Civil servant says DWP wants to merge PIP and universal credit
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) civil servant has told a disability charity that the government plans to merge personal independence payment (PIP) with universal credit, although not for at least six years.
The admission from a DWP civil servant – albeit not a senior executive – is the first time that anyone from the department has explicitly stated that it has plans to scrap PIP and combine it with universal credit.
The comments were made during a presentation about universal credit given to the disability organisation DASH in Hillingdon, north-west London, earlier this month.
In advance of the meeting, the DWP partnership adviser had been shown the link to a Disability News Service (DNS) article which reported suggestions that ministers were considering creating a new single benefit through merging PIP and universal credit.
He appeared to confirm that when he told the meeting that the department’s vision was for all benefits to be included in the universal credit system, including PIP, which is intended to contribute to the impairment-related costs faced by working-age disabled people.
He said DWP was looking at rolling PIP into universal credit from 2028 at the earliest, and that the ultimate plan was for there to be just one benefit, universal credit.
DWP has confirmed that the comments were made but it insisted this week that they came from a junior member of staff during a private training session and were not representative of the department’s views.
It also said that it had no plans to merge PIP and universal credit from 2028.
A possible merger between the non-means-tested PIP and the means-tested universal credit was first suggested in July in the health and disability green paper, Shaping Future Support.
But the concerns were heightened last month when work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey conceded that “everything is on the table” when asked by DNS at her party conference whether a merger was being considered.
Ideas for targeting PIP or disability living allowance (DLA) – which PIP has replaced for working-age claimants – as a way to cut social security spending have been floating around DWP since before the 2015 general election.
In March 2015, the BBC reported that it had seen leaked documents that suggested the Conservatives were considering taxing disability benefits as one way to cut the social security bill by £12 billion a year by 2017-18.
Among the options, drawn up by DWP civil servants, were an introduction of means-testing for the contributory form of employment and support allowance, taxing DLA, PIP and attendance allowance (possibly saving £1.5 billion a year), and restricting eligibility to carer’s allowance (saving £1 billion a year).
A DWP spokesperson said yesterday (Wednesday): “Our green paper explores how the welfare system can better meet the needs of those who need it the most.
“Details of the proposed changes will be brought forward in a white paper next year.”
25 November 2021
‘Deep concern’ over high-tech system that allows ‘covert surveillance’ of service-users
An NHS trust has been asked why it introduced a new high-tech system that allows staff to carry out video monitoring of mental health service-users in their bedrooms while they are sleeping, without securing their consent.
The actions of Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust (CINFT) on one of its women’s wards have sparked fresh concerns about the use of covert surveillance by mental health service-providers.
The Oxevision monitoring system is being used by an increasing number of NHS trusts across the country to monitor patients’ vital signs and behaviour using an optical sensor.
But the system also allows round-the-clock video surveillance of the service-user’s bedroom.
The concerns about Oxevision have been raised by a group of mental health service-users in Camden, north London, after the alarm was raise by one of their members, who had spent time on the ward.
She told fellow members of Camden Borough User Group (CBUG) at a meeting that she initially had no idea that she was being recorded on video while she slept.
The meeting – attended by CINFT’s medical director – heard that the trust had consulted with a small number of service-users before introducing Oxevision, but that it had failed to warn them about the video feed.
The trust also failed to mention in the information leaflet and poster that it issued to service-users that the video footage would be recorded.
Following the concerns raised by CBUG, the pilot scheme has been put on hold in the CINFT ward.
But there are concerns that some of the many other mental health trusts that use Oxevision may also have failed to secure consent for the video element of the system.
The Oxevision system allows staff to keep track of the service-user’s pulse and breathing rate, if they are trying to leave their bed, or if someone else has unexpectedly entered their room.
But the system also includes a live video-feed of the patient, which is recorded and kept for 24 hours before being deleted, although Oxehealth says staff can only access up to 15 seconds of live video-feed at a time and only during a “vital signs observation”.
In a statement, CBUG said it had “many concerns about the safety and ethics of this system” and was particularly concerned about the implications for the “sexual safety” of service-users.
CBUG said it was concerned that Oxevision was installed on one of the trust’s wards as a pilot without key local service-user groups being made aware of it.
It added: “The patient information leaflet and poster contained no mention of the 24/7 video recording of the room and the few patients that were originally consulted about the pilot of Oxevision did not know about the video recording element of it.
“As far as we are aware, consent was not consistently obtained from patients, who were being covertly recorded as part of this pilot programme on the ward.”
Disability News Service (DNS) understands that although some CBUG members are supportive of the Oxevision scheme – including the video element – because it can mean being interrupted less often by staff at night, others are strongly opposed to the idea of video surveillance.
The National Survivor User Network (NSUN) said it shared CBUG’s serious concerns and said the lack of transparency about video monitoring was “deeply concerning” and that such covert surveillance was “not a shortcut to patient safety”.
Mary Sadid, policy officer at NSUN, said: “Surveillance is a restrictive practice and its use demands serious scrutiny.”
She said NSUN was particularly concerned that Oxevision, and its surveillance methods, were being promoted as part of the NHS Innovation Accelerator, the same programme that supported the controversial Serenity Integrated Mentoring (SIM) scheme.
Sadid said: “Blanket surveillance is never okay, and especially not as a solution to inadequate staffing levels.
“Whilst some service users may experience positive outcomes as a result of surveillance-based monitoring, this can never justify non-consensual 24/7 blanket surveillance.
“Consent needs to be specific, individual, informed and ongoing.”
She pointed out that the Care Quality Commission does not authorise the use of what it calls “covert intrusive surveillance”.
She added: “It should not be down to service-users to ensure their rights and safety are upheld by care-providers, as we saw with the StopSIM campaign.
“Oxevision is part of a wider trend in securitisation of health.
“Along with increased policing presence in mental health and practices like the use of body-worn cameras by care staff, we are seeing ethically questionable practices that may be sources of harm introduced under the guise of safety.”
NSUN has already submitted evidence to the ongoing inquiry by parliament’s joint committee on human rights into protecting human rights in care settings.
In its submission, NSUN mentions its concerns about Oxevision, warns that it is “increasingly hearing of blanket 24-hour surveillance in mental health settings including in patient rooms”, and says that it is “concerned that surveillance may be used in lieu of adequate and safe staffing levels”.
Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust had failed to comment on the concerns by noon today (Thursday).
Oxevision was devised by Oxehealth, a company founded by Professor Lionel Tarassenko, former head of engineering at the University of Oxford.
Oxehealth claims that its monitoring system is now used by a third of English mental health trusts as well as “acute hospitals, care homes, skilled nursing facilities, prisons and police forces in the UK and Europe”.
The company says its system “delivers a secure on demand video feed” and provides staff with “a wider range of clinically validated early warning signs and risk factors than any other technology plus the ability to check the patient visually before choosing their intervention”.
But it is not yet clear whether other trusts have secured the permission of service-users for 24-7 video recording of their bedrooms.
An Oxehealth spokesperson said that its live video feed was “not surveillance” as it can only be accessed for 15 seconds at a time, and that Oxehealth continued to support CINFT while the trust engaged with service-user groups on the concerns raised by CBUG.
He told DNS he was not aware of other trusts where similar concerns had been raised.
He said: “We know that the privacy and dignity of any person encountering Oxevision is… critically important to them, their carers and their healthcare providers.
“Promoting and protecting privacy and dignity is a fundamental design principle for us and has informed every system design decision we have made.
“There are also strict data privacy processes in place with all the healthcare providers we partner with to safeguard this.”
But he said it would not be appropriate to tell trusts to secure consent for filming service-users while they sleep, as this was “a clinical and governance matter”.
He added: “We are actively reviewing the materials we share with healthcare providers to help ensure that they have the most up-to-date versions, and are continuing to improve the accessibility of our own materials that service users may choose to access.”
He pointed to a “patient experience report” which states that eight out of 10 patients experienced a better sense of safety and seven out of 10 believed they got a better night’s sleep after Oxevision was installed, while one study showed a 22 per cent reduction in self-harm in bedrooms and a 26 per cent reduction in assaults in bedrooms in one mental health centre.
DNS has so far contacted one other NHS trust that has introduced Oxevision, Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation Trust (RDaSH), which has installed it in 170 bedrooms.
The trust had not clarified by noon today whether service-users were told in advance about the video element of the Oxevision system or that video images would be recorded.
An RDaSH spokesperson said the system was a “support tool for clinicians for patient care, rather than a CCTV system used for the purposes of surveillance” and used a camera plus infrared illumination rather than being a “live video feed CCTV system”.
RDaSH claims that it carried out “appropriate risk assessments” in line with “trust, data security and individuals’ rights prior to installation and use of the system”.
She said: “The system was and is introduced to patients via patient group meetings on the ward and an information sheet is displayed and provided to patients.
“This is further discussed during the admission process.”
She added: “There is capability for staff to be able to view a patient via the camera, for a snapshot visual check, eg checking on a patient’s physical health such as taking vital signs.
“This visibility is for a total of 10-15 seconds at a time.”
She said that these images “are not stored on the device” but she also said that “salient video data is automatically deleted after 24 hours unless required to be retained for a specific purpose”.
RDaSH had not been able to clarify by noon today why images needed to be automatically deleted after 24 hours if they were not being “stored on the device”.
25 November 2021
‘Deeply dangerous’ WeThe15 campaign exposed by failure to criticise COP26
The failure of international organisations at the heart of a major new disability rights campaign to criticise governments for side-lining disabled people in the Glasgow climate change agreement has exposed their efforts as “deeply dangerous”, say activists.
International Disability Alliance (IDA) and UN Human Rights were among the coalition of 20 organisations from the worlds of sport, human rights, policy, business, arts and entertainment – led by the Paralympic movement – that have backed WeThe15.
They pledged at the launch in August that the campaign would “intensify political will to support and strengthen” the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities over the next decade.
And last week, WeThe15 had its first high-profile opportunity to highlight how governments across the world are ignoring the rights of disabled people.
The failure of the UK and other governments to include disabled people in key parts of the Glasgow climate change agreement that came out of the COP26 conference was described by one disabled climate change activist as “beyond disgraceful”.
The final text (PDF) of the United Nations agreement mentioned disabled people only once, and then only in the introduction.
The repeated omissions from key areas of the text appear to breach the UN’s own Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which makes it clear in article four that governments should “closely consult with” and “actively involve” disabled people through their own organisations when making decisions on issues affecting them.
But in the text’s final section, on “collaboration”, the agreement recognises the “important role” of indigenous peoples, local communities, young people and children, while it also calls on governments to respect their obligations on “gender equality and empowerment of women”, but it fails to mention disabled people or disability equality.
Despite these and other key omissions, neither IDA nor the UN’s own disability rights committee have been willing to criticise the UK and other governments.
The UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities had already failed to speak out about widespread and serious access failings at the conference in Glasgow.
Disabled activist and author Ellen Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, said the failure of WeThe15 campaign members to speak out about the COP26 final text had exposed the “fundamentally flawed” campaign as “a strange mix of being both laughable but also deeply dangerous”.
She said: “We know that climate change has a disproportionate impact on disabled people across the world.
“If this campaign had the interests of the global majority of disabled people at its heart, they would have spoken up.”
The UN committee refused to comment this week, and it has not responded to requests to comment about concerns about COP26 since 10 November.
When asked to comment on its failure to speak out about the COP26 final text, despite its key role in WeThe15, an IDA spokesperson also refused to comment.
Instead, he pointed to a blog published on its website.
The blog – titled “a firm step on a long road” – describes the conference as “historic” because, it says, disabled people’s organisations were able to acquire observer status at a COP conference for the first time.
It also points to the “much welcome debate” on the issue of accessibility that took place in the media after a disabled Israeli government minister was prevented from accessing the conference.
The blog adds: “It is true that the final outcome document of the conference included only one reference to persons with disabilities in its preamble.
“But we must acknowledge that the message of the disability movement was loud and clear.”
The blog also points to the “increasing support by governments” for disabled people, which it said was highlighted by support for the IDA delegation from the government of Finland.
Clifford said she had had no confidence in WeThe15 from its launch because – unlike the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement – it had taken a “top down” approach rather than being rooted within grassroots communities like BLM.
She said: “Its agenda is limited to gains that won’t rock the boat and result in them being locked out of engagement at government level.
“That requires not threatening the status quo.
“Within the current political-economic climate – when increasingly we are not only talking about regression of disabled people’s living standards but a very real existential threat – it is no longer possible to both engage with neoliberal governments on their terms and to represent the best interests of disabled people.”
She said the fact that key WeThe15 backers failed to speak up about the COP26 final text was “proof of how redundant the ‘disabled faces in high places’ strategy now is”.
25 November 2021
DWP bosses quizzed by MPs over secret benefit fraud algorithm
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been questioned by MPs over its use of a secret set of instructions that are used by its computers to identify potential benefit fraudsters, and which appear to disproportionately target disabled people.
Two of the department’s most senior officials were quizzed yesterday (Wednesday) about the secret algorithm being used by DWP.
Earlier this week, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP) announced that it had sent a legal letter to DWP to demand details of how the algorithm works, and requesting proof that it does not target any particular group.
It believes that disabled people are being unfairly and wrongly targeted by DWP for lengthy and stressful fraud investigations.
Labour MP Debbie Abrahams asked the two DWP officials, permanent secretary Peter Schofield and director general for change Neil Couling, about the algorithm when they appeared before the Commons work and pensions committee yesterday.
She pointed to a 2019 United Nations report (PDF) which warned of the risks of a “digital welfare dystopia” and, she said, concluded that the use of such algorithms in social security systems have “inherently built-in biases that are discriminatory”.
Abrahams, whose Oldham East and Saddleworth constituency is in Greater Manchester, said that some of the cases she had heard about through GMCDP of disabled people being targeted by DWP for fraud investigations were “very concerning”.
Schofield did not deny that DWP used an algorithm, but he insisted that any decision on action being taken by DWP “always comes down to an individual”.
He said: “The automation can help us guide our work but ultimately it’s a decision made by individuals.”
Couling claimed that it “was not an algorithm in the way that people might understand an algorithm”, and he insisted that what DWP was doing was “data matching”.
He said: “What we’re doing is matching data sets to see whether there’s consistency or not in what’s being reported.”
He said it was “not a machine telling us what to do and making decisions on benefit cases.
“It is data matching that is identifying questions to be answered and then we put those questions to the claimants themselves and give them the right to say, well, what is going on here.”
Couling told Abrahams that he did not know what proportion of those claimants being investigated for fraud were disabled people.
But he added: “I don’t know the answer to that but given that a significant proportion of the benefit caseload are disabled you would expect to see some disabled people will come up in the data matching.”
Rick Burgess, from GMCDP, told Disability News Service after the meeting: “Data matching would imply some process that is operating as an algorithm, I suspect, so they are splitting hairs over terminology.
“As for a human decision-maker being involved, we are keen to find out about that, and are those decisions reflective of good judgment or simply nodding through machine-picked candidates.”
He said it was noticeable how Couling had not answered Abrahams’ question about the proportion of disabled people being investigated, as this was a “key” issue.
GMCDP has been working with campaign group Foxglove, which said this week: “This system seems to unfairly target disabled people for investigation but the DWP won’t reveal how it works, or what they’ve done – if anything – to make it unbiased.
“Once flagged, you are forced into a bureaucratic hamster wheel of endless call centre queues, frustrating discussions with unhelpful staff and long forms that ask the same questions over and over – seemingly designed to trip people up.
“This can last for up to a year.”
Burgess had told The Observer earlier this week: “We’re tired of the fear of the brown envelope and tired of being repeatedly forced by DWP officials just to justify who we are.
“It’s time for the DWP to come clean about how this algorithm works and explain why so many disabled people are flagged for investigation.”
25 November 2021
DWP promises to go ‘slow, slow, slow, slow’ on universal credit managed migration
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has pledged to go “slow, slow, slow, slow” when it finally begins to transfer the remaining group of claimants receiving “legacy” benefits onto universal credit over the next three years.
Neil Couling, DWP’s director general responsible for universal credit, suggested to MPs yesterday (Wednesday) that the so-called “managed migration” process would see only small numbers of claimants moved onto universal credit during 2022.
He said that his previous experience with the much-delayed rollout of universal credit showed that it was crucial to test each stage “very carefully” before going “a bit more hell for leather” only when certain that the system can cope.
Managed migration contrasts with “natural migration”, which sees claimants of legacy benefits such as employment and support allowance forced to move onto universal credit when their circumstances change.
Under managed migration, the final stage of the rollout, claimants of legacy benefits will be moved onto universal credit even if their circumstances have not changed.
A managed migration pilot project began in Harrogate in 2019, but it had to be suspended last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ministers have yet to announce when they will resume the managed migration process.
Disability News Service reported earlier this month how a newly-released DWP document from 2019 had shown that organisations consulted by DWP on managed migration had raised repeated concerns that moving people from legacy benefits onto universal credit would see them “fall between the cracks and suffer hardship”.
The document showed that DWP had research “highlighting the same risks”.
Couling told the Commons work and pensions committee yesterday: “There are some very vulnerable people on the end of our services here and we have to be absolutely certain that things work and they work well and you can run them at volume.”
He said DWP would develop managed migration on “small volumes” of claimants, before testing it on larger volumes to check if the system can cope, before only then going “very fast”.
Asked whether the pace of managed migration would be increased during 2022, he told Conservative MP Nigel Mills: “Ministers have said they will make a formal announcement to parliament, but I am strongly hinting to you today that my slow, slow, slow experience at the start of this [means] that you really do need to develop your processes and do that with small volumes.”
DWP’s permanent secretary, Peter Schofield, also suggested that the rollout would only start accelerating through 2023 and 2024.
Couling said DWP still believed that the rollout of universal credit would be completed by the end of 2024, seven years after the end date originally announced by former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith.
But he also admitted that universal credit had had “a number of really rather profound problems that I was asked to try and deal with about seven years ago.
“I think I have managed to do that. But… I don’t have a time machine… I’ve tried for a Tardis but the permanent secretary won’t let me have one.
“I have always said to this committee… we will go at the rate that is [consistent] with the safe delivery of our services.”
25 November 2021
DWP admits losing six more disability-related employment tribunals
The number of disability-related employment tribunals being lost by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) appears to have increased since its “shocking track record” of discrimination against its disabled staff was exposed by a documentary 20 months ago.
Peter Schofield, DWP’s permanent secretary, admitted yesterday that DWP had lost another six disability-related employment tribunals in the last 12 months.
The BBC’s Panorama programme revealed in March 2020* that DWP had lost more disability discrimination cases at employment tribunal than any other employer in Britain between 2016 and 2019.
It found that DWP lost 17 of 134 claims of discrimination against its own disabled staff in tribunals between 2016 and 2019, which Panorama heard was a far higher failure rate than usual for such cases. It also settled many disability discrimination cases out-of-court.
But Schofield was forced to admit to the Commons work and pensions committee yesterday (Wednesday) that DWP had lost another seven employment tribunal cases in the last year, of which six were disability-related.
This appears to show that the number of tribunal cases it has lost following claims by its disabled staff has risen since the Panorama film was broadcast.
Schofield told the SNP’s Chris Stephens that a review DWP had commissioned into some of the issues raised by the programme – which is being supported by the workplace advice and conciliation service Acas – would be reporting next month.
Schofield said the number of tribunals it had lost needed to be “viewed against the scale of organisation we are, with 90,000 colleagues”, but he said it was “clearly something we need to keep an eye on”.
The review is being led by Valerie Hughes-D’Aeth, a non-executive director at DWP and formerly BBC’s chief human resources officer.
Schofield said DWP had taken action since the documentary was aired rather than waiting for the review to report.
He told the committee: “We’re not waiting for [the review] in terms of doing things already that we need to do.”
He said action DWP had taken included supporting disabled staff who need reasonable adjustments in the workplace, and supporting line managers.
*DNS editor John Pring was a consultant on the programme
25 November 2021
Concern over bill that offers new rights… but only to people with Down’s syndrome
Concerns have been raised about a government-backed bill that would provide new rights to social care and other services, but only to a small minority of people with learning difficulties.
The Down syndrome bill is due to receive its second reading in the House of Commons tomorrow (Friday), and the government has given the private members’ bill its support, which gives it a strong chance of eventually becoming law.
The bill was drawn up by former defence secretary Dr Liam Fox, after meeting Annabel Tall, who stood for the Conservative party at the 2019 general election in Bath, and has a son, Freddie, with Down’s syndrome.
The short bill has just a few simple clauses and would ensure that councils and other relevant public bodies – such as NHS trusts and schools – would have to have “due regard” to new guidance.
That guidance – which would be issued by the government – would explain the steps that it would be “appropriate” for the public body to take to meet the needs of people with Down’s syndrome in its area on social care, health, education and housing.
But Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self Advocacy), said he was concerned that the bill “just singles out a small group of people with learning difficulties… and forgets the rest of us”.
He said the disabled people’s movement had been telling the government “for a very long time” that the answer to the social care crisis was through a new National Independent Living Support Service, but that it has “not been listening”.
Lee said the bill had taken a medical model approach to addressing the barriers faced by people with learning difficulties, and disabled people in general, because it focused only on people with a particular impairment.
He also said the bill’s call for councils and other public bodies to have due regard to government guidance was “not strong enough”, as it would only be saying “please can you” rather than “you must”, “you’ve got to” or “you have to”.
And he said he was worried that people with Down’s syndrome would worry about other people with learning difficulties not having access to services that they might now have access to because of the legislation.
Fox said at a fringe event at last month’s Conservative party conference that they had chosen people with Down’s syndrome to be the subject of the bill because they all had an “absolutely clear diagnosis”, which meant their rights would be “watertight”.
He said: “It sets a precedent that can be followed later on in other areas. If we can get a foothold in this, and it creates a precedent, others can follow.”
25 November 2021
Disability History Month launches with talk of hotels, sex and French peasants
Leading disabled campaigners have spoken of the barriers they have faced due to invisible impairments, at the online launch of the 12th UK Disability History Month (UKDHM).
This year’s month-long event, which ends on 18 December, is examining themes of invisible impairments as well as sex and relationships.
The launch event heard calls for action across politics, education, transport and personal relationships.
Daniel Kebede, president of the National Education Union, spoke of his own invisible impairment, a recently-diagnosed condition, and of his union’s new Value Education, Valuing Educators campaign.
The campaign aims to ensure that “the historic pattern of disabled educators being pushed out of schools when they become too much of a problem for the school is halted”, he said.
He said: “We want a diverse education workforce. It’s vitally important to normalise impairments and disabilities with children.
“We need an education system that does not discriminate against anyone because of their disabilities, whether it’s visible or invisible.
“Disabled educators need to be visible throughout education. We need to work to retain disabled people, not remove them.”
And he added: “We want schools to be more inclusive of all children and young people now, not in the distant future.”
Janine Booth, secretary of the RMT union’s disabled members’ advisory committee, and an activist and author, spoke about the history of what are now accepted as neurodivergent differences, such as Tourette’s, ADHD and autism.
She spoke of a French aristocrat who about 200 years ago became the first recorded case of what would later be known as Tourette’s, but was only diagnosed because – according to her case notes – she kept swearing, and this was behaviour that was “in marked contrast to her social status”.
Booth said: “There’s probably less than a mile away working-class peasant women down the market effing and jeffing, but no-one thinks that they’ve got a condition, no-one’s making medical case notes about them.”
She added: “Behaviour in our society is judged according to socially-constructed norms, and class is a massive, massive factor in those socially-constructed norms.
“The way neurodivergent people have been seen and treated by society has always been a class issue, it has always been seen through the lens of class.
“That’s one of many reasons why it’s important that the labour movement and the trade union movement take it up.”
She said that finding out that she was autistic was “one of the most liberatory things that ever happened to me… finally my life made sense”.
But she added: “Since then I found out that I probably have ADHD, although I got a letter the other day that said: ‘This is to confirm that you’re on a waiting list for an assessment; we can’t tell you how long you will be waiting but we can tell you that it will be in the multiples of years.’
“That is one very big issue for neurodivergent people, accessing assessment and accessing diagnosis, because it can really help you in terms of your sense of self and in terms of your access to rights and support services, etcetera.”
Richard Rieser, UKDHM’s founder and coordinator, welcomed national coverage of Disability History Month on ITV, which he said was a “breakthrough”, but he said he also wanted to see the government and universities engaging with it, as have many schools, colleges and unions, as well as the NHS.
He said: “It’s still not something that is there in the way that Black History Month is there.”
He called for disabled people to raise the profile of invisible impairments over the next month, and he encouraged disabled people with invisible impairments to “come out” to workplace colleagues and friends.
He said: “This has to be a social process where we make the extraordinary ordinary, and everybody feels less stressed as a result.
“We shouldn’t be made to feel awkward because we ask for adjustments in a restaurant, or in a cinema or in a theatre.”
And he called for supporters to lobby their MPs to sign House of Commons early day motion 607, which supports UKDHM and its twin themes, and calls on MPs to “work for an inclusive, accessible and sustainable society for disabled people in the UK”.
Marsha de Cordova, the disabled MP for Battersea, and former shadow women and equalities secretary, said that her workplace, the House of Commons, was “neither fully inclusive nor accessible”.
She said: “There are barriers across society, whether it is in the labour market or employment, in transport and in leisure.
“This will continue to inhibit and hinder the opportunities for us and the interactions that we will make and it also has an impact on forming those meaningful relationships.
“Having supportive and fulfilling relationships is so important to our mental health and our wellbeing, whether they are romantic, sexual or platonic.
“That’s why tonight is so important, that we are going to talk about sex, relationships and disability, because like everyone else disabled people have a right to choose if they would like to be in a relationship, get married, have sex and so forth.
“It’s so important that these subjects are being discussed.”
On the issue of sex and relationships, actor and campaigner Ellen Goodey told the launch event in a video: “I think that people with learning disabilities should have their rights to sex and relationships supported all the way through life.
“I had proper sex education at school. I was included at my local nursery, primary, and secondary schools, and college.
“I also learned a lot about sex and relationships from my friends and family.”
Goodey, who is getting married next July, said she was currently involved in a project about sex and relationships, and added: “The aim of my work is to make things easier for disabled people to have their voices heard about sex and relationships.
“If we don’t do this, we are stopping people’s rights.
“This is a really important topic. We are denying people their rights.”
Broadcaster, journalist and equality consultant Mik Scarlet also spoke about sex and relationships.
He told the launch event: “It’s very easy to fall into the trap that we allow these myths to perpetuate that disabled people aren’t sexual and can’t have sex.
“It means that the next generation buys into it.”
He said it was important to tell young disabled people that they were not that different from non-disabled young people.
He said: “However much we have had our bad experiences, I know from my non-disabled friends that they have also had rejection and bad experiences, and that is something that we must make sure that we teach all young people.
“We have to use this telling of our experiences to tell what it was like in the past, to explain the darker parts of our history, but also to tell the truth.
“Most of the disabled people I know are either in relationships or are happily not in relationships, either because they prefer to be single or because they are having fun knocking boots and don’t want to be tied down.
“We have to make sure that the next generation don’t end up with the hang-ups that we were taught.”
The award-winning writer, poet and activist Penny Pepper read two poems about relationships from her debut collection Come Home Alive.
She also talked about being on a date in her late 40s with a “lovely guy” who invited her to visit him in his cottage.
She said: “Well, OK, what’s in my head? How do I go to the toilet? Where does my PA go?
“So we all have to navigate those things that really are about confronting barriers and obstacles we shouldn’t have to worry with if we go to a hotel for some… romantic interaction.”
*The UKDHM website features four interviews with disabled people with invisible impairments about the barriers they have faced
**The TUC is organising three online events as part of UK Disability History Month, on disabled women and sexual harassment at work (this event took place on 24 November); on the social model of disability, on 2 December; and on long COVID, on 9 December
25 November 2021
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Disability rights campaigners are planning a legal challenge against York council after it voted to ban blue badge parking on key streets in the city centre: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/nov/19/york-anti-terror-measures-disabled-people-blue-badge-parking
A cash-strapped council will be “saying no sometimes” and wants residents to take more responsibility for relatives’ social care, its leader said: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-59347029
The number of deaths of people being treated under the Mental Health Act in England rose during the coronavirus pandemic, estimates suggest:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-59336579
A woman is taking her GP to court after claiming she should have never been born. Evie Toombes… is suing her mother’s GP for millions in damages after stating her birth should have not been allowed to happen. The para-showjumping star was born with spina bifida: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/daughter-20-suing-mums-gp-25533594
One hundred people with learning disabilities and autism in England have been held in specialist hospitals for at least 20 years, the BBC has learned. The finding was made during an investigation into the case of an autistic man detained since 2001: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59388886
25 November 2021
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
