Welfare Reform Bill parliamentary briefing -----------Wednesday 6 May 6.30-8.30 pm
House of Commons, Committee Room 12
Westminster, London SW1 ALL WELCOME
Wheelchair access
Deepening our crisis!
Keynote speaker: Oliver James
Child psychologist and author of bestselling Affluenza
“Parents should be given the option of one of them being paid the national average wage while they give up work to care for children.”
Mothers are the world’s first carers and the first line of defence against poverty, illness and other threats to survival. But the work of mothers and other unwaged carers is not valued or economically supported. We are always in crisis but unlike the banks we are never bailed out.
Unless we act now, the Welfare Reform Bill will force many more families into destitution and even criminalisation, and children into neglect.
Jointly hosted by
Baroness Afshar OBE & John McDonnell MP
The Bill treats mothers as “workless”, and whether single or in couples, requires them to seek work or “progress towards work” as a condition of receiving benefit – and to leave their children at an ever earlier age.
The Bill abolishes Income Support, lowers the Carers and Maternity Allowances, and makes “work-related activity” compulsory for every claimant of “working age” – mothers with small children, people over 60, most people with disabilities or ill-health and their full-time carers.
“Work for your benefits” will force mothers and others to work for £1.73 an hour in supermarkets, etc., bypassing and undermining the minimum wage. Mothers are already among the lowest-paid workers.
