• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Benefits and Poverty / Cockroft’s fear of PIP reassessment and losing independence as she heads for Rio
Hannah Cockroft crossing the winning line at London 2012

Cockroft’s fear of PIP reassessment and losing independence as she heads for Rio

By John Pring on 21st July 2016 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Listen

One of Britain’s biggest stars from the London 2012 Paralympics has said she is “scared” that she will lose her independence when she is reassessed for the government’s new disability benefit.

Wheelchair racer Hannah Cockroft has yet to be assessed for personal independence payment (PIP), which was launched by the government the year after London 2012 with the aim of cutting spending on working-age disability living allowance (DLA) by 20 per cent.

Cockroft (pictured), who won two track gold medals at London 2012 and is going for three in Rio, told Disability News Service (DNS) that she dreads the reassessment, the possibility of having her support cut, and potentially losing the car she leases through the Motability scheme as a claimant of the higher rate mobility component of DLA.

She said: “I haven’t yet been hit by PIP, I haven’t been called up for my assessment, but honestly, it scares me.

“If I don’t have my car I will lose everything, I will lose my independence.

“I know people will say, ‘Oh, you can afford a car, you can afford this, you can afford that,’ but the truth of the matter is that I am a Paralympian so I don’t actually make enough money to even move out of my parents’ house. I can’t live without my car.”

Speaking on Saturday (16 July), as she and many of the rest of the ParalympicsGB team took part in media interviews, and prepared to enjoy a celebratory team dinner in London before the final countdown to the Rio games, which begin on 7 September, Cockroft said: “Honestly, it scares me.

“The fact that I am a Paralympian makes it worse because you are selling yourself on things you can do.

“They know what you can do, they see it on telly, they see it every day, they think that you’re maybe more able than you are.”

Like many tens of thousands of other disabled people with physical impairments, she fears the tighter eligibility criteria under PIP which mean that claimants only qualify for the enhanced mobility rate – and therefore entitlement to lease a Motability car – if they are unable to walk more than 20 metres, rather than 50 metres under DLA. 

She said: “I am strong pushing a wheelchair, but ask me to walk down the street and I’m probably going to land on my face in about two minutes, but not in 30 metres, depending on where we are.”

When told by DNS of last week’s story, which quoted Motability’s own figures showing that 35,000 disabled people are expected to lose their vehicles this year as a result of being reassessed for PIP, she said: “It breaks my heart, it absolutely breaks my heart.”

Cockroft said she understands that some people are “playing the system” but she points to her boyfriend, Sam Ruddock, a fellow Paralympic athlete, who has cerebral palsy and has even been turned down for a blue parking badge.

She said: “He can’t even get a blue badge because on a sunny day when he hadn’t trained and he was walking on a flat piece of ground, they said he was too able.

“But what happens when it’s snowing, or it’s wet and he has to walk over uneven ground and he’s had a heavy day walking, and he’s tired? What happens then? Apparently that doesn’t count.

“He just tried to get a blue badge to make life a little bit easier and he didn’t get it. How can you not be disabled if you’re a Paralympian?”

Share this post:

Share on X (Twitter)Share on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: disability living allowance Hannah Cockroft Motability personal independence payment Rio 2016

Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Related

PIP claimants describe ‘exhausting’ and ‘stressful’ 90-minute waits on DWP phone line
11th May 2023
Disabled citizens produce ideas for more accessible communities
16th February 2023
Disabled people ‘at the heart’ of new accessible transport centre
16th February 2023

Primary Sidebar

Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.Pygmalion at the Old Vic. Access performances. Icons for audio description, captioned, BSL and relaxed performances.

Access

Latest Stories

Network Rail admits: ‘We have no idea how many inaccessible bridges we’re building’

Anger as Labour omits ‘vital’ promise on disability rights from policy document

Labour has ‘caved in to vested interests’ on social care, leaked documents show

Fear over council policy that could force disabled people into care homes

Anger at ‘shameful’ failure to include DWP deaths inquiry in Labour policy document

One in three ‘Disability Confident’ employers have employed no disabled people

Austerity changes are reducing impact of accessible housing funds, 12 years on

Ministers ignore ESA claimants in suicide prevention strategy… again

Watchdog appears set to approve mass ticket office closures

Disabled politician sues Lib Dems over discrimination that left her suicidal

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web