government spokesman admitted that personal independence 'did sound like something you'd find in the Human Rights legislation.' 

The government agrees that to withdraw the payment from people who have undergone rigorous and often demeaning checks on their incapacities would be wrong, but maintain that by withdrawing the benefit for new claimants 'saves them the distress of undergoing demeaning and rigorous checks, which must be worth a few bob in anyone's money,' the spokesman suggested.  The 'few bob' apparently being the value of the current benefit.