Contents
First Covid inquiry report ‘shows criminally negligent’ attitude of previous governments 6
DWP claims missing stats on secret deaths investigations in annual report was just an error 10
Government silence on new flight rights laws, after documentary exposes discrimination 12
Labour’s DWP set to continue with appeal linked to scrapping of ‘fit for work’ test 14
Labour’s Cabinet Office refuses to release information on Tory Disability Action Plan 16
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 17
Fresh DWP fears after Kendall helps launch report that calls for ‘duty to engage’ and cuts to disability benefits
Comments by new work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall, and her support for a controversial report, suggest she wants to increase pressure on disabled people to move off benefits and into work, while disregarding risks to their health.
Kendall announced this week that she wanted the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to move from being “a department for welfare” to becoming “a genuine department for work”.
She made her comments after travelling to Barnsley to help launch a report by the Pathways to Work Commission, which was chaired by Labour’s former health secretary Alan Milburn and makes an almost identical call, for DWP to become a “department for work”.
It is one of several similarities between the report and comments made by Kendall.
Although she did not formally endorse the commission’s recommendations, she called it a “pioneering” report and welcomed many of its conclusions, and there will be concerns that its work has already influenced her plans to reform DWP.
The report focuses strongly on the need to push more people with long-term health conditions into work and includes a controversial recommendation for DWP to introduce a “duty to engage” with employment support.
It says this should apply to all those who currently receive benefits and are “economically inactive”*, which it suggests will “support more of them into work”.
This would mean disabled people who currently do not have to engage with the department and its work coaches – for health or disability-related reasons – would be forced to do so, although the report says there would be less emphasis on “tough conditionality rules” for those with “complex barriers to overcome in order to return to work”.
Kendall made a similar commitment when she told the launch event: “Under this government there will be obligations to engage with support, look for work and to take jobs when they are offered.”
Among the commission’s other recommendations is for DWP to cut benefits for disabled people who are out-of-work – except for those with “severe disabilities” – to “close the financial gap between incapacity and unemployment benefits”.
Although Kendall did not call for cuts to out-of-work disability benefits, she did tell the launch that “spiralling economic inactivity” was “bad for our public finances”, and she pointed to steep rises in spending on “sickness and disability benefits”, adding: “Imagine what a fraction of that money could do instead.”
Despite its calls to force more disabled people into work – and to cut benefits – the report completely ignores the serious safeguarding issues within DWP, including those linked to the work capability assessment (WCA) process and universal credit and associated with efforts to pressure disabled people into work or work-related activity.
Kendall and her party have themselves repeatedly ignored the DWP safeguarding issue in the lead-up to the election, and since they won power.
Milburn’s report also calls for local health services to be “better integrated with employment support services and… focussed on the major health conditions that are driving rising rates of economic inactivity”.
Earlier this month, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said his department would “expand its focus to boost economic growth”, while Kendall told MPs this week that she wanted local areas to have the “resources to design a joined-up work, health and skills offer… as a key part of their local growth plans”.
Disability News Service (DNS) established yesterday (Wednesday) that not a single disabled people’s organisation is listed as a contributor to the commission’s work, and that none of its 12 commissioners self-describes as a disabled person in their profiles on the commission website.
Instead, the list of “contributors” includes a swathe of employers’ organisations, thinktanks, public bodies, and businesses.
The commission was funded by Barnsley council and South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority.
DNS pointed out to the council yesterday that countless deaths have been linked to DWP’s actions over the last 14 years, including suicides of universal credit claimants and those forced through the WCA process.
But despite the report calling for reform of the WCA and for “more regular reviews of work capability” through the “duty to engage”, there is no mention of the potential risks to disabled claimants.
The only mention of “safeguarding” is when it refers to “safeguarding the economic prospects of Barnsley’s residents”, and there is no reference to harm, safety, and deaths linked to DWP activity, including reports by coroners calling for action by DWP to prevent further deaths.
There are multiple mentions of “risk” in the commission’s report, but they relate to the risk of falling out of work, the risk of becoming economically inactive, and the risk of employing people who have been out of work for a long time, with no mention of the risk of harm caused by DWP’s actions.
Kendall also failed to mention the risk of harm in her speech, and she is not believed to have spoken publicly about that concern since the election.
A Barnsley council spokesperson said: “The focus of the report was primarily on understanding who is out of work, who needs help to work, and what helps people to work.
“As you can imagine, a wide range of evidence on what helps people to work was considered and our commissioners worked together to simplify and identify the most critical issues in raising labour market participation.”
Asked about engagement with disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), it said that a local disability charity, DIAL Barnsley, helped it “platform the voices and concerns of disabled people through 1-1s and a focus group” – DIAL Barnsley describes itself as a user-led organisation – but DIAL is not mentioned in the report’s list of contributors.
The council said the commission did speak to more than 400 disabled residents as part of its research, and it said its commissioners were chosen by Milburn “in order to cover a broad range of professional experiences”.
On Monday, during the debate on the king’s speech, Kendall claimed that 2.8 million people were “locked out of the workplace due to poor health” and that her government would “cut NHS waiting times, improve mental health support and transform skills and childcare to tackle the root causes of the problem, and fix the foundations for work, not just paper over the cracks”.
She said DWP would “drive down economic inactivity through new local work, health and skills plans led by mayors and local areas”.
She added: “Under this government, there will be obligations to engage with support, look for work and take jobs when they are offered, as there always have been since the original Beveridge report, but there will be no more divisive, derogatory rhetoric or claiming that people just think that they are too bluesy to work.”
Labour’s Debbie Abrahams warned fellow MPs that there were many disabled people “for whom the possibility of working is unrealistic” and she said that “disabled people have been absolutely battered by consecutive Conservative governments”.
She said: “We need to ensure that the right to adequate social protection and social security is in place, and we know that is not the case at the moment.
“We must do better, not just in changing the culture of the Department for Work and Pensions, but in recognising the extra costs, the fear and the poverty disabled people face and feel, because otherwise I fear that we will be seeing more deaths of disabled claimants.”
*Economically inactive people are disabled people and others, such as students and carers, who are not actively seeking work
25 July 2024
High court case poses challenge to new government’s commitment to disability justice and co-production
A disabled campaigner helped to challenge the new government in the high court this week over the impact of accelerating climate change, and its commitment to co-producing policy with disabled people and their organisations.
Doug Paulley, and fellow disabled activist Kevin Jordan, have joined with Friends of the Earth to challenge the UK government’s failure to protect people, property and infrastructure from climate change’s foreseeable impacts.
They were at the high court in London for a two-day hearing as their lawyers argued that the current version of the government’s National Adaptation Programme (NAP) was unlawful and breached both the Climate Change Act and the Human Rights Act.
A judgement is expected within weeks.
Jordan was made homeless shortly before last Christmas, when his house in Hemsby, Norfolk, was demolished after coastal erosion fuelled by sea level rise and severe storms caused by climate change put it in severe danger of falling into the sea.
Paulley is better known as a disability rights campaigner, particularly on accessible transport, but he was an environmental campaigner before he became a disability rights activist, and he has a degree in geophysics and previously worked for the Environment Agency.
He told Disability News Service, during a break on the first day of the two-day hearing, that the case would challenge the new Labour government’s pledge to put disabled people and their organisations at the heart of producing disability-related policy.
He said the change of government from Conservative to Labour was a “significant difference” since they filed the case last October.
And he said the new government had “hit the ground running” when it came to environmental policy but had so far failed to show the same commitment on disability rights.
He added: “I just hope it rubs off into some form of commitment to disability rights and justice.”
Asked for his message to Keir Starmer, the prime minister, he said: “Please rewrite the climate adaptation plan, involving disabled people properly from the start, and do it quick.
“Genuine involvement, please… and proper stuff that we can hold them to [account on].”
He said: “People are suffering and dying, and disabled people disproportionately so.
“It’s always the people who can least afford to adapt who have to adapt or suffer, which is disgraceful.
“We saw the excess deaths from the 2022 European heatwave, and we saw what happened with Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and with Covid.”
He said disabled people were disproportionately affected by the impacts of climate change but had been “badly let down” by the last government’s NAP.
Paulley said the Conservative government’s NAP completely failed to address the threats disabled people face from extreme weather, such as flooding and heatwaves, and power cuts during storms.
He said: “The lack of planning makes me fearful that in an emergency disabled people won’t be properly protected.”
Their legal case also argues that searing summer temperatures significantly impact him because of long-term health conditions that make him susceptible to over-heating, causing distress and discomfort, and risking serious harm.
Friends of the Earth’s lawyers argued this week that the current NAP breaches the Climate Change Act and the human rights of Paulley and Jordan, and that marginalised groups – including older and disabled people – are disproportionately affected by the impacts of the climate crisis.
They also argue that the government failed to properly assess the equality impacts of its adaptation plans.
Jordan said before the hearing: “I was told my house would be safe for a century, but 14 years after moving in it had to be demolished due to the accelerating rate of coastal erosion.
“The government’s adaptation plans are completely inadequate for dealing with the threat that climate change [poses] to people and the economy.
“The National Adaptation Programme should be ripped up and replaced with a new plan that better protects us all from the escalating impacts of the climate crisis.”
Last week, the statutory Climate Change Committee, which advises the UK and devolved governments, called on ministers in the new government to strengthen the NAP, having previously warned that it “falls far short of what is required” and that evidence of the UK’s “inadequate response to worsening climate impacts continues to mount”.
Friends of the Earth climate campaigner Alison Dilworth said this week: “Labour must deliver on its pre-election pledge to improve resilience and preparation by urgently drawing up a much tougher climate adaptation programme to prepare the UK for the enormous challenges of a dangerously warming planet, with those most affected involved in its planning.”
Rowan Smith, from solicitors Leigh Day, which is representing the claimants, said before the hearing: “For the first time in UK legal history, the high court will have to determine whether the government’s policy to adapt to climate change is lawful, including as to whether our clients’ human rights have been breached.
“This is a truly landmark climate change case, which is likely to have far reaching implications for generations to come.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said: “The climate and nature crises are the greatest long-term global challenge we face as a nation.
“As we transition to become a clean energy economy and stride towards net zero, we must also take robust action to prepare for the impacts of a changing climate.
“This government will ensure that the UK is prepared for these changes by strengthening resilience across government and local communities.
“We will waste no time in delivering on this by improving the durability of our infrastructure, enhancing protections against flooding and planting millions of trees all while turbocharging green growth.”
He said the department could not comment further because of the ongoing court case.
Meanwhile, Paulley has praised early signs that access has improved for disabled people attending cases at the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ) in London, where the hearing took place this week.
This compares with past “terrible experiences”, including disabled claimants being offered either a room with wheelchair access or a room with a working hearing loop, wheelchairs being taken apart by security, and assistance dogs being refused entry.
A group of disabled people had taken a legal case against RCJ, and it was settled out of court after a promise to improve access arrangements, which Paulley said it seemed to have done so far.
25 July 2024
First Covid inquiry report ‘shows criminally negligent’ attitude of previous governments
The first report of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry has shown how successive governments displayed a “criminally negligent” attitude towards protecting disabled people and other groups at risk from pandemics, according to disabled campaigners.
Disabled people’s organisations said this week that it was no surprise that the report concludes that years of pre-pandemic planning exercises had failed to take enough account of people with pre-existing health conditions, those living in deprivation, and those from minority ethnic communities.
The report says that emergency planning “generally failed to account sufficiently for the pre-existing health and societal inequalities and deprivation in society”.
And it says there was a failure to “appreciate the full extent” of the impact of government measures and long-term risks from the Covid pandemic on minority ethnic communities and those with “poor health or other vulnerabilities”.
The report also says there was “a failure to engage appropriately with those who know their communities best, such as local authorities, the voluntary sector and community groups”.
It concludes: “When the pandemic struck, many of those who suffered and many of those who died were already vulnerable.
“The evidence from several voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations was that both the disease and the response to the emergency had a disproportionate impact on vulnerable people.”
The report says it will be “critical” now to “identify which groups of vulnerable people are likely to be hardest hit by a pandemic and the reasons why”.
Of the 10 recommendations made by the inquiry at the end of the first module of the inquiry – which examined the country’s resilience and preparedness for the pandemic – six mentioned “vulnerable people”.
Among its recommendations is for there to be a new UK-wide civil emergency strategy to assess the potential health, social and economic impacts of future emergencies on vulnerable people.
It says the government should also prepare research – to be launched in the event of a future pandemic – to identify “which groups of vulnerable people are hardest hit by the pandemic and why”.
And it says that future UK-wide pandemic response exercises should “consider how a broad range of vulnerable people will be helped in the event of a pandemic”.
It also calls on the government to set up a UK-wide independent body for “civil emergency preparedness and resilience”, which – among its responsibilities – should consult with the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector and directors of public health on the “protection of vulnerable people in whole-system civil emergencies”.
But the report also makes it clear that the definitions of “vulnerable” and “vulnerability” used in the government’s pandemic guidance were “were too vague to have any utility” and that there should be “a single definition of vulnerability for the UK government and devolved administrations”.
Rick Burgess, a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, highlighted how expert witnesses who examined a sample of 12 exercises that had been carried out into pandemic preparedness in the years before Covid struck the UK “did not find any mention of the particular needs of vulnerable people”, even though “previous pandemics had exposed and exacerbated health inequalities”.
He said the report showed the government “had for a very long time ignored its legal responsibilities towards disabled people (and other at-risk groups) in pandemic planning.
“This confirms both an urgent need for a social model approach in government but also that all previous administrations treated us as disposable to a criminally negligent degree.
“Will future planning be with disabled people and our organisations, and will there be legal consequences for the historic negligence by the state?”
Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK (DR UK), said: “With almost 60 per cent of Covid deaths being those of disabled people, it is hardly surprising that the Covid inquiry found that pre-pandemic planning failed to take sufficient account of those with pre-existing conditions, those living in deprivation or those from minority ethnic communities.
“In addition, the inquiry recognised the slowdown in health improvement and widening health inequalities that formed the backdrop to the pandemic, along with health and social care services that were struggling even in normal times.”
He said that several of the issues that emerged during the inquiry’s first module were “extremely likely to feature in future reports” from the inquiry.
DR UK was not a core participant in the first module, but it was in the second module and it provided evidence of “the lack of cross-government planning, the lack of data and the absence of engagement with communities most affected”.
Mallick said: “Whilst we argued these points in respect of disabled people, they all emerge as general points in this first report.”
He particularly welcomed the report’s recommendation to set up an independent statutory body for “whole-system civil emergency preparedness, resilience, and response”.
And he stressed the importance of ensuring that the government consults with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations on how to implement the recommendations.
Lara Wong, founder of the support group Clinically Vulnerable Families, said the report had “starkly highlighted the nation’s insufficient pandemic preparedness, severely affecting clinically vulnerable people”.
She said: “Both clinically vulnerable and disabled people’s organisations (CVPOs and DPOs) were notably absent as core participants in this first module, undermining the representation from those most at risk in pandemics.
“While a few national DPOs and CVPOs have been granted core participant status for subsequent modules, the inquiry should have considered the voices of those at most risk regarding preparedness for future pandemics.”
She said the needs of clinically vulnerable people remained “insufficiently addressed” by the inquiry.
She added: “We urgently need inclusive emergency planning that specifically considers the requirements of all vulnerable groups, ensuring equitable healthcare and support during health crises.
“Clinically Vulnerable Families are keen for the inquiry’s recommendations to be implemented promptly and inclusively.
“This should involve direct engagement with both clinically vulnerable and disabled communities to ensure our voices are heard and needs are prioritised in future emergency preparedness plans in order to build a more resilient and equitable public health system.”
The new Labour MP for Ealing Southall, Deirdre Costigan, asked in a Commons debate on the inquiry report about the “deep structural inequalities in the health of the nation, after years of Conservative inaction, that caused us to be less prepared for COVID-19, and that ultimately led to unnecessary deaths”.
Pat McFadden, a senior Cabinet Office minister, said he agreed that “the inequalities exposed in the pandemic made the response weaker than it might have been”.
He told MPs: “If we are to be stronger and better able to handle an emergency like this in the future, we have to address those inequalities.”
He had said earlier that the pandemic exposed “the cracks in our society”.
He said: “The inquiry’s report recommends improvements in the way whole-system risks are assessed and managed across the UK government and the devolved governments, and improvements to the leadership and oversight provided by ministers.
“The government will carefully consider all the findings and recommendations, including any from the Grenfell inquiry that also have a bearing on resilience planning.
“We will respond in full within six months.”
*There are accessible versions of the report’s summary available, while the inquiry says there is a PDF version of the full report that is accessible to users of assistive technology; the translation function on the inquiry’s website translates from English to 11 other languages; and the HTML version is accessible to those using assistive technology or browser accessibility features. A 20pt large print version of the report is available on request from the inquiry
25 July 2024
DWP claims missing stats on secret deaths investigations in annual report was just an error
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has claimed that the omission from its annual report of potentially damaging statistics about deaths linked to universal credit was just an error.
The figures would have shown how many deaths linked to universal credit the department investigated in 2023-24 through its system of secret internal process reviews (IPRs).
Disability News Service (DNS) reported only last week that DWP had been ordered by the information commissioner to release figures showing how many IPRs – internal investigations into deaths and other serious cases linked to DWP’s actions – were carried out into the deaths of universal credit claimants over the last four years.
The information commissioner’s ruling is set to highlight the commitment to transparency of the new disability minister, Sir Stephen Timms.
He repeatedly clashed with work and pensions ministers over their failure to release critical information to the public when he was the chair of the Commons work and pensions committee.
Now he is a DWP minister himself, and responsible for IPRs and universal credit.
DWP looked set to reveal in its annual report and accounts how many cases involving universal credit claimants were accepted for an IPR during 2023-24.
The report, which was published on Monday, introduced the figures on page 80, stating: “The chart below shows the primary service lines relating to the customers’ cases accepted to IPR across 2023-24.”
But there is no chart in the report that provides that information.
This suggests that the department removed the information – perhaps following the information commissioner’s decision – and then forgot to delete the reference to the figures.
Despite the annual report and accounts detailing the performance of the department under the leadership of the previous Conservative government, the new Labour-led DWP refused this week to produce a statement on the missing figures.
But it claimed the failure to include the figures linking universal credit and other benefits with claimant deaths was just an error, and that it was hoping to add the missing data as soon as possible.
The report reveals that 53 cases were accepted for an IPR in 2023-24 – with 40 of these relating to the death of a claimant – but it does not say how many of these related to universal credit claimants.
The 400-plus page report provides further evidence of the difficulty of the task facing Timms and his fellow Labour work and pensions ministers.
The number of complaints received by DWP that related to disability services rose by 30 per cent (from 650 to 845) between the first three months of 2023 and the same period in 2024.
Meanwhile, the number of complaints about DWP received by the Independent Complaints Examiner (ICE) – the next level of the complaints process – rose by 19 per cent between 2022-23 and 2023-24 (from 4,732 to 5,634), and the number of complaints partially or fully upheld by ICE rose by 30 per cent over the same period (from 578 to 754).
The report also shows how the department is struggling to cut the delays new claimants face when applying for some benefits.
Only 3.5 per cent of claims for disability living allowance (for children) were processed within “planned timescales”, while the percentage for personal independence payment (PIP) was just 51.7 per cent within the expected 75 working days (although this was higher than the 38.4 per cent in 2022-23).
For employment and support allowance, it fell from 47.4 per cent in 2022-23 to 39.5 per cent in 2023-24.
The report claims that “continued high demand has meant that the Department’s ability to process claims consistently in a timely manner across all its services has come under considerable pressure”.
Meanwhile, a report from the National Audit Office (NAO) has added to concerns about DWP’s performance, as Labour takes control of the department after its general election victory.
The report by the public spending watchdog on DWP customer service concludes: “Faced with growing demand and a challenging operational context, DWP’s customer service has fallen short of the expected standards over recent years, particularly for certain benefits, such as PIP.
“It is generally not meeting its performance benchmarks or standards for customer satisfaction, payment timeliness and answering calls to its in-house telephone lines.”
It found that the average time DWP took to answer calls to its in‑house phone lines in 2023-24 was 15 minutes and 23 seconds.
In 2023-24, NAO estimated that DWP customers spent the equivalent of 753 years waiting for their calls to be answered, with 652 years waiting on DWP’s in-house lines and 102 years on outsourced phone lines.
Despite repeated concerns being raised in recent months about safeguarding and the safety of universal credit, none of the main political parties mentioned the issue in their election manifestos.
Earlier this month, DNS described how repeated failures by DWP led to the death of a disabled woman, Nazerine Anderson, after her case was randomly selected for a “performance measurement review” of her universal credit claim.
Last November, another coroner wrote to the department after the death of Kevin Gale, to warn DWP that it needed to act to prevent flaws in the universal credit system leading to further deaths, after Gale took his own life after becoming overwhelmed by the universal credit application process.
And in November 2022, DNS reported how a disabled woman left traumatised by the daily demands of universal credit took her own life just four days after being told she would need to attend a face-to-face meeting with a work coach. Her inquest has yet to take place.
In May, DNS reported how two-thirds of DWP staff still do not have enough time to deal with safeguarding concerns “carefully” and “correctly”, despite years of deaths of benefit claimants linked to DWP’s failings.
And last December, a dossier of evidence submitted by the PCS union to DWP showed the department to be a failing organisation in a “state of crisis” and facing a “near collapse” of its benefits systems, with staff accusing DWP of “deliberate neglect” and revealing that claimants in vulnerable situations were “falling through the gaps” in the system.
The rollout of universal credit to the remaining hundreds of thousands of disabled people still receiving income-related employment and support allowance will begin in September.
*The Department, DNS editor John Pring’s book on DWP and how its actions led to countless deaths of disabled people in the post-2010 era, will be published by Pluto Press on 20 August. Visit TheDepartmentBook.com before publication for a 50 per cent discount
25 July 2024
Government silence on new flight rights laws, after documentary exposes discrimination
The new government has refused to say if it will introduce laws aimed at improving protection for disabled air passengers, after a powerful new documentary exposed the repeated discrimination they face.
Sophie Morgan’s Fight to Fly, broadcast on Monday by Channel 4, sees the disabled television presenter investigate the abuse, dehumanising treatment, damaged equipment and even physical harm experienced by wheelchair-users who travel by air.
The Conservative government promised last year to introduce new laws that would address many of the issues raised in the programme, but only when “parliamentary time allows”.
Those laws would have removed the limit on compensation paid by airlines that damage wheelchairs or other mobility aids on domestic UK flights, and boosted the powers of the industry regulator, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), allowing it to impose fines for the first time.
But the Conservative government never introduced the legislation, and left it out of its election manifesto, and now Labour ministers are facing the same pressure to act.
Having also failed to include the measures in its manifesto, or this month’s king’s speech, the Labour-run Department for Transport refused to say this week if it would bring in the legislation.
Morgan makes it clear in the documentary that the key barriers she and other disabled passengers face are “attitudinal”.
She says disabled travellers are “treated like second-class citizens” and “regularly feel they’re victims of discrimination”.
She says: “I have to travel the world for my job, but almost every flight is a battle.”
The programme includes three groups of disabled activists who secretly film their experiences on flights to and from UK airports.
They are seen being abandoned on planes, forced to crawl to the toilet on a flight because there is no aisle chair provided by the airline, and being physically harmed by airport staff.
Two of the activists are delayed in an airport because their airline has lost the information they provided in advance about the size of their wheelchairs, and they are then blamed publicly once they board for delaying the flight.
Morgan attends a conference in Paris with managers responsible for “special assistance services” for disabled passengers and finds she is the only person there with a physical impairment.
She says: “These things have been going on for years without disabled people at them. It just feels a bit icky to me.”
Morgan also questions in the documentary why airlines have so far failed to design their aircraft to allow disabled people to stay in their wheelchairs on flights, and she speaks to one consortium in the US that has designed a way to make that happen, a simple design that she describes as life-changing.
She says: “The next generation of disabled people will not have to deal with the trauma and the abuse that disabled people have been dealing with for decades because of this one space on board an aircraft.
“All I need to do now is convince the airlines to take action and to treat us as equals worthy of the space.”
The Department for Transport refused to comment on the documentary or say if it would take on the pledge made by the last government to introduce laws to improve the protection offered to disabled air passengers.
But transport secretary Louise Haigh said in a statement: “Everyone has the right to travel and be treated with dignity and it is vital that flying is an accessible, safe and enjoyable experience for all.
“We are committed to working closely with industry and stakeholders to make progress in enhancing the accessibility of aviation.”
CAA had not commented on the documentary or the need for new legislation by 11am today (Thursday), although it made it clear that it would like stronger enforcement powers.
It also pointed to information on its website for disabled air travellers.
25 July 2024
Labour’s DWP set to continue with appeal linked to scrapping of ‘fit for work’ test
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is set to continue with an appeal against a watchdog’s decision that it should release vital information about plans to scrap the work capability assessment (WCA).
Government lawyers are set to argue in the appeal tribunal in the next couple of months that the information commissioner was wrong to order it to release the written assessment of how the decision to abolish the test will impact disabled people and other groups protected under the Equality Act.
The information commissioner decided last year that the department should release the equality impact assessment (EIA) because “the public is entitled to scrutinise a decision such as this at an early opportunity”.
Disability News Service (DNS) has been seeking the information from DWP since March 2023, after the move to scrap the WCA was announced in the 2023 spring budget, with details included in the government’s Transforming Support white paper.
But despite DWP now being run by a Labour government, there is no sign that it will release the Conservative EIA.
This could add to fears that the new government has no plans to scrap Conservative work and pensions policies such as abolishing the WCA, tightening the assessment in the short term, or reforming personal independent payment.
When DNS asked the department this week if the new disability minister, Sir Stephen Timms, agreed with the decision to waste money on fighting the decision, even though it was taken by the last government, a DWP spokesperson said the department would not be commenting on ongoing legal matters.
And when DNS asked for clarity on whether the department planned to continue fighting the information commissioner’s decision, the spokesperson said DWP had nothing further to add.
Under the last government’s plans, disabled people who cannot work will only be able to qualify for a new health element of universal credit if they also receive personal independence payment (PIP), disability living allowance, or, in Scotland, adult disability payment.
This would also mean that it would be left to DWP’s over-worked work coaches – who will usually have no health-related qualifications – to decide if a disabled person should carry out work-related activity.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) said last year that it considered that DWP “has failed to consider the strength of the public interest in the timely understanding and scrutiny of the decision to remove the Work Capability Assessment”.
It said there was “a particularly strong public interest in disclosure of information relating to disability benefits reform”.
DWP told ICO that the policy was “still in the development phase”, despite having announced that the WCA would be scrapped after the next election, and it claimed that there were “still a number of policy decisions to be made”, including how it would support disabled claimants who do not receive PIP.
DWP said it accepted that the information requested by DNS “could benefit claimants and stakeholders to help them understand what a reformed system may look like” but “considered that this would be based on incomplete and in development information, and therefore this would limit the value of the information”.
DNS had told ICO that the WCA has been “closely linked to the deaths of hundreds of disabled people” and that the plans to scrap it could lead to further deaths of disabled claimants.
The information commissioner concluded that DWP “has not provided compelling arguments regarding how the specific policy named would be undermined by disclosure of the disputed information”.
25 July 2024
Labour’s Cabinet Office refuses to release information on Tory Disability Action Plan
The Cabinet Office has refused to release information that would confirm how little the last government was planning to spend on its much-criticised short-term plan that it claimed would improve disabled people’s lives.
The plan, which contained 32 actions across 14 areas, was launched in February by Mims Davies, the Conservative minister for disabled people, following a 12-week public consultation.
But now the new Labour government is refusing to release details about how much – or how little – the Conservative government thought its Disability Action Plan would cost to implement.
The refusal is important, because it adds to evidence (see separate story) that the new Labour government is set to continue the Conservative policy of refusing to release key information about its policies to address disability inequality.
The Conservative government claimed earlier this year that its plan set out the “immediate action” it would take in 2024 to “improve disabled people’s lives, laying the foundations for longer term change, and complementing the long-term vision set out in [its National Disability Strategy]”.
But all 32 actions appeared to be low- or zero-budget measures, and the plan was described by disabled people’s organisations as “lacklustre”, “weak”, and just a list of “empty promises”.
Disability News Service (DNS) submitted a freedom of information request in February for the cost of each of the 32 policies included in the plan, but the Cabinet Office said it did not have this information.
It later admitted it had made an “initial assessment of estimated costs”.
DNS submitted a fresh request seeking this “initial assessment”, but the Cabinet Office – after initially delaying its response until after the general election – has now refused to release this information.
The now Labour-controlled Cabinet Office claimed that providing the estimated cost of the last government’s Disability Action Plan would “weaken Ministers’ ability to discuss controversial and sensitive topics free from premature public scrutiny”.
It admitted that there was “a general public interest in disclosure of information and we recognise that openness in government may increase public trust in and engagement with the government”.
But it said it had concluded that “the balance of the public interest favours withholding this information”.
DNS has now requested a review of this decision.
A spokesperson for the Cabinet Office’s Equality Hub declined to add to its freedom of information response.
25 July 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
A bill to legalise assisted suicide is to be introduced in the House of Lords tomorrow (Friday). The private members’ bill, put forward by Labour peer Lord Falconer, was selected in a ballot. The prime minister, Keir Starmer, has pledged to allow a free vote on changing the law. If the bill is passed by the Lords, Starmer has suggested he will make time for MPs to vote on it: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-assisted-dying-could-become-33283396
Isolation booths, frequent suspensions and strict behaviour regimes look set to be phased out in England as the Labour government shifts focus on how to keep the most “vulnerable” pupils in school. Education leaders close to the new government say ministers are planning to change the inspection regime so all schools are judged on whether they are representative of their local community, and are aiming to stop schools telling parents their child with special educational needs would be better off at another school, or being repeatedly suspended because they aren’t meeting strict behaviour rules: https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jul/20/english-schools-to-phase-out-cruel-behaviour-rules-as-labour-plans-major-education-changes
An “amazing” foster dad took his own life one week before he was due to be evicted after going into arrears over the bedroom tax, an inquest heard. Lee McHale’s devastated family believe his death could have been avoided. A coroner sent a prevention of future deaths report to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities the day before the general election, warning others could die in similar circumstances if it failed to take action: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/tragedy-beloved-dad-takes-life-33287932
A woman given the Freedom of the City of London for her disability campaigning says it is “absurd” she was unable to collect the award on stage due to not being offered an accessible ramp. Anna Landre was fighting back tears during the Mansion House ceremony on Friday. Landre, a wheelchair-using activist, researcher and consultant, said: “It’s the absolute irony to be granted the Freedom of the City but not the freedom of the room. You couldn’t make it up.”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp4wjvr127wo
25 July 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
