UK Widows May Be at Risk of Poverty with Cut in Bereavement Payments
Author: WUNRN
Date: April 26, 2017
By Margaret Owen, Director Widows for Peace through Democracy (WPD) – April 15, 2017
Widows for Peace through Democracy Website: https://www.widowsforpeace.org/]
Raising awareness of the plight, poverty, discrimination and marginalisation experienced by uncounted numbers of widows of all ages (child widows, young mother, elderly grandmothers), and sharing best practice on how to address this most neglected human rights and gender issue has been the mission and goal of WPD for the last two decades, advocating implementation of the various international Conventions, Resolutions, and Plans of Action, such as the CEDAW, the Beijing PFA, UN SCR 1325, and the SDG (Sustainable Development Goals) in the context of widows’ human rights.
Last month WPD was one of many women’s NGOs participating at the 61st CSW (UN Commission on the Status of Women), pushing, as we had with our own UK Government’s Equality Office, for the inclusion of “widows of all ages” in to the final text of the CSW 61 agreed conclusions on the economic empowerment of women.
Depressingly, we failed, as we have failed to get a mention of widows in all the two decades we have been coming to New York to these annual meetings focusing on the status of women.
Few governments want to identify and eliminate the terrible indignities and injustices faced by widows, and since there is a great gap in data gathering on this sub-set of women, it has been hard to convince them of the need to address this issue. They refuse to recognize that widowhood is a “root cause of poverty across the generations”, is a driver of the withdrawal of girls from school, and of early marriage, creating more child widows, more inequalities, that are, in many countries, the conditions that fuel internal conflicts and violence.
When “harmful traditional practices” (HTPs) get a mention in official UN documents, such as the latest CSW Agreed Conclusions and under Goal 3 (on Gender Equality) in the SGD Agenda, only FGM, Child Marriage, Son Selection and Female Foeticide are referenced, never the brutal, degrading life-threatening HTPs affecting widows such as horrendous mourning and burial rites, the labelling, even stoning to death, of widows as witches, and the treatment of widows as if they are mere chattels that can be “inherited” by a dead husband’s brother or cousin as part of the estate.
But until last week, Widows for Peace & Democracy’s work concentrated specifically on the status of widows in developing and particularly conflict-afflicted countries.
With limited resources, we had not looked at our own UK although we were well aware that in our relatively wealthy country, many widows may suffer poverty, discrimination and abuse. For example, in some immigrant communities, traditional views, current in their countries of origin, that widows are “inauspicious”, are the “evil eye” continue to prevail when families settle in the UK. Widows of all ethnicities, religions and ages may also experience what the distinguished Indian economist Amartya Sen calls “non-income poverty”, the poverty of “lack of respect, isolation, and neglect”. We know also that many UK widows, especially the elderly, are living on the edges of poverty, dependent on state pensions that no longer are adequate to provide them with a decent life. Elderly widows, particularly, are reportedly vulnerable to both physical and psychological abuse, including ill treatment in some care homes. And little research has been undertaken to explore the needs of HIV and AIDS widows, asylum widows, widows of partners who have died fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan +, nor of the legal difficulties for women who were co-habitees, rather than formerly married, to obtain inheritance rights, including rights to remain in the family home.
But two weeks ago, a bombshell hit widowed parents, and future widows – those with a terminally ill partner. We have got used to the UK austerity cuts impacting most disproportionately on those most disadvantaged in our society and especially women, due to the former Lord Chancellor George Osborne’s policies to address the deficit. However, some of us (not I) were encouraged by Prime Minister May’s first speech outside No 10 that her government would champion and look after “the many, and not only the privileged few”. She has endlessly repeated her intentions to support the JAMS (her “just about managing families”) but her recent announcements contradict her speeches.
For, within a few months, and especially following the Brexit referendum, we have witnessed the poor getting poorer and the rich, richer. Benefits to the disabled, the sick, have been drastically cut, while the cost of living rises, and local councils, schools, hospitals, are unable to find the basic funds essential to deliver essential services.
At midnight on Wednesday, April 5th, a new shock hit the most vulnerable of families, those headed by a widowed parent. Theresa May, in introducing the new rules said she was being “fair to tax payers”. But how can this be fair when thousands of pounds of benefits to widowed parents will be wiped off, if the sick parent survives later than 18 months ahead?
Families with children in which one parent dies are currently eligible for a £2,000 lump sum, followed by a taxable benefit of around £112 a week, payable until the youngest child leaves full time education, which can stretch to his or her early twenties. For families who lose a parent after midnight on April 5th, the lump sum will rise to £3,500 but the payments will be cut to only £350 a month – that is a mere £80 a week, with a dramatically shorter time of 18 months.A Guardian report (Monday, 3rd April), quoted Alan, a terminally ill man from Barnet, North London (once Margaret Thatcher’s constituency), who called the reforms “callous and brutal”. He said the new rules were causing his family, wife and two children, aged 10 and 14, intense anxiety, as he has worked out they will lose around £58,000. Alan said the calculations really shocked him, adding that the cuts meant that his life was valued at only £6,300.
The UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) defends the cuts arguing that the new system has been modernised to take into account the number of women in work. But UK charities say that by their estimates 75% of bereaved families will be worse off in cash terms, and 90% will see the length of time they can receive support shortened.
These cuts represent “a new low” for the Tory government, commented the shadow welfare secretary, Debbie Abrahams, who has urged the Prime Minister to scrap these cuts if she really wants to help the JAMS.
The latest DWP figures suggest that 3/5 recipients of Widowed Parent’s (WPA) are in work, but it is obvious that many of the surviving parents will have been long term unpaid carers of sick partners, rather than widows of men who died sudden deaths. These women, coping with the emotional strains of bereavement, grief, the stress of dealing with the often complicated matters relating to probate and titles to the family home, and carrying the heavy burden of nurturing and supporting vulnerable young children who have lost a beloved father, may find it very hard to return to decent work.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham, a labour spokesperson in the House of Lords, who has spoken out strongly against the Osborne tax cuts, is protesting vehemently about these cuts as they affect widowed mothers. She says 3/4 of widowed parents are mothers and most return to work after about 18 months. Those who cannot do so “tend to have children who are severely depressed, clinging, bed wetting, with mysterious illnesses, depressions, nightmares, sleeplessness, fearful of losing their remaining parent, and these children’s long term mental health depends on continuous available support of parenting – which these cuts will make impossible to provide. As one small girl said “he’s not here to hug me anymore.”
Lady Hollis also refers to another group of widowed mothers who are unable to return to work quickly: those who have been long-term carers, are physically and emotionally exhausted, and need time to regain their health and equilibrium if they are again to work. She says the indecent cuts to bereavement benefit means that many widowed parents will be whipped back into work before they are really ready to do so.
To make matters worse here in the UK< there are further cuts this week to the provision of child care, and as state schools face huge over spending, parents are now being asked to pay as funding is no longer available in some areas for music, sport, trips outside school. The newly widowed mother of young children will find it hard to pay these extras or to find the necessary child care, which she will need as a sole parent. On her own, she will have no one to share the household chore with and no one to fetch the children from school and be with them until she returns from her job.
It is depressing that in a developed country like the UK, facing the complex and challenging consequences of Brexit, the Tory government has chosen to target the country’s widowed parents with these cruel cuts. These bereaved parents, mainly widows, and those with a partner who is terminally ill need sympathy, encouragement and support to assist them as they raise their young children on their own.
The last thing they deserve is a further attack on their well-being and that of their children.
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UK – Prime Minister Defends Cut in Payments for Bereaved Families
UK Prime Minister has defended cuts to bereaved family payments as “fair to taxpayers” in a week where families with a terminally ill parent could see thousands wiped off their benefits if the parent survives beyond new rules introduced later this week.
By Jessica Elgot – 3 April 2017
The rule change will limit payments to widowed parents to a maximum of 18 months. Alan, a terminally ill man from Barnet in north London, called the reforms “callous and brutal” and said they had caused his family extreme anxiety in the last months of his life. The change will cost his young family tens of thousands of pounds.
Speaking en route to the Gulf, May defended the changes, which are part of a package of cuts, as a hangover from George Osborne’s 2015 budget. “The new bereavement support is going to replace a number of other payments that were there in the past,” she said. “The aim of the new payment is to make sure it covers, at the time it’s most crucially needed, the extra costs that are experienced following bereavement.”
Families with children in which one parent dies are currently eligible for a £2,000 lump sum followed by a taxable benefit of about £112 a week until the youngest child leaves full-time education, which can stretch over 20 years. For those who die after midnight on Wednesday, the lump sum will rise to £3,500 but the payments will be cut to £350 a month (about £80 a week) with a dramatically shorter time limit of 18 months.
May said the reduced amount had been agreed after consultation with the social security advisory council and various select committees.
“The aim is that it will be a different sort of payment to the ones that have been there in the past,” she said. “We have to ensure we have a system that is fair to people who require that help and support, but also that is generally fair to taxpayers.”
Alan, who has a wife and two children aged 10 and 14, said his family would lose out by thousands of pounds. “Based on the ages of our children and on my probable death – I would imagine this year – I had calculated that we would be entitled to about £58,000,” he said on Monday.
“The new calculation shocked me. My life is now deemed to be worth £6,300.”
The Department for Work and Pensions has argued the new system gives families a tax-free amount and had been modernised to take into account the number of women in work. However, charities have estimated that 75% of bereaved families will be worse off in cash terms while more than 90% will see the length of time they can receive support slashed.
The shadow welfare secretary, Debbie Abrahams, said the cuts were a “new low for this Tory government”, urging the prime minister to scrap them if she wants to help the “just about managing”.
As part of the welfare changes coming into force on Thursday, all households that have a third or subsequent baby – aside from a limited set of exemptions – will no longer be able to claim child tax credits. One analysis found that a family whose third child is born before midnight on Wednesday could be up to £50,000 better off over 18 years than one whose child is born on Thursday.
The Policy in Practice report found that more than 600,000 families would be affected by the changes to child tax credits, with an expected 8,000 third or additional children expected to miss out on support of up to £2,780 a year in April, a figure that could rise to as high as 104,000 over the next 12 months, depending on the number of births, according to the study.
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