Contents
Co-production ‘will not be possible without funding from government’ 7
Lib Dem conference: Party ‘must campaign to save social care and NHS like our lives depend on it’ 12
Lib Dem conference: Rising star calls on their party to ‘walk the walk’ on disability 16
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 18
Hundreds of thousands face ‘starve or freeze’ decision after winter fuel payments cut, say disabled activists
Disabled activists say Labour’s plans to means-test winter fuel payments will leave many current recipients having to decide “whether to starve or freeze”, after the government admitted that 1.6 million disabled people were likely to lose their entitlement.
Government figures showed that its plans to means-test the payment would disproportionately affect disabled people.
Although two brief assessments of the impact of the changes on disabled people and other groups were released on Friday, the government has refused to carry out a broader impact assessment of the policy because it said it could see no “significant” impact on the private, public or voluntary sectors.
The Disability Poverty Campaign Group (DPCG), which is led by Disability Rights UK and Inclusion London, said this conclusion was “thoroughly inadequate”, and it called for the cuts to be reversed, and for a full national equality impact assessment of all recent social security cuts and reforms.
It said this would “expose the cumulative impact of repeated cuts on disabled people” and other groups protected under the Equality Act.
DWP released the equality impact assessment of the policy on Friday in response to a freedom of information request.
It concluded that about 71 per cent (1.6 million) of disabled people who currently receive the annual payment would now lose that entitlement.
In a response to a separate freedom of information request, the Treasury released its own equality impact assessment, which it said was “part of advice provided to the Chancellor of the Exchequer ahead of her decision to target the Winter Fuel Payment”.
It concluded that the measure would “disproportionally negatively” affect disabled people, as pensioners “are more likely to have a disability than the rest of the population (54 per cent vs 13 per cent)”.
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) yesterday (Wednesday) pointed to the expenses claimed by two ministers at the heart of the decision, chancellor Rachel Reeves and work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall.
The expenses claimed by Reeves from the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority for energy costs at her second home reached nearly £1,500 in 2023-24.
Kendall claimed even more, with official figures showing she claimed £3,104 for energy costs at her second home in 2023-24, more than 10 times the annual winter fuel payment for those over 80.
The payment is currently a “universal” benefit, paid every November or December to everyone over the state pension age, with £200 paid to people aged between 66 and 79 and £300 to those aged 80 and over.
But Reeves announced in July that the government would restrict the payment to those receiving pension credit, and some other income-related benefits available to older people.
Earlier this month, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) launched a campaign to encourage take-up of pension credit, with up to 880,000 pensioners currently not claiming the benefit – worth an average £3,900 per year – despite being entitled to it.
About 780,000 of these older people are expected to be eligible for pension credit but to continue not to claim it, and will therefore also miss out on winter fuel payment.
Bob Ellard, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said: “Removing the winter fuel payment from older people who are currently just about able to cope, will push them into the trap of deciding whether to starve or freeze.
“As has been widely commented, many people who are eligible for pension credit, don’t claim, not least because of the length and complexity of the forms needed to apply.
“This is Labour punching down to people who can’t fight back; it will end up with people dying in destitution.
“It’s disgusting, revolting, and Starmer, Reeves and all of Labour ought to be ashamed.”
DPCG said yesterday that it was “extremely concerned that such a major change to policy was pushed through so quickly, without adequate scrutiny”.
It said the changes would be “extremely regressive” because people experiencing digital exclusion and loneliness were likely to find it particularly hard to apply for pension credit in time to receive the winter fuel payment, as would older people with learning difficulties or mental distress.
DPCG said the policy would lead to increased winter deaths among older people, more hospitalisations, and probably an increase in non-payment of fuel bills and demand for food and energy banks.
19 September 2024
Lib Dem conference: Government ‘should consider criminalising disability discrimination’, says disabled MP
One of parliament’s new disabled MPs has suggested that the government should consider criminalising disability discrimination, because of the difficulty disabled people face in enforcing the Equality Act.
Liberal Democrat Steve Darling was speaking to Disability News Service (DNS) at his party’s annual conference in Brighton this week.
As a guide dog-user, with a wife who also has a guide dog, he has experienced repeated discrimination when trying to access services such as hotels, restaurants and taxis, including when trying to hire a taxi in Brighton on the way to the conference.
Although he said the Equality Act was “great in principle”, he said it relies on disabled people taking legal action themselves to enforce it – as he has himself – and they often do not have the resources to take a case forward.
He is planning to ask questions in parliament to try to probe how well the Equality Act is working.
Although he is not yet ready to call for criminalisation of discrimination, he says “it has got to be on the agenda”.
He wants the new government to “give some serious consideration as to how people can be supported in this area, and whether that includes criminalisation”.
He was speaking before Liberal Democrat party leader Ed Davey appointed him yesterday (Wednesday) as the party’s new work and pensions spokesperson.
Although he told DNS that championing his local community – Torbay – would be the “backbone” of his work and that he did not want to be “defined by my disability”, he also said he would be “quite happy to stand up and be counted on certain issues”, and has already spoken up publicly on discrimination by hotels against guests with guide dogs.
Darling, who was leader of Torbay council in Devon between 2019 and 2023, said his campaigning priorities in parliament were likely to be keeping sewage out of the sea – as a keen sea kayaker and swimmer, and MP for the “English Riviera” – the NHS and social care, and the cost-of-living crisis.
But, he said, one of the things that “gets me up in the morning is affordable housing, and the desperate need for social rented housing” – in Torbay, there is a significant shortage – while he told DNS he would hope to ask questions in parliament on accessible housing, and on the “serious issue” of safeguarding concerns around universal credit.
Another issue he said was “really important” and “close to my heart”, as someone who was adopted as a baby in Birmingham and 15 years ago tracked down his birth mother – who by coincidence had also moved to south Devon, just six miles away from where he lived – is children’s services, including fostering and adoption.
When leading Torbay council, he improved children’s services from “failing” to “good” in just two years.
And having a “bit of a messy background” means that care-experienced young people and issues around supporting families “are really important to me”, he said.
His experience of running Torbay council for four years and being a local councillor for 30 years means he is “immersed” in the area and knows “an awful lot of people in Torbay” and the “key players”, so he believes he will be able to “hit the ground running as the new MP”.
Darling is highly complimentary about the work of the “really helpful” House of Commons staff and their “very, very strong” customer service ethos, and he said the parliamentary authorities had “bent over backwards” to support him as a new disabled MP.
Despite that support, he said there were still access issues within parliament, such as the lack of clear signage.
He compares the experience of being a new MP to being “shot off into space” with only “half the controls around you, if that” while “there might be a wheel missing off the aircraft, and probably half a wing”.
He had hoped to be settled in and up to date with casework by the middle of August but now fears it could take him until Christmas, thanks to delays with appointing staff, finding a flat in London, and sorting out support workers, while also dealing with the daily “deluge of emails”.
Darling also said he believed figures obtained by DNS through a freedom of information request – which showed at least 43 out of a total of 650 MPs had discussed the possibility of having disability-related adjustments made for them – were “extremely helpful”.
He said: “It’s so important that elected representatives reflect our communities, but it’s also important that there are people, whether on local authorities or in parliament, who have a lived experience and can bring their experiences to bear on legislation or reports that are being discussed.”
19 September 2024
Labour makes ‘unthinkable’ and ‘exclusionary’ decision to sideline disabled people from DWP ‘inactivity’ board
Campaigners have criticised the Labour government’s “hugely disappointing” and “exclusionary” decision to set up a board of experts to examine “economic inactivity” without appointing a single representative of a disabled people’s organisation.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall appears to have failed to appoint any disabled experts to the Labour Market Advisory Board, even though she made it clear that its key aim was tackling the “spiralling inactivity” caused by a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness.
Kendall said: “The board’s knowledge, expertise and insight will help us to rebuild Britain as we deliver our growth mission, drive up opportunity and make every part of the country better off.”
But the eight members of the board, labour market experts from across business, industrial relations and academia, do not appear to include any disabled experts and certainly do not include representatives of any disabled people’s organisations (DPOs).
In its general election manifesto, Labour said it was “committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do”.
But disabled campaigners contacted this week by Disability News Service were united in their frustration at the failure to include any representatives of DPOs, and apparently any disabled people, on the board.
Disabled researcher Stef Benstead, author of Second Class Citizens, which describes the harm caused to disabled people by a decade of cuts and reforms, said: “It should not be thinkable for any modern government department to have an advisory board that does not include representatives of the community impacted by the policy proposals.”
Catherine Hale, consultant researcher at King’s College London and founder of Chronic Illness Inclusion, said: “It’s clear that people with long-term physical and mental health conditions are the key target of this initiative and that their ‘inactivity’ is being framed as the problem.
“For a start, as someone with lived experience of labour market exclusion who is trying to cut through the noise with new research and policy proposals, it is frustrating that this board appears to be made up exclusively of non-disabled economists and policy professionals.
“On top of being marginalised from work, and from society, I and others find ourselves also marginalised from debates about work and our place in it.”
Dan White, policy and campaigns officer for Disability Rights UK, said it was “hugely disappointing that not one disabled people’s organisation or disabled people’s expert representative” was on the board, despite Labour’s past commitments to involving disabled people in developing policy.
He said: “With the government turning its back on lifting people out of poverty and ill health through investing in social security, education, health, social care or social housing, it’s very unlikely that employment programmes alone will work.
“Nevertheless, surely disabled people should be the first port of call for ideas, experience and delivery of programmes.
“Would any other group be left out of an expert board that is focused on their future?”
At its first meeting, the new members of the board apparently offered “new approaches to shape government work on economic inactivity, tackling the root causes for people remaining out of work such as poor physical and mental health, and how the group can help the government reach its ambition of an 80 per cent employment rate”.
Inclusion London said it was “extremely concerned” that disabled people were “once again missing from an important forum where programmes targeting us will be shaped”.
Julia Modern, Inclusion London’s senior policy and campaigns manager, said that, under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the government is obliged to consult with disabled people.
She said: “Doing so also makes policies more likely to succeed – people who experience barriers to work are the best placed to identify them and propose solutions.
“Without our input, the new board will be as ineffective as it is exclusionary.”
Despite the concerns about the lack of involvement of disabled people, there was support for the appointment of Professor Paul Gregg, who has studied the UK labour market for several decades, as chair of the new board.
Gregg conducted a review of personalised support and conditionality in the social security system for the Department for Work and Pensions in 2009 and helped design employment and support allowance (ESA), but was later highly critical of the work capability assessment (WCA), the test used to determine eligibility for ESA and linked with hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths.
Kaliya Franklin, who was a leading member of the grassroots Spartacus Network in the post-2010 years, and spent years researching the flawed WCA, said: “The new government’s focus on labour market participation is to be welcomed after years where the primary policy focus has been how to increase conditionality and punitive sanctions on people with complex, intersectional barriers to work.
“It is positive to see the range of expertise on the board includes people such as Paul Gregg.
“Harnessing the true potential of the labour market is a laudable ambition, particularly given the low rates of employment for disabled people.
“However, the failure to include representation on the board from disabled people, those with caring responsibilities, organisations of or even for disabled people is deeply disappointing.
“It is difficult to see how it will be possible to fulfil that potential when the perspective and expertise of disabled people has been excluded from the very board aiming to address economic inactivity driven by impairment and poor health.”
Professor Ben Baumberg Geiger, co-lead on the work, welfare reform and mental health programme for the ESRC* Centre for Society and Mental Health at King’s College London, who has also welcomed Gregg’s appointment, told DNS: “The Labour Market Advisory Board is a really positive development – a way of getting independent advice from knowledgeable, committed people.
“But it would have been better if the government had included a disabled people’s representative on the board.
“Not only would this be an important signal of listening to disabled people’s voices, but it would have provided crucial expertise to help the board’s work too.
“It’s not too late to fix this.”
In its response to concerns about the make-up of the board, DWP refused to explain why there was no disabled people’s representative on the board.
Instead, a spokesperson said: “We are committed to championing the rights of disabled people so their views and voices are at the heart of all we do.”
*The Economic and Social Research Council
19 September 2024
Co-production ‘will not be possible without funding from government’
The leading disabled people’s organisation (DPO) in Wales has warned the Welsh and UK governments that co-production of policy with disabled people will not be possible if they fail to provide the funding that they and other DPOs need to survive.
Disability Wales spoke out after it reported a “significant” cut in the funding it receives from the Welsh government, which has contributed to its decision to cut the equivalent of two full-time jobs and launch a restructuring process.
Its equality and inclusion grant from the Welsh government has remained “static” for the last six years, but it has also lost additional funding which effectively doubled its grant and enabled it to carry out specific projects, such as responding to the cost-of-living crisis and promoting understanding of the social model of disability.
Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, told Disability News Service that a “bruising” decade and more of austerity, the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis had left her organisation and many local DPOs across the country struggling to survive.
She said: “There is a risk that all the rights we thought we secured 20-odd years ago could slip further back.”
The Welsh government and other public bodies have repeatedly stressed their support for engagement and co-production with disabled people and their organisations.
But Davies said her organisation needed to send a strong message to both the Welsh and UK governments, and other public bodies and funders, that this co-production of policy is not possible without proper funding.
She said: “I think there needs to be that recognition that this engagement with disabled people isn’t going to happen if it is not resourced.”
Because of the funding cuts, Disability Wales now has the equivalent of five full-time members of staff, down from 12 during the pandemic when there was funding for several short-term projects.
As well as a review of its structure, Disability Wales plans to survey its members to ask for their views on how they engage with the organisation and what they think its campaign priorities should be.
Davies urged the Welsh government “to acknowledge the crucial role of disabled people’s organisations and commit to providing essential financial support as a key component” in the draft disability action plan it is set to publish and consult on this autumn.
The action plan follows the work of the Disability Rights Taskforce, set up by the Welsh government following the 2021 publication of the groundbreaking Locked Out report on the discrimination experienced by disabled people in Wales, particularly during the pandemic.
Nearly 40 per cent of disabled people in Wales live in poverty, and nearly seven in 10 of those who died Covid-related deaths during the pandemic were disabled people, compared with about six in 10 in England and Wales.
Disability Wales has played a key role on the Disability Rights Taskforce, with Davies herself chairing its independent living working group, and disabled people making up the majority of the 300-plus people who took part in its work examining barriers in areas such as housing, health and transport.
Davies said she hoped there would be positive announcements on co-production in the draft action plan, and a recognition that Disability Wales and other DPOs need to be funded for the vital work they do.
She added: “Public bodies support co-production, but they don’t invest in it, they don’t recognize that it needs to be resourced to enable people to participate equally, and I think that’s the problem.
“Obviously we’ve been trying to raise these issues through the taskforce, and I would want to see that recognised in the action plan, but this is all set against quite a bleak financial landscape.”
But Davies said that without well-funded DPOs, individual disabled people would not be able to access their rights or influence disability-related policy.
She said: “In order for disabled people to exercise the rights they have, they need to be empowered, they need to know what those rights are, they need to have access to resources that enable them to make those rights a reality.
“That is often the role of DPOs, to provide peer support, to provide information.
“And if that structure is not there, then where do individual disabled people turn?”
*Disability Wales is one of the DPOs that subscribe to Disability News Service
19 September 2024
Lib Dem conference: Party pushes for assisted suicide despite concerns over lack of ‘watertight’ safeguards
Legalising assisted suicide is “the next great Liberal reform”, party members have been told, as the Liberal Democrats appear set to try to force through a change in the law in the coming months, despite continuing concerns over safeguards.
Despite significant anxiety – raised as an issue by Disability News Service and others in a fringe meeting – about the safety of any new laws, there appears to be strong support for such a move within the party.
More than 100 party members who attended the fringe event at the conference in Brighton heard Liberal Democrat MP Christine Jardine compare legalising assisted suicide to other Liberal-led reforms such as legalising abortion and same-sex marriage.
Jardine, the party’s spokesperson on women and equalities, said she wanted to be part of a “historic” moment by helping to force legislation through parliament.
One party member said the fringe meeting was “the most important event” he had attended at the conference, despite the Liberal Democrats celebrating the election of 72 MPs in July.
The campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying insists that it only wants to legalise assisted suicide – which it calls assisted dying – for those who are terminally-ill, but party members at the meeting still questioned why people with dementia or mental distress could not be included under a new law.
Three disabled people did ask questions about safeguards and the fears held by many disabled people about legalisation.
One disabled party member asked: “What are the safeguards in the bill that no mistakes will be made in the decision process between the doctor and the patient?”
Jardine committed herself to supporting new legislation only if the safeguards were “watertight”.
Disability News Service (DNS) pointed out that some supporters of a change in the law had accepted that no safeguards could be watertight, and so some people would inevitably die when they did not actually want to, if the law was introduced.
Professor Tom Shakespeare, a disabled academic who supports legalisation, has previously told DNS that safeguards were “very important” but that “even the best safeguard is not infallible” and “any law can be bypassed”.
When DNS asked the panel of speakers how many such deaths they thought would be acceptable, Jardine promised that she would “not work to get a law through the House of Commons that left any possibility that people’s lives could be lost without their actual consent.
“I don’t think any member of parliament would… go down that route with any bill that comes before us.
“We will not accept the possibility of a law which allows people to die against their will. That won’t happen.
“You have to be very, very careful that it is about individuals themselves, it’s about their will and that the law is absolutely watertight. Otherwise, it’s not acceptable.”
Concerns were also raised by Katharine Macy, who chairs the Liberal Democrat Disability Association (LDDA).
Although Macy is “incredibly, incredibly supportive of assisted dying”, they said many LDDA members “are terrified of this”.
They told DNS later that they had “always felt very strongly [about legalisation] because everyone I love who has died, has died of cancer, and I still have nightmares that my fiancé is alive and still dying”.
They said they were only in favour of assisted suicide for those who were terminally-ill, and that they “a hundred per cent see why most of my members are scared”, because “it feels very close to eugenics” and “if you are disabled, people think your life is not worth living”.
As an autistic person, their PhD is about “how autistic people are vital to our evolution”.
Macy said that the genetics that create the potential for autism have been around for 30 million years.
They said: “We won’t go anywhere, but if some people had their way, we would. And at what point does someone look at someone like me and decide that I’m not worth it?”
They also said that “we cannot allow assisted dying to be legalised without palliative care being good enough that you actually have an option”.
And they said that “disabled people know how awful the social care is, how awful healthcare and how awful palliative care is”.
But they said they still believed that legalising assisted suicide “will do more good than harm”.
The fringe meeting focused strongly on people who are terminally-ill with cancer.
Sophie Blake, a former Sky Sports reporter and a Dignity in Dying campaigner, described her experience of stage four incurable secondary breast cancer, and told the meeting: “A terminal diagnosis is devastating and overwhelming enough but the fear of suffering at the end adds even more trauma.”
She said she had lost family and friends to cancer and told the meeting that the current “dreadful laws” were “outdated and archaic”.
Professor Aneez Esmail, professor of general practice at Manchester University and a Dignity in Dying board member, said he believed assisted suicide should be “just one component of palliative care”.
Rabbi Dr Jonathan Romain, chair of Religious Alliance for Dignity in Dying, who chaired the meeting, repeatedly claimed that the bill did not affect disabled people, apparently suggesting that terminally-ill people are not disabled.
He attacked those who oppose legalisation – which includes many disabled people – telling the meeting that it was “sheer arrogance for one group of people to use their views to determine that other people should [continue living] in pain”.
Jardine said she believed that most of her party’s MPs were “committed to making sure we are at the heart of this”.
But her party’s leader, Sir Ed Davey, has expressed concerns about legalisation, and said this week that he was “a sceptic”.
As a teenager, he cared for his mother when she was dying from bone cancer, and he told Sky News that through nursing and palliative care she was able to “enjoy life” while terminally-ill.
He also raised concerns that older people could feel pressure to seek an assisted suicide because they think they are “a burden”.
His views came as reports suggested that Labour’s prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, wanted to fast-track a private members’ bill that legalised assisted suicide through the Commons, perhaps before Christmas.
In response to those reports, disabled academic Dr Miro Griffiths, from the campaign group Better Way, which opposes legalisation, said: “Reports at the weekend that the government is considering ‘fast-tracking’ an assisted suicide bill through parliament are deeply concerning.
“A change in the law would have profound moral and social implications for the UK. No law should be rushed, and especially a law of this nature.
“If these reports are accurate, we urge the prime minister not to rush through legislation on this matter and meet with a wide range of stakeholders.
“This proposal is particularly concerning to groups representing vulnerable adults, disabled people, and those working tirelessly to prevent suicide.
“We will continue to fight their corner.”
19 September 2024
Lib Dem conference: Party ‘must campaign to save social care and NHS like our lives depend on it’
The Liberal Democrats’ deputy leader has told her party to campaign to save social care and the NHS “like our lives depend on it”.
Daisy Cooper told her party’s annual conference that good health and social services “transform people’s lives” and that the top priority in parliament for Liberal Democrat MPs would be championing “local health and care services”.
Rather than attacking the Labour government’s failure to act on social care funding since winning power in July, she focused her criticism on the Conservatives.
She said successive Conservative governments had broken their promise to fix social care.
She was speaking as her party’s health and social care spokesperson, but was moved to the Treasury role yesterday (Wednesday) and will be replaced by Helen Morgan.
Cooper said her party had put health and care at the forefront of its successful general election campaign – which led to a record-breaking 72 Liberal Democrat MPs – because “decent health and care services are the bedrock of a liberal society”.
She said this was why the Liberal Democrats were calling on the Labour government to “make the autumn budget a budget to save the NHS and care”.
She told the conference: “We Liberal Democrats must continue to campaign to save our NHS and care like our lives depend on it.
“Because I know, and we know, that so many people’s lives really do.”
She said health was about individual freedom and “you don’t have freedom, if you’re ready to leave hospital and go home, but you’re discharged instead to a care home miles away – losing mobility, independence and connection – for the sole reason that there aren’t the care workers to help you recover at home”.
Cooper spoke in detail publicly for the first time about how, 12 years ago, an aggressive form of Crohn’s disease had left her four days from dying, but how the NHS saved her life and “the people who make the NHS what it is gave me my life back”.
The previous day, party members had overwhelmingly backed a motion that called – as the party had during the election campaign – for free personal care, action to support unpaid carers, and a social care workforce plan.
The motion, which included several measures to “save the NHS”, also called again for cross-party talks on sustainable social care funding, and for funding for local authorities to cover the increased costs resulting from these social care measures.
Prue Bray, deputy leader of Wokingham Council and chair of the Association of Liberal Democrat Councillors, said there was a need to “inject enough backbone” into both Labour and the Conservatives to tackle the social care crisis.
She said it was not possible to “fix the NHS without fixing social care”, which “requires cross party commitment to a national funding solution”.
Bray said the cost of adult social care was “one of the main factors cited by councils who feel themselves heading for the cliff edge on a section 114 notice, the equivalent of declaring bankruptcy”.
North Cornwall MP Ben Maguire said Liberal Democrats in parliament “must be more than just a critical friend to this Labour government, who have already demonstrated that social care reform is not top of their agenda” and “must step into the void that the Conservatives have left us while they tear themselves apart”.
Simon Lepori, a councillor with Trafford council, who stood for the party in Wythenshawe and Sale East at the general election and has worked in health and social care for 23 years, supported the motion.
But he said he wanted the party to develop a separate social care motion in time for the next annual conference, rather than one combined with NHS issues, because social care was “a forgotten service”.
Daisy Cooper told the debate that when YouGov polled the popularity of policies in parties’ general election manifestos, the top three were Liberal Democrat policies, and one of them was the pledge to introduce free personal care.
She said the Conservatives had spent their time in government “driving our NHS and care into the ground”.
She added: “Labour have made a start, and we appreciate that their inheritance is dire, but with social care and health services in crisis, more is needed.
“It is now our job to make sure that Labour sticks to the job of repairing the damage and delivering quality care for patients.
“That starts by pressuring them to fix our crumbling hospitals and to end the crisis in social care.”
19 September 2024
Discrimination court win over UK’s ‘worst’ station for assistance ‘shows need for reform and culture change’
A judge has ordered Network Rail to compensate an access campaigner who was abandoned in a waiting-area after booking assistance at a station known among disabled passengers for providing the country’s worst assisted travel service.
Euston, the gateway for services from London to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow, developed a reputation for assistance failures that was so bad that disabled people began using the hashtag #EustonWeHaveAProblem.
Doug Paulley, a leading campaigner on disability rights and accessible transport, won his case against Network Rail this week – and compensation of £1,325 – after taking a case for disability discrimination to the county court.
He and others have been raising concerns about Euston for years, with other disabled passengers branding it “the worst station for assistance in the country”, and an “absolute disgrace”.
Leeds County Court heard that Paulley had booked assistance to help him with his luggage, finding his seat and boarding the sleeper service from Euston to Fort William in Scotland, on the evening of 6 March 2023.
But assistance staff failed to collect him from the first-class lounge, where he had said when booking assistance that he would be waiting, and where disabled passengers staying in accessible rooms on the sleeper service are allowed to wait*.
As a result, he had to make his own way through the crowded station and managed to board with support from the train operator Caledonian Sleeper with just a few minutes to spare before its departure.
Network Rail later claimed that no-one had let their assistance team know that Paulley was waiting, even though he had watched staff call the team from the lounge, and the details of where he would be waiting were included in his booking.
Network Rail had admitted that the much-criticised Passenger Assist mobile phone app and the “conduct” of the passenger assistance team at Euston had “created scope for confusion” over the booking, but it initially denied that its assistance team had been told of his arrival in the first-class lounge.
It eventually admitted during the court hearing that – contrary to what it had claimed in its defence – disabled people who have booked assistance do not have to report to the Euston assisted travel lounge.
Network Rail also eventually admitted that phone calls from the first-class lounge were made to the assistance staff at Euston, and that it had breached its duty to make reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act.
The court found that Network Rail had discriminated against Paulley, and that the incident had “undoubtedly caused stress, anxiety and loss of confidence”, although it found insufficient evidence of a “systemic failing” at Euston.
District judge Royle awarded Paulley £1,325 damages for injury to feelings, due to the discrimination he had experienced through Network Rail failing to escort him to the Caledonian Sleeper.
Paulley told Disability News Service: “It is the busiest station for assistance in the country and it seems to have more than its fair share of unacceptable failures.
“What bothered me wasn’t so much the hassle on the day of waiting for assistance that didn’t arrive and of having to make my own way down to the platform, it was the failure, once again, of the system.
“That system is there solely to supposedly ensure that disabled travellers can have some confidence in being able to travel with comparative ease and in safety.
“We all know that it frequently doesn’t work on the UK rail network, as demonstrated by Tanni the other week, and as so many of us experience in Euston.
“So I felt a dreaded sense of ‘here we go again’ with yet another repeat experience of failed assistance booking at Euston.”
He said he now hoped Network Rail would accept and explain its failure.
But he said what was really needed was “full reform”, with the introduction of level boarding, “scrapping Euston and starting again”, and a culture change so that a breach of passenger assistance is seen as “as much a critical incident as passing a signal at danger”.
But he added: “That won’t happen any time soon, though, so in the meantime, I’m looking forward to seeing their cheque; as I will every time they do an assistance fail.”
Network Rail had not responded to requests to comment on the case by noon today (Thursday).
*Disabled passengers are allowed to wait in the lounge because it includes an accessible shower, whereas the showers on the Caledonian Sleeper are all inaccessible
19 September 2024
Lib Dem conference: Rising star calls on their party to ‘walk the walk’ on disability
A disabled rising star in the Liberal Democrats has spoken of their plans to ensure their party does more to draw on the creativity and unique contribution that disabled people can make to politics.
Among their plans, Katharine Macy is hoping to push their party towards drawing up a wide-ranging disability policy paper, and to fund training for disabled members who want to become MPs.
Macy, who chairs the Liberal Democrat Disability Association (LDDA), played a significant role in developing the party’s policies on carers that were central to this summer’s successful general election campaign.
They are now hoping to help put together a policy paper on disability in time for next autumn’s conference.
Speaking at this week’s party conference in Brighton, Macy said they hope some of the extra funding the party now has because of its election success – with 72 MPs elected in July – is “directed to diversity” and ensures the party are “putting their money where their mouth is”.
They told Disability News Service (DNS): “We talk the talk, and we need to make sure that we’re going to walk the walk.
“It’s been a really good conference, and I think everyone is really eager to go, ‘what next?’ but not just in terms of the basic political successes, but in terms of making sure we are more diverse.”
Macy, who stood for the party in Colne Valley at the general election, said the policies in any disability paper would have to be “realistic”, fully-costed, “Liberal”, and “radical and forward-thinking”.
Some of them are certain to focus on benefits.
They said: “If we sort the benefits system out, a lot of disabled people who are on benefits will be able to have the safety and security to start exploring getting into work, if that’s what they are able to do.”
Macy drafted the party’s original young carers policy in 2019, at a Young Liberals event, which later led to them thanking Ed Davey – who himself had been a young carer as a teenager when his mother was terminally-ill with cancer – for writing an article about the motion when it was debated at a national level by the party.
That motion kickstarted Davey’s focus on care and was a cornerstone of the party’s manifesto at the last election.
Macy said: “It was lovely to hear there was an MP who understands what it’s like being a carer.
“And then the 2024 election was all about that, and words that I had written at the age of 21 were directly copied and pasted into the manifesto.”
They wrote the party’s young carers’ policy and helped amend the overall carers’ policy that followed later, which included a call in the election manifesto for carers to be protected under the Equality Act, which Macy said was “something I’ve been pushing for for years”.
There are also crucial intersectional issues they have been able to draw attention to, as carers are far more likely to be disabled themselves than the general population.
They are full of praise for their party leader, who they say is “incredibly brave to be so vulnerable, to be so honest” about his own experiences as a carer for both his mother and now his disabled son.
Macy has previously told DNS – in a profile published shortly before the general election – of their own experience, from the age of about 10, of growing up with an undiagnosed neurodivergent mother who was unable to work.
They have been using their time at conference this week to “really push disability, ensure that I’m talking to the right people, and getting ideas on how to make sure the party is held to account” on disability issues and that disabled members “are being taken seriously”.
One aspect is pushing for there to be a disabled representative on all the party’s policy working groups “to ensure we’re represented”.
They said: “We aren’t just people that are living on benefits and go to healthcare centres.
“We get educated, we work, we go and have fun sometimes, and we need to be remembered.
“I do think the Lib Dems are the best party on this, but… that doesn’t mean we can’t get better. And we will get better, if I’ve got anything to do about it.”
Macy added: “I’d really like to focus on how disabled people can bring something unique to politics.
“We see the world differently, partly sometimes because we physically have to… but also because we have to be creative, and creativity in politics is vital.”
One of their hopes is to reach out to disabled people who are not currently party members.
Another key focus is developing training for disabled members who want to become MPs, emulating a “gender balance” scheme that has trained 28 of the 32 women who are Liberal Democrat MPs.
Macy said: “Obviously, there are a lot more literal barriers with disabled people.
“It’s not as simple as building confidence and teaching how to manage discrimination, but I’m going to give it a go.”
19 September 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
An attempt by Nadine Dorries to block a statutory inquiry into thousands of mental health deaths cost more lives, a bereaved mother has told the hearing. Melanie Leahy campaigned for years for a public inquiry into the death of her 20-year-old son, Matthew, and hundreds of other people failed by mental health care in Essex. It finally began last week after a long battle with ministers, including Dorries when she was a health minister in the last government: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/sep/17/mother-tells-hearing-nadine-dorries-caused-mental-health-deaths-by-blocking-inquiry
Children with special educational needs (SEN) in England have slipped further behind their peers in reading, writing and maths, despite recent legislation and advances in teaching making their education a high priority. School leaders described the results as “incredibly disheartening”, and called for better specialist support and funding to avoid the collapse of England’s SEN system: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/sep/19/incredibly-disheartening-decline-in-special-needs-pupil-attainment-in-england
19 September 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
