Coroner failed to investigate DWP links to death of PIP claimant
By Victoria Noble
A coroner failed to investigate how the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) may have been a factor in a disabled man’s death, despite twice being told that there was evidence of such a link.
Christian Wilcox had written online for several months before his death of the mental distress and financial hardship caused by the loss of his personal independence payment (PIP).
His last posts on Facebook and Twitter were on 22 November 2019, and he is believed to have taken his own life shortly afterwards, although his body was not found in his flat in Croydon, south London, for two months.
It is just the latest inquest to raise concerns that many coroners are failing to probe links between DWP and the deaths of disabled benefit claimants.
On the few occasions on which coroners have investigated such links over the last 12 years, they have produced powerful evidence of systemic failings, forcing DWP to examine its policies and procedures and leading to changes that – despite continuing flaws – may have prevented some deaths.
Disability News Service (DNS) alerted South London Coroner’s Court on 2 March 2020 to the Facebook posts and the concerns that Wilcox’s death was linked to DWP’s actions, and it asked the coroner to secure the necessary documents relating to his PIP claim from DWP.
That email was forwarded to the coroner by her staff, but when the inquest took place on 24 April 2020, no evidence from DWP or its private sector contractor Atos was included.
An official recording of the inquest shows that a council officer had also alerted the coroner to comments Wilcox had posted on social media about his PIP claim.
The inquest heard that he had been diagnosed with schizo-affective disorder, anxiety and fibromyalgia, but had previously experienced a period of “stability and recovery” since 2015.
The inquest lasted only 18 minutes, with assistant coroner Catherine Wood unable to determine whether he had intended to take his own life and making no mention of DWP or Atos in her findings and conclusions.
Instead, she said: “We simply don’t have an answer to what his intention could have been.
“Mr Wilcox died as a consequence of his own actions, his intentions being unknown. All that remains for me to do is offer my condolences to the family on their loss.”
But posts on both Twitter and Facebook in the months leading to his death show Wilcox had been significantly distressed about his PIP claim.
On 22 November, he said on Twitter: “This #HostleEnvironment is just too much.”
On the same day, the last day he posted on social media before his death, he tweeted: “Either I have been stitched out of 6 months of money in a genuine design flaw to PIP… or… I was awarded 0 pts in error. Or… I was beaten up to try & get me to die.”
Earlier that month he had said on Twitter: “Me? Every day is pain. Losing my #PIP was a disaster.”
He had posted on Facebook on 6 November how the paramedic who had assessed him for his PIP “ignored the sheer amount of pain I was in”.
Following that assessment, DWP had removed his PIP.
Earlier, in a Facebook post published on 11 September, he had written: “Yeah, PIP. Needless to say my symptoms are up.
“The big fear being that I’m on the list of those to be culled, because of my work over the past nine-odd years.
“I’m definitely in pain, let’s put it that way. What a shit sandwich.”
At the time of his death, he was waiting for an appeal tribunal. It is believed that this hearing had been due to take place a few days after he took his own life.
Wilcox’s friend, Rebecca Turner, last saw him in the summer of 2019 and recalled how “he was so fixated on PIP”.
She said: “I remember him talking about the initial assessment when he had PIP taken away and he felt like the assessor had felt he wasn’t showing enough pain and didn’t really seem to believe him when he talked about his mobility problems.”
Turner believes that Wilcox’s loss of benefits was the “main factor” in ending his life.
She said: “He was just driven to that despair, as anyone would be, by not having the money to live and not being able to have any sort of quality of life.
“He was very lonely and very isolated by the end because he couldn’t get out and do things.
“I think Chris’s case is a really clear example of benefits issues contributing to his death. It’s really black and white.”
He had provided a “benefits update” on social media in July 2019, saying: “I’m still too frail to work and have no money for social stuff, but I am still ticking over.
“I have a real bad feeling about this. This Govt tests us to destruction, and I haven’t ended up on a stretcher for a decade.”
The same month he complained about not having enough food to eat.
Turner said: “He had been fighting that battle to get his PIP reinstated for the last year.
“He’d spoken very openly all over Facebook and to all his friends about just how much it was having a devastating impact on his life.
“The evidence was there to be found. I don’t really understand why someone didn’t look into that further.
“There doesn’t seem to be an interest in how much the benefits system is failing vulnerable people.”
Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, had met Wilcox through campaigning in Croydon, and said he was a “quiet, deep-thinking man who I had several thought-provoking chats with on the mental health system” and who was “sadly missed”.
She said: “It is outrageous, shocking and deeply concerning and unjust that the coroner… completely ignored this evidence as part of the inquest investigating Christian’s tragic death.
“Christian has not only been failed by the system once, he’s been failed by it twice and denied justice. That’s completely wrong.
“We demand that all coroners must start investigating these issues in all inquests when they are aware of evidence like this.
“We honour Christian by continuing the fight for justice and holding the government to account for his tragic death.”
But Wood is not the only coroner to have ignored key evidence of DWP failures in inquests into the deaths of disabled people.
Coroner Tom Osborne failed to question DWP during an inquest into the death of Roy Curtis in December 2020, despite receiving a bundle of evidence including Curtis’s handwritten notes, one of which said: “I am unfit to work. I will [take my own life*] if I can’t live”.
Joy Dove, mother of Jodey Whiting, has been fighting in the courts for a second inquest into the death of her daughter, who took her life after her benefits were wrongly stopped.
The high court refused Dove’s request, even though the original inquest was only 17 minutes long. She is now seeking permission to appeal from the Court of Appeal.
In contrast, assistant coroner Gordon Clow conducted an in-depth investigation during a nine-day inquest in January 2021 into the death of Philippa Day.
He concluded that flaws in the disability benefits system were “the predominant factor and the only acute factor” that led to her taking her own life, and he listed 28 mistakes from the DWP and its assessor, Capita, that helped cause her death.
He and a small number of other coroners who have probed links between DWP and the deaths of claimants have written prevention of future deaths reports, which oblige the department to explain what measures it will take to prevent further similar tragedies.
But despite countless deaths linked to DWP, only a handful of PFDs have been written, including those following inquests into the deaths of Stephen Carré, in 2010, Michael O’Sullivan, in 2013, Faiza Ahmed, in 2014, and Philippa Day, in 2019.
DNS asked The Coroner’s Society, which protects the rights and interests of coroners and promotes their role to the public, to comment on how coroners appeared to be ignoring concerns raised with them about the impact of systemic flaws in the social security system on the deaths of claimants, but it declined to comment.
A DWP spokesperson said: “Our condolences are with Mr Wilcox’s family.”
An Atos spokesperson said: “We extend our sincere condolences to the family and friends of Mr Wilcox.”
Wood had not responded to a request to comment by noon today (Thursday).
Before his death, Wilcox had been a voluntary mental health advisor with Croydon Mental Health Forum, and treasurer for a local mental health network.
Turner described him as a “fantastic peer worker” who was “passionate about mental health and improving services”.
She said: “Chris was incredibly kind, incredibly thoughtful and sensitive. He would do anything for anyone really.”
She believes he would want his struggles to be “in the public domain”.
She said: “He cared deeply. He would want people to know what’s happening to people and how awful it is.”
*This description has been removed by DNS as it refers to a method of suicide. It was the same method that Roy Curtis would eventually use to take his own life
**The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Samaritans, Papyrus, Mind, SOS Silence of Suicide and Rethink
Additional reporting by John Pring
10 February 2022
BSL bill ‘will not provide Deaf people with any new rights’
Deaf people have been warned that a new British Sign Language (BSL) bill – backed by the government – will not provide them with any new rights.
An online event held this week to discuss the controversial private members’ bill raised fresh concerns about the strength of the bill, and the lack of genuine consultation with the Deaf community over the last year.
It also emerged during Monday’s event that the government had forced last-minute changes that significantly weakened the bill put forward by Labour MP Rosie Cooper.
David Buxton, chair of the British Deaf Association (BDA), who has led attempts to secure a BSL Act, attempted to persuade those watching that even a weakened act would be better than no legislation at all.
He also warned that time was running out for the bill to be passed by both the Commons and the House of Lords in time for the end of the current parliamentary session next month.
He said this meant that it would be difficult to secure amendments to improve the bill.
Buxton said the bill had originally described BSL as an “official language of the United Kingdom” but after government advisers told campaigners that the UK had no official languages, they changed that to describing BSL as “the primary language of the Deaf community in the UK”.
But on the eve of its second reading in the Commons, he and fellow campaigners had been sent a new version of the bill that had this and other aspects of the bill removed.
Disability News Service (DNS) reported last week that the bill as it stands only appears to promise new guidance on the “promotion and facilitation” of BSL, and regular reports by the government on what 20 of its departments have done to “promote or facilitate the use of British Sign Language in its communications with the public”.
Buxton told Monday’s event: “I don’t think anyone has ever said this bill will be a silver bullet. It’s not going to cure all of the evils that Deaf people experience in everyday life.”
He said instead that the bill would provide “another tool with which we can advocate for our rights”.
He also suggested that if the Deaf community suddenly withdraws its support for the bill, it could “burn certain political bridges” with “key individuals within parliament” who have so far supported it.
Jeff McWhinney, a former BDA chief executive, who last week told DNS of his concerns about the bill, spoke again on Monday about those reservations.
He said the bill should be “more robust” and “should go further”, and that he was concerned that it does not mention individuals’ rights.
He said: “I wonder if we should aim higher, rather than accepting what we have in its current format.
“My concern is, is it a token bill, is it tokenistic, will it work? I think we should get it right at the first juncture.
“I appreciate we might run out of time in the current parliamentary session and hopefully this bill would be revisited by the government with government support.
“I feel it is weak and there are vulnerabilities in it. There’s an extra mile we can go, and I think we can achieve it.
“We need to review our strategy. We need to advocate to the government further.”
McWhinney called for an amendment to the bill that stated that having access in BSL should be a reasonable adjustment under the Equality Act when accessing public services.
Buxton said BDA had commissioned a report to be submitted to the committee that will consider the bill at its next parliamentary stage on 23 February, which he hoped would make this point about the Equality Act and would explain Deaf people’s concerns about the bill as it stands.
But he said the bill should be seen as “a good first step” that creates a “mechanism” for “ongoing dialogue with the government” and allows Deaf campaigners to have “a foot in the door”.
But Dr Gearóidín McEvoy, a research fellow at the University of Birmingham on the legal recognition of sign languages internationally, said it was clear that the bill provided Deaf people with no new rights as individuals.
She said that a BSL act would offer a “symbolic step forward” but she also made it clear that the bill as it stands would offer no extra rights for individual Deaf people.
She said: “Because of the structure of the bill, essentially there can’t be rights flowing from this bill.
“I know it’s quite disappointing to the Deaf community.”
She said that removing the reference to BSL being the primary language of the Deaf community was “important” and “hugely disappointing”.
She said: “The bill, sadly for me, separates BSL from the users of BSL, from the Deaf community.
“How does the language exist without the community who use it? It doesn’t.”
When actor and television presenter Memnos Costi, who was chairing the event, spoke of the importance of “getting our foot in the door” with the bill and “having access to parliamentary mechanisms”, McEvoy said she would be “somewhat cautious” about this.
She said: “Based on research from other [countries], no change has happened.
“These bills, they get passed into acts and then that’s it.
“I would be cautious about suggesting that getting your foot in the door is a way to increase rights.
“It may well be, but from a research and data perspective so far that has not shown to be true in other places.”
There were mixed reactions to the bill from Deaf people who were watching the event.
BSL-user John Denerley told the panel that the bill could be a “first step” after which campaigners could “advocate for amendments”.
He said: “We can’t afford to wait. We need to move forward now to support this BSL bill and get it passed.”
But Deaf activist Kirsty Jade said: “A lot of people keep saying, ‘It’s a first step; I hope,’ but I do feel that that’s a bit of a privileged position because a lot of Deaf people are struggling.
“To say ‘hope’ and that this is ‘a first step’ is a bit of a disservice [to Deaf people].”
She asked Buxton why the bill had not been presented to the Deaf community in BSL over the last year so they could share their views “and be more actively involved”.
She said: “I just feel not happy and that this is quite last minute… I feel that our voice has not been heard.”
Buxton claimed that it was “quite extraordinary” that the government was supporting the bill, but he added: “I do agree with you that there should have been more by way of BSL delivery of what the content of the bill was, what we were proposing it should be, and there should have been a lot more consultation at that point.”
But he said that much of their parliamentary work had been “very delicate and trying to ensure the government stay on board”.
Meanwhile, concerns that the government and Conservative MPs would use their support for the bill as evidence that they are listening to Deaf and disabled people on rights issues appeared to have been borne out this week.
Both Chloe Smith, the minister for disabled people, and Conservative backbencher Jo Gideon, mentioned the government’s support for the bill in Commons work and pensions questions on Monday, with Smith saying that the bill, and the advisory board that will be set up if it is passed, show “that we are listening to disabled people”.
10 February 2022
Anger and disbelief over Johnson’s ‘red meat’ Covid announcement ‘that will cost lives’
The prime minister has been accused of risking the lives of millions of disabled people, after he announced that the final COVID-19 restrictions in England would probably be lifted a month earlier than previous planned.
Boris Johnson said yesterday (Wednesday) that he expected to be able to announce later this month that the last remaining “domestic restrictions” – including the legal requirement to self-isolate after a positive test – would end a month before they were due to expire.
This would mean the regulations ending on 24 February, in just two weeks.
The announcement came even though the latest figures from the Office for National Statistics, also released yesterday, showed the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus in England increased in the two weeks up to 5 February.
There had already been anger among many of the 3.7 million people seen as clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) to the virus when Johnson ended the so-called Plan B restrictions late last month, with some calling that decision dangerous, populist and irresponsible.
But yesterday’s announcement appears to have sparked even greater levels of anger and disbelief.
Many suggested that the prime minister had made the decision to draw attention away from the continuing criminal investigation into parties held in Downing Street during the pandemic, to prop up support among right-wingers in his party, and to distract from the cost-of-living crisis.
Doug Paulley, who himself is CEV and has just recovered from Covid, said that many of his disabled friends had been “hiding away for a couple of years, and this spells continued suffering for them”.
He told Disability News Service (DNS): “As usual, throughout society and particularly throughout the pandemic, they’re throwing clinically extremely vulnerable people under a bus.”
Another leading disabled campaigner, Alan Benson, who is also CEV and has left his house just five times since October as he shields from the virus, said Johnson appeared to be “declaring the end to the pandemic”.
But he told DNS: “The virus doesn’t listen to our government.
“If, as rumoured, they stop publishing daily statistics, I won’t even have the information I need to protect myself.”
Jumoke Abdullahi, communications and media officer for Inclusion London, said the government’s decision to end Covid restrictions a month early “in the midst of scandal after scandal (after scandal)” was “unsurprising”.
She said: “It is actually in keeping with this administration’s attitude towards disabled people and those with chronic illnesses.
“We’re seen as expendable and acceptable collateral damage in Johnson’s continuing bid to remain at number 10.”
She said the move was “so clearly a politically motivated attempt at currying favour with the general public”.
She said Inclusion London was calling on the government to show “a real and ongoing commitment to ensuring that decisions made around the ongoing pandemic place the impact on disabled people at the centre”, with the need for proper engagement with disabled people and their organisations.
Fazilet Hadi, head of policy at Disability Rights UK, said her organisation had “grave concerns” about the proposed removal of restrictions at the end of February.
She said: “Where is the science and evidence behind this thinking?
“There is a small but significant number of disabled people who still cannot participate in day-to-day life because of the risk of severe illness or death from Covid.
“The government should be doing everything in its power to ensure that society seeks to protect those at most risk from Covid as long as there is a global pandemic.
“Instead, it appears to be pretending that Covid has gone away and everyone can carry on as normal.
“At risk disabled people still need protections, including employment and income protections, and access to food and medicine without increased risk.
“Given the size of the at-risk group compared to the start of the pandemic, there is no sensible reason why the government cannot reintroduce such protections instead of abandoning at-risk disabled people.”
Fleur Perry, who has had to shield through the pandemic, said the announcement felt as if “another layer of protection for CEV is being stripped away”.
She told DNS: “It’s already impossible in a public place to follow current (unannounced) guidance to social distance, and to avoid unvaccinated people.
“It’s going to become even less possible to dodge Covid if those who are Covid-positive are going to be sharing that public space.
“Learning to live with Covid means accepting that thousands will die with Covid, a preventable danger.
“Many of these will be disabled people, as numerous statistics have shown that disabled people and particularly disabled women are most at risk.
“These deaths will be preventable, and that’s not acceptable. “
She said she had hoped the world would not return to “normal + Covid” and that the country would instead have learned from the pandemic and committed to improving respiratory hygiene, even if COVID-19 was now a less serious virus than it had been at the beginning of the pandemic.
Perry said: “As a ventilator user, flu and other respiratory infections are extremely hazardous to me, and the measures we have in place for these are insufficient.
“I know many people who have lost someone to a transmitted respiratory infection, or been seriously unwell from one – myself included.”
She added: “We need self-isolation to become a socially expected behaviour, and liveable sick pay – particularly within the NHS and social care – to make this possible.
“We need to make sure that ‘just a sniffle” doesn’t get passed on and become someone else’s ‘I need an ambulance’ moment.”
Disabled activist Rick Burgess, from Manchester DPAC and Recovery in the Bin, said: “This is a ‘red meat’ desperate move by embattled Johnson to hang on to power by appealing to his far-right populist base, and is actively hostile towards disabled people.
“I hope people think for themselves and keep using masks in shared spaces and isolating if infected. That will be how you show you are an ally of disabled people.”
Researcher and writer Sue Jones told DNS that Johnson’s proposed “living with Covid plan” actually meant “some of us dying of Covid”.
She said the Omicron variant was “extremely contagious” and while some employers may put in place support for those who are CEV, “they won’t do that for their close family members who live with them”.
Jones said that “for those of us who are [CEV], it feels like the government have completely disregarded the equal worth of our lives.
“We are going to be left without any social protection at all, at greatly increased risk of catching the virus.
“It’s a gamble with our lives, because the vaccine has not prevented some people who have been fully vaccinated from dying of coronavirus.”
Health and social care secretary Sajid Javid said on Twitter that the move to end the restrictions early meant that England was “learning to live with COVID”.
But disabled journalist and author Frances Ryan, who has been shielding from the virus through the pandemic, responded by saying: “As long as this lot are in power, ‘learning to live with COVID’ means clinically vulnerable people dying with it.”
She had tweeted earlier: “There is no possible reason to end the legal requirement to isolate if you test positive for Covid.
“Coronavirus has not stopped being a highly contagious deadly disease. Clinically vulnerable people have not stopped existing.
“A politically motivated punt that will cost lives.”
Meanwhile, Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “Around 40 per cent of NHS staff absences are due to Covid currently and so removing the self-isolation requirements could bolster capacity significantly at a time when the service is committed to tackling its waiting lists but we have to be mindful that it could also lead to higher rates of transmission, which could then lead to more admissions into hospital alongside more ill health in the community.
“The public deserves transparency about what the scientific advice says about self-isolation and if the legal requirements are removed, for clear communications to be given about it being everyone’s responsibility to behave in ways that won’t inadvertently spread the illness to others.”
10 February 2022
Government’s disability strategy ‘fails on climate change and Covid’
The UK government’s National Disability Strategy has failed to address the “urgent challenges” posed by climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic, according to disabled academics and campaigners.
In a new report, published by the Oxford University Disability Law and Policy Project, they say the government has failed to include any kind of action plan that would empower disabled people’s “full and effective participation in climate action and climate governance”.
But they also say that the strategy fails to offer a cross-governmental plan to ensure an inclusive recovery from the pandemic.
The report, Up To The Challenge, was published just days after the high court confirmed that the UK government’s National Disability Strategy was unlawful, because a consultation it held was also unlawful.
The UN and disabled climate change activists have repeatedly warned of the disproportionate impact that climate change is having on disabled people around the world.
Inclusion Scotland’s Susie Fitton told a COP26 event last November that disabled people are hit hardest by extreme weather, wild fires, droughts, storms and floods, and are “less likely to be evacuated safely, more prone to health risks, and less likely to have insurance that protects their assets and homes”.
Dr Marie Tidball, co-ordinator of the Oxford University Disability Law and Policy Project, a research associate at the university, and editor of the report, says that the “twin crises we now face require active and meaningful participation of disabled people and our diverse representative organisations, at all levels of decision-making”.
This, she says, “will enable innovation and inclusion which benefits all of us”.
But she says the strategy fails to “integrate any kind of action plan to implement disability-inclusive climate policies which empower disabled people’s full and effective participation in climate action and climate governance.
“Nor does it produce a cross-governmental plan to ensure an inclusive response to and recovery from the pandemic.”
Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, says in his contribution to the report that the disability strategy “does not address the disproportionate impact on disabled people of either of these crises.
“Nor does it address the role that disabled people can play in shaping our response to these crises as a community or as a significant portion of the population within our nation.
“The strategy has not put disabled people at its heart, because we were not involved in it.”
Professor Peter Beresford, visiting professor at the University of East Anglia, and co-chair of the disabled people’s and service-user organisation Shaping Our Lives, says he could find in the strategy no mention of plans to tackle climate change or proposals to “ensure that disabled people are not, yet again, the main victims of another pandemic, or the ones who continue to bear the brunt of the present one”.
And, he says, the strategy “ignores the views of disabled people” in taking forward some of the government’s most high-profile policies, such as on health and social care reform.
Beresford says the government’s disability strategy should be underpinned by the “philosophy of independent living based on the social model of disability”, with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) as its “centrepiece”.
Another disabled researcher, Dr Sasha Kosanic, a climate change researcher and lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University, says in the report that solutions to the climate crisis, and its “dual emergencies of rising global temperature and precipitation and the unprecedented biodiversity loss, must involve the active inclusion of disabled populations around the world”.
She says that this involvement would allow scientists, policymakers and politicians to develop inclusive policies.
Jumoke Abdullahi, co-founder of The Triple Cripples and Inclusion London’s media and communications officer, points out that official figures show that six in every 10 people who lost their lives due to COVID-19 in England and Wales were disabled; that there was a disproportionate death rate among people from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds; and that disabled, working-age women with higher support needs were 11.3 times more likely to die than non-disabled women of the same age.
She says this means it has never been more important for the government “to address the multiple inequalities we face and to understand and celebrate our intersectional identities in meeting our needs and aspirations.
“But, on intersectionality and on tackling the multiple exclusion we face, the [strategy] contains no strategy at all. Indeed, the issue is not mentioned anywhere in the document.”
Dr Sarah Bell, a lecturer in health geography at the University of Exeter, says disabled people have experienced a “triple jeopardy” since the start of the pandemic, with an increased risk of severe illness, barriers to health care and rehabilitation, and the negative impact of strategies devised to deal with the pandemic.
But, she says, “the pathways towards a disability-inclusive green recovery [from the pandemic] remain under-researched and underacknowledged”, while climate change is “barely recognised in the National Disability Strategy”.
Jane Hatton, the disabled founder and director of social enterprise Evenbreak, said that ways of working had changed through the pandemic “and will continue to change”.
She says in the report: “The ideal people to work in these new kinds of ways are disabled people, because we have always been doing things differently.
“Disabled people need to be leading on this because we are the experts. It is something we have been doing every day of our lives.”
She adds: “Disability still comes too far down the Government’s list of priorities and needs to be given more prominence in their agenda.”
Dr Kay Inckle, campaigns and policy manager at Wheels for Wellbeing, which campaigns for improved access to cycling for disabled people, says in her contribution to the report that the government’s strategy has done “nothing” to promote health, sustainability and active travel for disabled people.
She adds: “In the context of climate breakdown and post-pandemic recovery, it is especially disappointing that the NDS offers nothing in regard to active travel for disabled people.”
Author and policy analyst Phillip Wilcox calls in his contribution for policy-makers to recognise the potential of autonomous (self-driving) vehicles, which have the potential “to deliver transformative changes to the lives of disabled people and reduce vehicle emissions”.
The report emerged from a webinar held last November to mark the COP26 climate change conference and Disability History Month.
Among its 21 recommendations is to ensure that UNCRPD is “directly enforceable” in UK law; to introduce a new statutory duty to pay due regard to the rights of disabled people in environmental and climate change law, policy and climate action; and to take the necessary measures to ensure the “inclusive involvement of disabled people and their own organisations in the development of policy and practice at all levels”.
It also calls for a new Future Accessibility Impact Board (whose members would be disabled people) to investigate the impact of policies and decisions on current and future generations of disabled people; and for the government to ensure that disability benefits are high enough to enable a “decent quality of life”.
10 February 2022
Coffey’s ‘embarrassing’ performance before MPs as she ‘forgets’ key disability policies
Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey was accused of an “embarrassing” performance in front of MPs yesterday (Wednesday) after she was repeatedly forced to admit she could not remember key aspects of her government’s disability policies.
Coffey was appearing in front of the Commons work and pensions committee to explain what the government was doing to support people facing rising food and energy costs.
Her appearance came two days after one of her ministers presented the annual benefits uprating order before MPs, which confirmed that benefits would rise by just 3.1 per cent in April, despite inflation heading for six per cent.
And new figures released by the Food Foundation, also released on Monday, revealed that disabled people with high support needs have been about five times more likely to be “food insecure” over the past six months than non-disabled people.
Asked by Labour’s Debbie Abrahams yesterday whether DWP had carried out an assessment of the impact of its uprating decision on disabled people, Coffey told her: “Off the top of my head, I can’t remember if an impact assessment was published.”
Abrahams told her that such an assessment had not been carried out, even though evidence to the committee from The Trussell Trust earlier in the day had shown that three-fifths of those being referred to food banks were disabled people.
Citizens Advice had told the committee that three-fifths of the food and fuel debt issues they were dealing with were being raised by disabled people, said Abrahams.
She then asked what action the government had taken to set up a taskforce to investigate the extra impairment-related costs disabled people face.
Coffey told her that she was “not aware of this taskforce you refer to”.
The committee’s chair, Stephen Timms, later told her that setting up the taskforce was one of the commitments made last summer in the government’s National Disability Strategy, a strategy that had been presented to parliament by Coffey herself, and has now been declared unlawful by the high court.
Coffey told him that it was two other departments that were setting up the taskforce, and she added: “I don’t recall every one of the 105 commitments that were made.”
She then told Labour’s Neil Coyle that she could not remember whether her department had promised to restart a trial that was paused during the pandemic, and which handed benefit claimants a “yellow card” written warning instead of a benefit sanction for their first breach of strict benefit conditions.
Ministers had said they were “aiming to restart this activity in due course”, in a response last November to the committee’s report on the disability employment gap.
Asked if the trial would now continue, Coffey said: “I don’t think so, because I think it already happens informally.”
Asked to confirm what DWP had trialled, she said: “I don’t recall. I’ll find out.”
When Coyle again asked for clarity about the yellow card system, she told him: “I’m trying to say to you, Neil, I don’t recall the specific details and I will come back to you.”
Coyle told her: “I have to say that it’s really disappointing that you’ve turned up and you’ve been unable to answer so many questions. It’s embarrassing.”
He then suggested that the reason she had been unable to answer so many questions during the committee session was linked to a rumour that she was about to resign from the government, asking her: “Is that the reason you can’t answer any questions today, because you’ve got one foot out the door?”
She replied: “No, don’t be ridiculous, Neil. If you want to bring up gossip, I could bring up other stuff that happened downstairs.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate for this select committee.”
It is not clear what she was referring to, but Coyle told her: “I’ll discuss that stuff anytime.”
Asked earlier in the meeting by Conservative MP Nigel Mills if people on low incomes were being placed in an “impossible situation” by the uprating order, Coffey told the committee that it was a “reasonable approach” to increase benefits by 3.1 per cent in April, despite predictions that inflation would soon be about twice that level.
She insisted that the £9.1 billion energy bills rebate announced by the chancellor last week would provide “substantial support”.
She added: “I think we have a robust safety net. It balances the needs of low-income households, tax payers… I am confident in what we do.”
10 February 2022
DPOs ask minister for ‘reset’ after court ruling that disability strategy is unlawful
Many of the country’s leading disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have written to the disability minister to ask for a “reset” in their relationship with the government, in the wake of a court ruling that its entire National Disability Strategy is unlawful.
The DPO Forum England wrote to Chloe Smith after the high court ruled that both the government’s national consultation with disabled people and its National Disability Strategy were unlawful.
The forum has asked the minister for disabled people for a meeting to discuss its members’ concerns about the government’s continuing failure to engage with DPOs in a “strategic and meaningful way”.
They believe the high court ruling should lead to a “renewed” National Disability Strategy that is “rooted in the views and experiences of Disabled people”, and which has “direct input” from disabled people and DPOs.
Forum members to sign the letter include Inclusion London, Disability Rights UK, Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance, People First, Disabled People Against Cuts, National Survivor User Network, Disability Sheffield and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People.
They told Smith that a new national strategy should prioritise action to tackle issues such as poverty, living standards, independent living, transport, education, housing and employment.
The letter calls for Smith and representatives of the government’s Disability Unit to meet members of the forum so they can “re-set engagement” to ensure that it is “fit for purpose and enables us all to work together to tackle the many pressing and complex issues Disabled people are experiencing”.
It also calls on the minister to pause the government’s review of the way it engages with disabled people.
Smith announced last year that this Disability Stakeholder Review would be extended beyond its planned completion date of December 2021, to allow for “a full opportunity for meaningful engagement with our stakeholders”.
The letter points out that the UK government’s engagement with disabled people and DPOs has been a long-term concern and was highlighted in a high-profile 2017 report by the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, which criticised its failure to ensure “effective participation” of DPOs in “decision-making processes concerning policies and legislation”.
In a written response to a question about the high court judgment from disabled Labour MP Marsha de Cordova, Smith said this week that the government was “disappointed” with the ruling and was “considering the decision carefully before determining what, if any, further steps to take in response”.
The high court has denied work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey permission to appeal the ruling, but the government can still apply for permission to appeal in the court of appeal.
A DWP spokesperson confirmed last night (Wednesday) that Coffey was still “considering what steps to take” in response to the ruling.
She added: “The minister will respond to the letter in in due course.”
10 February 2022
Secret DWP report reveals unmet needs of disability benefit claimants
Many disabled people who receive disability benefits have been unable to afford essential living costs such as rent, heating or food, even before the current cost-of-living crisis, according to a report that ministers had fought to keep secret.
A watered-down version of the report has now finally been published, after MPs on the work and pensions committee – led by Labour’s Stephen Timms – used their parliamentary powers to secure a copy from NatCen, the social research agency which prepared it.
Work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey repeatedly told MPs on the Commons work and pensions committee that she had no intention of publishing the report, The Uses of Health and Disability Benefits.
The report was commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to feed into its green paper on disability benefits, Shaping Future Support, which was published last July.
But the green paper made no mention of the report or its conclusions, even though it was handed to DWP in September 2020.
The report shows that researchers carried out in-depth interviews with 120 disabled people aged between 18 and 64 across England, Scotland and Wales who received at least one of disability living allowance, personal independence payment (PIP), employment and support allowance (ESA) and universal credit.
Some of them told the researchers how they were still unable to meet their essential living costs, such as food and utility bills, despite the benefits they received.
The researchers found that debt – including bank loans, credit cards, rent and utility arrears and doorstep lending – was “widespread” among those they spoke to, while “unmanageable” debt was found across both those in work and out-of-work.
One claimant they spoke to, who lives with her two young children, described how she spent 70-80 per cent of her income from PIP, income support, child benefit and child tax credits on paying off debts.
The report says it found a range of reasons why people had fallen into debt, including unexpected costs, such as paying for funerals and new white goods; job losses or periods of homelessness; problems with managing finances; and cuts to benefits through sanctions or reassessments.
Those with access to fewer resources often found it difficult to meet their impairment-related needs, such as clothing, transport, extra use of utilities such as heating, dietary requirements, independent living aids, personal care, and the need for personal assistance.
The disabled people who had problems with impairment-related needs often had unmanageable debt; low awareness or take-up of free entitlements and provision; fluctuating and less visible impairments; health conditions that affected their ability to work and manage money; were housed in the private rental sector; and had limited internet access.
Some of them reported “prioritising their essential day-to-day living costs” over their additional impairment-related needs.
The report also found that recipients of disability benefits “across the financial spectrum” experienced a “range of unmet needs” with social participation and mental health support.
Participants in the research called for higher benefit levels to help claimants meet their impairment-related needs and improve their overall wellbeing, while some ESA and universal credit claimants called for “more respectful and compassionate treatment” of disabled people by jobcentre staff.
A whistleblower told Disability News Service last year that DWP had ordered the report to be watered down because it did not like the analysis and reporting of disabled people’s “unmet needs” and the implications for future spending on benefits.
After being shown the first draft of the report, DWP told NatCen to reduce the number of references to “unmet needs” and to delete some of its analysis.
The whistleblower, who is close to the team that prepared the report, said this week that the publication of the report ended “a shameful chapter in the history of the DWP”.
They said: “The repeated refusals to publish the NatCen report and the attempts to justify suppressing it have been deceitful and dishonest.
“There is clearly something rotten at the heart of DWP and the select committee has done us all a service in invoking its rarely-used powers to get the report published.
“Despite the report being watered down there is still overwhelming evidence that many people struggle on inadequate benefits and have unmet needs, findings that cannot now be denied.
“The report provides a compelling argument for increasing benefits without delay.
“Disabled people have for too long been treated shabbily by DWP.
“Let’s hope that with the publication of this report they at last have a change of heart and produce policies that help disabled people rather than impoverishing them.”
Marsha de Cordova, a disabled Labour MP, described the report this week as “a shocking read that again highlights the hostile environment created by the department”.
Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, said on Monday that it was now “crystal clear” what the government had been hiding.
She told Chloe Smith, the minister for disabled people: “Disabled people are struggling on a day-to-day basis.
“Does she agree that the money disabled people receive is not enough to cover their additional living costs?
“If she does agree, why has her department not done anything to address it?”
But Smith suggested that there had been some “misreading” of the report and that it actually showed that “health and disability benefits, alongside other income streams, such as passporting and the Motability scheme, help to meet almost all identified areas of additional need”.
Timms said in a statement: “The report gives a valuable insight into the experiences of people claiming health and disability benefits.
“While the system is working for some, we now know that others reported that they are still unable to meet essential living costs such as food and utility bills.”
He added: “By persisting in its decision to hide away evidence of the struggles people are facing, the DWP will only have further harmed its reputation with disabled people at a time when – as its own officials have acknowledged – lack of trust is a major issue.
“In order to rebuild its relationship with disabled people, the DWP must stop trying to bury uncomfortable truths.”
10 February 2022
Assistive tech joint venture ‘could transform lives’
A new joint venture between a thinktank, a university and a charity could help ensure that future public policies on assistive technology are able to transform the lives of disabled and older people.
The Assistive and Accessible Technology (ATech) Policy Lab aims to bring disabled people together with professionals and researchers to design and test new public policy ideas and work together on research projects.
The project was announced by the thinktank Policy Connect, supported by Bournemouth University – which has a department that specialises in research on ATech – and Ace Centre, a charity which provides ATech assessment, training and information services across England.
It hopes to build on the aim in the government’s National Disability Strategy to “make the UK the most accessible place in the world to live and work with technology”, and the mention of the importance of ATech in Keir Starmer’s speech at last autumn’s Labour party conference.
Robert McLaren, director of the new ATech Policy Lab and himself a user of ATech, as he has dyslexia, told the launch: “We know that if we get technology right, it can be life-changing for disabled people, and it can bring the benefits of accessibility to everyone.
“I know how big this opportunity is, how high the stakes are in terms of getting the technology right, and having the policy structures in place.”
He said it was clear that ATech had the government’s attention, and that of Keir Starmer.
He told the launch: “We want to capitalise on that momentum and capitalise on that enthusiasm and translate that political enthusiasm into the fully-designed, evidence-based policy proposals and ideas that can then become the reform programmes… that will really transform people’s access to ATech on the ground.
“This lab is going to bring together disabled people and sector leaders, to incubate new ideas, strengthen and stress-test proposals, and generate evidence and insight that can really bring policy-makers to action.”
He said the ATech Policy Lab would hold interactive policy design workshops, undertake research and produce reports.
McLaren said he hoped it would help fill the gap between what technology can do and what people are able to do with that technology, and so “reap enormous benefits”.
Paul Maynard, the disabled Conservative MP and chair of the all-party parliamentary group for assistive technology, who chaired the event, said his group would work closely with the “exciting” ATech Policy Lab.
He said it was vital to be able to inform politicians “just how transformative this technology can be”.
Professor Annalu Waller, a disabled academic who leads the augmentative and alternate communication research group in the University of Dundee’s School of Computing, highlighted the importance of inclusive design, and building in training about accessibility and ATech into all professions.
She told the launch event: “Until we understand that everything we build and design has to be designed for the most disabled person out there, we will never actually attain the equality that every citizen in our country deserves.
“If we build something to accommodate the diversity of humans, we can develop bigger, more useable, more accessible products.
“If we have that philosophy at the base of everything we do, we can possibly move towards an era where everybody has access to education, work and recreation.”
Gary Bourlet, a leading member of the self-advocacy movement, said it was crucial that information about the ATech Policy Lab and ATech issues was available in easy read for people with learning difficulties so they can understand it.
He also warned that there were many people with learning difficulties who could not afford computers, and he suggested the government copies schemes in Spain and Belgium which have given free computers and technology to disabled people.
Piers Wilkinson, higher education policy and partnerships lead for the disabled-led social enterprise Diversity and Ability, and a commissioner on the Disabled Students’ Commission, said it would be “critical” to ensure that the ATech Policy Lab placed the lived experiences of disabled people as users of ATech at the centre of its work.
The minister for disabled people, Chloe Smith, told the launch event that ATech can have “life-changing impacts on a disabled person’s life”, and “harnessing the potential” of such technology can “remove barriers and increase opportunities for disabled people”.
She said: “Too often… you can see technology being developed without taking into account the needs and preferences of disabled users.”
And she said that disabled people and those around them sometimes did not have “the awareness or the training or support that would be needed to ensure that ATech could be used effectively”.
She said the government was providing “significant support” in the development of ATech and to provide access to its use.
In 2019-20, government-funded UK Research and Innovation invested £58.4 million in ATech research and development.
Smith said it was “absolutely critical to continue to work together in partnership on research and design of evidence-based policy-solutions in this area.
“That will allow us to share knowledge and innovation but will also have the benefit of promoting the UK as a world-leader in this field as well as directly benefiting disabled people, which is our goal.”
She said there were nine commitments related to ATech spread across different government departments in the National Disability Strategy, which affected areas such as employment, design, accessible housing and the accessibility of private sector websites.
She pointed to the strategy’s pledges to improve the “skills gap in ATech” across government, and to create a new Centre for Assistive and Accessible Technology, as part of the government’s aim to improve its own “capability in this field”.
She said this was important because the government was “keen for ATech to be mainstreamed as part of the everyday delivery of public and private services for disabled people and also non-disabled people”.
But she had left the meeting by the time that Kush Kanodia, a disabled ambassador for Disability Rights UK, asked what her “next steps” would be after the high court found the National Disability Strategy to be unlawful, because of its consultation failures.
10 February 2022
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
An SNP MP will return to the House of Commons today for the first time since she had a stroke at the age of just 28. Amy Callaghan felt she was left with no option but to make the journey south to Westminster – despite her doctor advising against it. She has repeatedly called for Commons bosses to reintroduce proxy voting, which would allow MPs unable to travel to London for health reasons to still participate: https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/snp-mp-amy-callaghan-returns-26158157
An MP who had a stroke aged 28 has blasted “woeful” universal credit rates in a powerful return to parliament. The SNP’s Amy Callaghan gave her first in-person speech for almost two years after a brain haemorrhage left her in hospital for four months: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mp-who-stroke-aged-28-26164663
The number of Brits out of work and long-term sick has soared in the last two years – rising by 40,000 every month. ONS figures show 2.3million “economically inactive” people were recorded as long-term sick in the three months to November 2021. That is the highest since spring 2005 and up a quarter of a million on the same period two years earlier: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/number-brits-who-long-term-26133805
The presenting team for Channel 4’s coverage of the Beijing 2022 Paralympic Winter Games will be made up entirely of disabled presenters and pundits, in what the broadcaster says is a “global first” for a “world-class sporting event”: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/07/channel-4-presenting-team-for-winter-paralympics-will-all-be-disabled-people
He is one of Shakespeare’s most reviled characters, distinguished by his “deformed, unfinish’d” figure. Now, for the first time, the Royal Shakespeare Company has cast a disabled actor in the title role of Richard III in a new production opening later this year: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2022/feb/08/theres-a-truth-to-it-rsc-casts-disabled-actor-as-richard-iii
10 February 2022
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
