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Bradley urges McCausland to ‘scrap cuts’

SDLP MLA for Newry and Armagh Dominic Bradley has said that Nelson McCausland has finally caught up with the public mood on DLA reforms but is urging him to consider scrapping the planned cuts altogether.

Speaking after news that the Minister is asking officials to consider a delay in changes to DLA assessment until economic conditions improve, Mr Bradley said: “This is a very welcome move, but it merely represents the Minister following the SDLP’s lead in acknowledging the disastrous consequences of the planned DLA reforms.

“The switch from DLA to Personal Independence Payments would have had a detrimental effect on thousands of lives, particularly in the current economic climate so it is only right that Minister McCausland makes this call, albeit after an unforgivable delay.

“Delaying the reassessment will also give pause for thought as to whether the right choice was made in selecting Capita as the company to conduct reassessments, given their past record, which included what might be viewed as rank incompetence in their failure to properly implement the Westminster Government’s Independent Learning Allowance scheme some years ago, at a huge cost to the taxpayer.

He added, “If this delay can be implemented, I would urge the Minister to use wisely the space that would create to find ways to further mitigate the adverse impact of the Tory DLA Cuts, preferably by scrapping them altogether.”

Short URL: https://newrytimes.com/?p=26078

Posted by on Dec 4 2012. Filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry

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