Contents
Prime minister suggests all those on sickness benefits should look for work 3
Labour’s DWP fraud bill ‘will be recipe for abuse and miscarriages of justice’ 5
Kendall ignores question on why she shared platform with company linked to DWP deaths 7
Streeting dodges care charges question for four minutes and 25 seconds 10
‘We want a full-time minister for disabled people’, Labour conference meeting is told 12
Disabled MP’s passionate call for action over ‘scandal of locked settings’ 13
Silence again from Labour ministers on accessible housing, despite new announcements 15
DWP minister dodges question on Kendall’s ‘exclusionary’ decision to sideline disabled people 20
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 21
Minister admits fatal flaws in universal credit ‘need to be fixed’ and tells DNS: ‘You’ve been onto something very important’
The minister for social security has admitted there are serious safety concerns with universal credit, following coroners’ reports that linked the working-age benefits system with the suicides of two disabled claimants.
Sir Stephen Timms is the first minister of any political party to accept the fatal flaws within universal credit and to promise to fix them.
Although he dismissed any possibility that universal credit itself would be scrapped, he told Disability News Service (DNS) that there were “problematic” features of the system and “they need to be fixed”.
He was speaking at Labour’s party conference in Liverpool at a fringe meeting on poverty organised by the Centre for Social Justice, the centre-right thinktank founded by former work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith, which was responsible for the original design of universal credit.
DNS editor John Pring had told the meeting of the increasing concerns about universal credit, including by coroners following two suicides of claimants whose deaths were both linked to flaws in the system and the pressure it puts on people in mental distress.
He said universal credit was now being rolled out to claimants of employment and support allowance.
Pring pointed out that the PCS union had described universal credit in June as a “dangerously flawed system” in which “the most vulnerable continue to slip through its cracks”.
He asked Sir Stephen if he accepted the concerns and what he would do about them.
Pring also highlighted the publication of his book The Department*, about years of deaths linked to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), mostly relating to disability benefits, and told him: “I do not want to [have to write a] follow-up in 10 years’ time”.
Sir Stephen said there were problems with universal credit that DNS was “rightly highlighting, and that you have highlighted very consistently over a lengthy period now and have frequently been denied by the department, but they have carried on happening”.
And he added: “I think you’ve been onto something very important.”
But he said he did not believe these deaths and other harm were happening because universal credit was introduced, but because of flaws in the system.
He said: “I do think there are features of universal credit which are problematic, and they need to be fixed, but I don’t think they are inherent problems.
“I think we’ve got to change the system we’ve got to do a better job, and to avoid these problems.”
But he also said he wanted to open DWP up to greater public scrutiny.
Sir Stephen told Pring: “One of the things we need to do is open up what is going on in the Department for Work and Pensions to public scrutiny, and John, you are one of the most prolific applicants for freedom of information requests to the department, and quite right too.
“The department has absurdly refused to answer lots of the questions that you have asked and that is something that we want to change… because public scrutiny is a good thing, and it puts pressure on ministers and on civil servants to have the consequences of what they are doing known about publicly.
“And that’s an area that I’m working on and which the secretary of state may have something to say about in her speech later in the week [Liz Kendall did not mention transparency in her speech yesterday (Wednesday)].
“Yes, we do need to make some very big changes to the way things work, but I don’t believe that scrapping universal credit… would be the answer.”
And he said universal credit had done a “really powerful and good job during the pandemic” when the old system “would have just collapsed” under the weight of new claims.
A Labour delegate, Julie Jarman, asked Sir Stephen whether there should be a “proper independent regulator” and “publicly accessible service standards” for the social security system, playing the role that Ofsted plays in education, so “people in receipt of benefits, as with other public services, can actually hold the service providers to account”.
But he said he was “not convinced” that having a separate regulator outside DWP would “deal with these problems”.
Andy Burnham, the Labour mayor of Greater Manchester, told the meeting that he believed that there needed to be a national “housing first” scheme – as there is in Greater Manchester, and Finland – so that everyone is guaranteed a “good, secure home”.
He said this is based on the idea that “any other public spending is wasted unless you’ve sorted out the housing first” and that such a policy would result in “so much less” spending on “the cost of social failure”.
He also said the government needed to “completely rethink how we support people, and we’ve got to make it positive not punitive”, particularly through devolution of employment support to local authorities.
He said: “If I had my way, I would rename every Jobcentre Plus in Greater Manchester a ‘live well centre’, and rather than spending the employment support budget through large corporate entities, who don’t actually care much for our communities, we would spend that money through our local community and voluntary sector.”
He said the system should be “about helping people move forward and not trying to trip them up and sanction them.
“Shock revelation: that doesn’t get people into work.
“If somebody goes into a Jobcentre Plus in one door and comes out feeling worse 20 minutes later after the consultation, that is not building them up to get back to a position where they can go into work.
“That is doing the opposite, it’s taking people away further from work.”
*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, by John Pring, is published by Pluto Press
26 September 2024
Prime minister suggests all those on sickness benefits should look for work
The prime minister has suggested that all claimants of long-term sickness benefits will be expected to look for work under his government’s plans to reform social security.
Sir Keir Starmer made his comments in a BBC interview that was broadcast yesterday (Wednesday), and if they translated into government policy they would demonstrate a significant tightening of the rules on out-of-work disability benefits.
There are currently more than 1.5 million disabled people on universal credit who are not expected to carry out any work-related activity because of a significant impairment or health condition, and about 1.3 million more in the equivalent employment and support allowance support group.
Sir Keir appeared to be suggesting – although it is possible that he misrepresented his party’s policy – that every one of these people should be looking for work.
Labour ministers, including the prime minister, should already be aware that the deaths of countless disabled claimants of out-of-work benefits have been linked to attempts to force them into work or work-related activity over the last 15 years.
Just one example is Alan McArdle.
He died from a fatal heart attack in August 2015 after being told DWP was threatening to sanction his benefits.
The US outsourcing giant Maximus had reported him for failing to attend appointments intended to move him towards work, despite being told about his severe ill-health.
Another example is Roy Curtis, who took his own life six days after being told to attend a WCA, despite DWP being repeatedly warned its actions had made him suicidal.
Sir Keir was responding to a question from the BBC’s Nick Robinson, who asked if he believed that “those who are out of work, who may think that they can’t work, that the country has a right to expect that they look for work, they do everything they can to get work” and that this was “the sacrifice they need to make”.
In response, the prime minister said: “Well, yes, of course.
“In relation to long-term sickness, which is at very high levels, then of course people need to look for work. But they also need support.”
He also said that the “basic proposition, that you should look for work, is right”.
He added: “There will be hard cases. But the way I would do it is to say, yes, that’s the basic proposition.”
Under the current rules, DWP accepts that many disabled people are not able to work or even carry out work-related activity, and they are provided with extra financial support to recognise the extra barriers they face.
Sir Keir’s comments appear to contrast with those made by his own work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, who attempted at conference to stress that she would focus on providing “more positive support in the community” and would take a “completely different approach from the Conservatives”.
She told a fringe meeting earlier in the week (see separate story) that she wanted to change the “culture of fear” among claimants that they could lose their benefits if a job did not work out.
She told the event: “What the Tories did was write people off, blame them to grab an easy headline and then make their lives miserable.
“They talked about shirkers, and it seems to be the only people shirking their responsibility were the Tories.
“If what they did was successful, we wouldn’t have a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness.”
26 September 2024
Labour’s DWP fraud bill ‘will be recipe for abuse and miscarriages of justice’
Disabled campaigners have warned that plans to give the government sweeping powers to carry out financial surveillance on benefit claimants are “a recipe for abuse and miscarriages of justice”.
Prime minister Sir Keir Starmer told the Labour conference in Liverpool on Tuesday that his government would “legislate to stop benefit fraud”.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed the same day that this referred to plans to bring forward a new fraud, error and debt bill that would “crack down on fraud in the social security system”.
It said this would “require banks and financial institutions to share data that may show indications of potential benefit overpayments”.
But it is believed that – as with powers proposed by the last Conservative government – this will mean giving DWP powers to force banks to scan their accounts to find account-holders receiving benefits, as well as people connected with those accounts.
They would then have to report anyone who triggers what are seen as potential indicators of possible fraud to DWP.
Under current rules, DWP can only request details of a bank account holder’s transactions if there are reasonable grounds to suspect them of fraud.
The bill will also give new powers to DWP fraud investigators and – if, again, it follows plans put forward earlier this year by the last Conservative government – could also introduce a new civil penalty for benefit fraud with a “lower burden of proof”.
Labour’s plans on financial surveillance have been heavily criticised this week by disabled people’s organisations.
Rick Burgess, a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), which campaigned against the last government’s proposals, said the announcement of the new bill was “disappointing” but “not surprising”.
He said: “Labour promised change, but we find ourselves having to fight the same unfair policy that we previously opposed under the Tory government of Rishi Sunak.
“Just because you receive a benefit from the DWP does not mean you should have fewer rights; our financial affairs should not be spied upon by the DWP.
“The DWP should not get greater powers, as this department has already shown it does not exercise its existing powers humanely, transparently, or honestly.
“This is a recipe for more abuse and potential miscarriages of justice that would make the Post Office Horizon scandal look tiny in comparison.”
Mikey Erhardt, policy and campaigns officer for Disability Rights UK, said the bill would subject millions of claimants to “untested, unscrutinised, and potentially unlimited powers”.
He said: “The government’s latest plans are essentially a digital sledgehammer to crack the tiniest nut.
“These new powers would see millions deprived of the presumption of innocence, adding to the criminalisation we already face in a punitive welfare system that often seeks to sanction people into work, whether we are able to or not.”
He added: “This speech could have been a moment to announce a social security system built on respect, dignity, and support that enables us to live the lives we deserve – not spending millions to create an uncontrollable digital panopticon.”
A spokesperson for National Survivor User Network (NSUN) said: “Many people – particularly those who are racialised – live with trauma related to surveillance.
“This will only be exacerbated by the knowledge that the DWP may soon be able to access banking records without account holders’ knowledge.
“Money management is also a source of great distress for many, and an area in which people who experience mental ill-health are often infantilised through lack of control over their own finances.
“The threat of financial surveillance would be yet another obstacle to contend with.”
And Caroline Collier, from Inclusion Barnet’s Campaign for Disability Justice, said the announcement was “very concerning” and that the plans were “both intrusive and unnecessary” and would have a “disproportionately large effect on disabled people”.
She said: “It is inevitable that automated surveillance will throw up erroneous overpayment or fraud alerts, causing possibly lengthy benefit suspension while things are sorted out, with all the associated hardship, debt and stress that entails.
“It also disregards people’s basic right to privacy, which should be respected unless there are reasonable grounds to think that an offence has been committed.
“This is a miss-step, and I very much hope government will reconsider.”
A DWP press release about the new bill insisted that it would include safeguarding measures to “protect vulnerable customers”, that DWP staff would be “trained to the highest standards on the appropriate use of any new powers”, while there would be “oversight and reporting mechanisms, to monitor these new powers”.
It added: “DWP will not have access to people’s bank accounts and will not share their personal information with third parties.”
The new bill is likely to be based on two sets of proposals put forward by the last Conservative government.
The first is the data protection and digital information bill, which the last government failed to get through parliament before July’s election, and which was hugely controversial.
It is also likely to be based on a DWP policy paper released in May – Fighting Fraud in the Welfare System: Going Further – which led to DWP facing questions over why it ignored concerns raised by a coroner about a disabled woman who died following a “targeted” review of her universal credit claim.
26 September 2024
Kendall ignores question on why she shared platform with company linked to DWP deaths
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall has ignored a question on why she shared a platform at her party’s annual conference with an outsourcing giant linked to the deaths of disabled benefit claimants.
Kendall was speaking at the fringe event on “the future for work”, hosted by the discredited US multinational Maximus and the centre-left thinktank, the Fabian Society.
Maximus has been closely linked to the deaths of claimants over the last 10 years, including those of Jodey Whiting, Alan McArdle, Philip Pakree and Roy Curtis*.
Towards the end of Monday’s fringe event, Disability News Service (DNS) asked Kendall whether – in the light of such deaths – Maximus was the right company to be telling the government and Labour party members about the future of work.
But instead of asking Kendall to respond, Andrew Harrop, general secretary of the Fabians, who was chairing the event, said he would ask Maximus UK president Dr Paul Williams to “very quickly respond” instead.
After Williams had spoken, Kendall was asked by Harrop for her “closing comments”.
She did not answer the Maximus question, even though DNS had made it clear it was directed at her.
In his response, Williams had said: “I’m not sure that I recognise that characterisation.”
He insisted that Maximus were “credible partners” because of their work supporting “people with disabilities” through Remploy.
He said Maximus had carried out assessments for about 10 million people in the last decade and took “tremendous pride in the way we seek to personalise those assessments, make them detailed and thorough where needed and try to support people through the process”.
He said: “I think we have actually got a wonderful track record for that, and I am very proud of my team.”
After the event, Harrop insisted that – despite his asking Maximus to comment on the question and then not asking Kendall to answer it – she had had “the opportunity to do so”.
There have been many concerns raised about Maximus since it took over delivering work capability assessments (WCAs) from Atos in 2015, in addition to its links to a number of deaths.
In August 2015, Alan McArdle died from a fatal heart attack after being told DWP was threatening to sanction his benefits.
Maximus had reported him for failing to attend appointments intended to move him towards work, as part of the government’s Work Programme, despite being told about his severe ill-health.
Maximus also failed to act on a request from Jodey Whiting for her WCA to be carried out at home, even though it knew of her history of significant mental distress; she later took her own life after her benefits were stopped when she missed her assessment.
A third death linked to Maximus was that of Philip Pakree, who died on Boxing Day 2020.
Maximus had been warned of his serious health conditions but told him he would have to be assessed or it would affect his benefits, telling his partner: “It’s been delayed once, we are not delaying it again.”
He died in his sleep after becoming nearly hysterical with distress.
Comments about Maximus were also scrawled in red ink on official letters found after the suicide of Roy Curtis in late 2018.
A folder of letters found in Curtis’s flat after his body was discovered in August 2019 showed he had written desperate messages about his disability benefits “nightmare”.
In 2016, Labour MP Louise Haigh – now the transport secretary – attacked the track record, ethics and even criminal behaviour of Maximus in delivering public contracts in the US, during a debate on the WCA.
Haigh also highlighted what she described as a “disconcerting pattern of behaviour” by Maximus in the UK since taking over the WCA contract from Atos the previous year, with “an alarming trend of cases being rejected based on factual errors or even – I hesitate to say this – falsification”.
From this month, Maximus has become one of four outsourcing companies that will carry out both WCAs and personal independence payment assessments across the country, after DWP awarded the quartet £2.8 billion-worth of contracts under the last government.
Kendall did not provide any fresh insights this week into how Labour intends to reform employment support.
Two months ago, she announced that she wanted her department to move from being “a department for welfare” to becoming “a genuine department for work”.
She made those comments while helping to launch a report that focused strongly on the need to push more people with long-term health conditions into work and which included a controversial recommendation for DWP to introduce a “duty to engage” with employment support.
Labour will publish an employment white paper this autumn, and it is set to reveal its plans for disability benefits next spring.
Kendall told Monday’s fringe meeting that she believed that “there is clear evidence that good work is good for mental health”.
She said the government needed to “turn the tide on the fact that we are a sicker nation, which we are”, and that “work, health, skills are all joined up and I think that has absolutely got to be done at the local level”.
She said the last government “reduced welfare reform to a story about cuts to benefits and what the tapers are”, and she added: “We have got a completely different approach from the Conservatives.
“Just as in the NHS, you end up spending too much on the consequences of failure, failure to intervene early or the failure to provide more positive support in the community, the same as is happening in DWP.
“We are paying the price for not having put in place better systems of support for people.”
She also spoke of the “culture of fear” of losing benefits if a job does not work out.
She added: “I am under no illusions about how hard it could be to change the culture.
“What the Tories did was write people off, blame them to grab an easy headline and then make their lives miserable.
“They talked about shirkers and it seems to be the only people shirking their responsibility were the Tories.
“If what they did was successful, we wouldn’t have a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness.”
*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, by DNS editor John Pring, is published by Pluto Press
26 September 2024
Streeting dodges care charges question for four minutes and 25 seconds
Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting has refused to say when the new Labour government will address the care charging crisis that is leading disabled people to face unlawful discrimination and inequality on an “unparalleled” scale.
Despite being asked several times by Disability News Service (DNS) when the government would act to scrap care charges for disabled people, he gave no timeframe for when or if that might happen.
Instead, he referred twice to the “£22 billion black hole in the public finances” and said it would “take time to deal with the mess we have inherited from the Conservatives”.
Speaking after a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference in Liverpool, Streeting said: “Give us time, we’re two months in… I recognise the challenge on charging, but it does come down to money, too.”
But despite repeated questions from DNS over more than four minutes, as he and his aides walked along Royal Albert Dock to his next meeting, he failed to say when a Labour government might act on care charges.
Asked about the tens of thousands of disabled people falling into debt every year because of care charges, he said: “I absolutely recognise the challenge, but it is going to take time to deal with the mess we have inherited from the Conservatives; part of that has got to be rebuilding our economy so we can invest in our public services, and charging reform itself.”
The interview started just yards from where Streeting promised DNS two years ago – when asked what a Labour government would promise on care charges during its first term in government – that Labour was “working on it”.
But Streeting was unable on Sunday to point to any progress since he made that pledge two years ago.
He said: “We recognise the challenge and we’re determined to meet the needs of both disabled people and older people in social care.
“I wish I could promise an overnight fix, I wish this was an issue I could fix in the first eight weeks of a Labour government, but it is going to take time, and I am asking people to bear with us.”
His comments came two months after Disability Law Service (DLS) published research which found that disabled people across England were continuing to face unlawful discrimination and inequality on an “unparalleled” scale because of “unjust” social care charging policies.
DLS suggested that the proportion of disabled adults being charged for their non-residential care was increasing year by year and that local authorities were incurring “significant” and increasing costs of collecting these charges, with most of those charged paying “extortionate amounts” to local authorities.
Research by disabled campaigners showed in 2022 that tens of thousands of disabled people across the country every year were having debt collection action taken against them by their local authorities over unpaid care charges.
Streeting had earlier told the Future Social Care Coalition fringe event that the government would need to recognise “as we think about the NHS crisis that so many of the challenges and pressures driving that NHS crisis are because of the crisis in social care.
“There is no fixing the crisis in the NHS unless we address the crisis in social care.”
But he said social care was important “in and of itself, not just as a means of NHS improvement, it’s important today when there is so much unmet need”.
He said: “We owe it to disabled people to make sure that you get the care and the support you need to enable you to fully participate in every aspect of life, and to feel the same sense of security and the same opportunities and quality of life as everyone else.”
And he stressed that when he talked about social care he was thinking about older people and disabled people.
He told the meeting that both reform and investment would be needed to “deliver results”.
Streeting said that Labour, the Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats and the SNP had all been in government over the last 20 years and none of them had delivered the long-term “change” and “solutions” that the country was “desperately crying out for”.
He said: “There is a quiet determination at the centre of our team in the Department of Health and Social Care – and more broadly the government – to make sure that we get this right… for the benefit of people who need care, their families and the care workforce.
“I actually feel really optimistic and hopeful that this will be the parliament that really grips social care, that deals with the crisis confronting us now and also signs up to the longer-term reform agenda we need.”
He said the “low hanging-fruit” was building a national standards framework and “holding care providers to account”, stabilising the workforce, “sorting out the Care Quality Commission”, and setting out a 10-year plan for social care.
The care minister, Stephen Kinnock, had earlier said that the government was “drawing a line under the kicking the can down the road” plan of the previous government.
He said the government was working on a fair pay agreement for care workers and would be “setting the ball rolling on that” within weeks.
He said the government knew that the system needed “huge reform and improvement” but that the changes needed to be “sustainable”, and he pledged that the government would be “listening to people with lived experience” and care workers and providers.
He said: “I share your frustration that we can’t move more quickly but I guarantee that we are absolutely putting this at the heart of the government’s priorities going into the coming weeks, months and years.”
26 September 2024
‘We want a full-time minister for disabled people’, Labour conference meeting is told
Disabled campaigners say they want more than a “part-time minister” for disabled people under the new Labour government.
A fringe meeting at Labour’s annual party conference in Liverpool heard of concerns that Sir Stephen Timms had too many responsibilities as the minister for social security and disability.
Activists pointed to how Labour had worked in opposition, with a dedicated shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft.
But after Labour won power in July, Foxcroft was appointed to a role in the government whips office, and Sir Stephen was given the new role of minister for social security and disability in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The concerns about the lack of a dedicated disability minister were highlighted by Lady Lola Oyewusi, who sits on UNISON’s national disabled members’ committee.
She told the meeting, hosted by Disability Labour: “When we were in opposition, we had a shadow minister for disability.
“Now we are in government, we haven’t got a minister for disability, it has been lumped together with the DWP.
“It can’t be lumped together. We know exactly how the Tories persecuted people with disabilities, labelling them… lazy, not wanting to work, wanting to turn PIP* into vouchers, demonising people when you’re applying for PIP.
“We need a minister who will speak up for disabled people.
“Please, help us get a minister for disabled people.”
Kathy Bole, Disability Labour’s chair, said: “We have told the government that we are not happy about the fact that there is no single minister for disability.”
She said the appointment of a minister for social security and disability was a “step backwards” and added: “It is absolutely going to be something that we are raising again and again and again.
“We don’t deserve a part-time minister. We deserve a full-time, fully engaged minister and we won’t stop until we get one.”
After the event, Bole told Disability News Service that the government should correct the “retrograde step”.
“There’s so much that needs to be done on social security. [Sir Stephen] has enough on his hands.
“We need a dedicated minister because he could then concentrate on social security and we could get somebody who was concerned with all of the stuff that’s going on for disabled people [across government].
“Social security needs to be dealt with, but it’s such a big thing on its own.
“I’m getting sick and tired of disabled people ending up at the bottom rung with just crumbs left behind.
“We need a minister for disabled people.”
*Personal independence payment
26 September 2024
Disabled MP’s passionate call for action over ‘scandal of locked settings’
A disabled Labour MP has delivered a passionate call for action over the number of autistic people and people with learning difficulties who are “imprisoned” in inpatient mental health units.
Jen Craft told a fringe meeting at Labour’s annual party conference in Liverpool that the detention of people in such units for long periods of time in “completely unsuitable” environments was a “national scandal”.
The meeting was held to discuss the detention of autistic people and people with learning difficulties in locked NHS settings.
A report in May found there were still 2,045 such people detained in mental health hospitals at the end of March 2024, just a 30 per cent reduction in nine years.
Craft, who was elected as MP for Thurrock for the first time in July, told the meeting that there was a “real urgency” about the need to “end the scandal of people in locked settings”.
She said: “I think for people that are experiencing this right now, change can’t come soon enough.”
She also pointed to the ongoing impact on a disabled person after they have left a locked unit, because of the damaged trust in services felt by them and their family after such an “incarceration”, which means it is “almost impossible” to recover from such “wrongful imprisonment”.
She said: “How can you, if you’re an individual that has experienced that, how can you trust someone that’s coming in and saying, ‘These are the things you need to do, this is how I’m going to help you’?”
She and others attending the meeting had watched a video of an autistic woman, Bethany, whose past detention in a locked unit has previously been highlighted in the media.
Her dad, Jeremy, says in the video that the family were told that the unit his daughter was going to be placed in would be “therapeutic” and that she would have the chance to take part in “animal therapy, music therapy, drama therapy”.
Instead, she was “tormented” by her surroundings and deliberately behaved in a way that meant she was placed in seclusion.
He said: “The periods of seclusion went from half an hour to an hour to half a day to a day, and eventually they stopped opening the door.”
The room was just 12 feet by 18 feet and had nothing but a mattress on the floor.
Jeremy said the “brutal” conditions led to a “spiral of descent into distress” for his daughter.
He said: “The impact of that is a person is left in a setting that’s distressing them, and it makes them even more ill, so they get more medication.
“Their opportunity to engage in therapy isn’t there, but also, their state of mind doesn’t enable them to engage.”
Craft was visibly distressed by what she saw and heard on the video, and she said she had been “deeply impacted” by the “incredibly powerful” video.
She said she had a disabled child herself and it filled her with “absolute dread” when she heard such stories of parents who have unwittingly sent their child to “a kind of hell” when they thought they were making the best decision for them.
Sir Stephen Timms, minister for social security and disability, said the government’s mental health bill – which is likely to be based on the draft legislation brought forward by the previous Conservative government – would provide “greater choice, autonomy, better rights, and support”.
He said: “We intend to shift the power toward the patient, I think.
“That’s been part of the problem up until now, and it will explicitly limit the scope for detaining people with a learning disability, and with autism.”
He added: “We’ve said that people in the future will only be detained where it’s strictly necessary and where there’s a reasonable prospect of therapeutic benefit from compulsory hospital treatment.”
He read out a briefing from the Department of Health and Social Care, which stated that its proposed reforms to the Mental Health Act would “help ensure people get the support they need in the community, improving care, keeping people out of hospitals.
“The number of people with a learning disability and autistic people in mental health hospitals is unacceptable.
“There are still too many people being inappropriately detained.”
The fringe meeting was hosted by the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group (VODG), whose members are mostly non-disabled-led charities that provide services to disabled people.
Dr Rhidian Hughes, VODG’s chief executive, told the meeting: “The system has been seemingly incapable of making any change at any scale or any meaningful pace.
“And thinking about Beth’s story there, I think it would be hard to imagine any other circumstances in this country where we would tolerate a British citizen being detained indefinitely by the state without trial and where the government has explicitly acknowledged that the conditions for their detention are, for the majority, inappropriate and should be ended.”
Disability News Service had intended to ask what efforts VODG and its members would take to ensure that disabled people’s organisations were right at the centre of campaigning on this issue, but was not chosen to ask a question by the meeting’s chair.
26 September 2024
Silence again from Labour ministers on accessible housing, despite new announcements
Labour ministers have again failed to make any commitment to toughening standards on accessible homes, despite announcing a string of new housing measures at their annual party conference.
Deputy prime minister Angela Rayner, who is also the housing secretary, told the conference of plans to build “decent homes for working people”, and she said a new planning framework would “provide the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation”.
Rayner is leading on delivering the government’s pledge to build 1.5 million new homes over the next five years.
She also told the conference that Labour’s renters’ rights bill would “rebalance the relationship between tenant and landlord and end no fault evictions”, while it will also “clamp down on damp and mouldy homes by bringing in Awaab’s Law in the social rented sector”.
And the government will consult this autumn on a new “Decent Homes Standard” for the social rented and private rented sectors.
Rayner also said that a new national planning policy framework this autumn would “unlock the door to affordable homes and provide the biggest boost to social and affordable housing in a generation”.
But there was no mention in her speech of the accessible housing crisis.
The prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, also spoke on Sunday of new “planning passports” that he said would “turbocharge housebuilding in urban areas after 14 years of stagnation and blockage” and “accelerate urban densification by setting high standards for design and quality”.
But he also omitted any mention of the need to build more accessible homes.
After Disability News Service questioned the party on the failure of ministers to mention the accessible housing crisis, a Labour spokesperson said: “Accessibility in new homes and accessibility standards for buildings in general are a key concern for many people.
“Housing is one of this government’s top priorities and everyone deserves to live in a decent home in which they feel safe.
“The government will set out its policies on accessible new build housing shortly.”
In July, Inclusion London led a protest about the accessible housing crisis outside the gates of Downing Street.
The protest was timed to coincide with the second anniversary of a pledge by the last (Conservative) government – which was never fulfilled – to take action to address the shortage of accessible homes.
Chants at the protest were aimed at Rayner and the new prime minister.
A day after the protest, Rayner delivered a speech to MPs about the government’s plan to “get Britain building” and “breathe life back into towns and cities” without once mentioning disabled people and the accessible housing crisis.
Now, at this week’s conference in Liverpool, she repeated that omission during her speech, which received a standing ovation from party delegates.
Inclusion London said in July that an estimated 400,000 wheelchair-users were living in unsuitable homes, while more than 100,000 disabled people were on council waiting-lists for accessible and adaptable homes.
Protesters later delivered a letter to Number 10, calling on the prime minister to take “immediate and decisive action”.
The letter called on the government to strengthen guidance so all new homes will have to be built to the stricter M4(2) “accessible and adaptable” standard, and a minimum of 10 per cent of new homes meet the M4(3) standard, which means they would be suitable for a wheelchair-user.
It is now more than two years since the last government announced it would strengthen these standards, and nearly four years since the policy was first consulted on.
26 September 2024
Labour accused of treating conference delegate like third-class citizen, after banning her service dog
Labour has been accused of treating one of its own disabled delegates like a “third-class citizen”, after refusing to allow her to enter its party conference with her assistance dog.
It is the latest example of years of disability discrimination by Labour, which has frequently left the party on the verge of being sued by its own disabled members under the Equality Act.
Disabled campaigner Anna Morell later raised her concerns from the main stage of the conference in Liverpool.
Morell, who has an energy-limiting impairment, had made her access requirements known to the party weeks before the conference began.
But when she arrived in Liverpool on the eve of the conference, she was asked in a call from a regional party officer if her dog, Rex, was trained and registered.
She replied that he was trained but that there was no such register.
She arrived at the conference with Rex the next day (Saturday), but staff prevented them entering the conference, even though she explained that he played a key health and safety role for her.
After 90 minutes lying on the floor of the security tent at the entrance, because staff could not find an accessible chair – leaving her “shaking with exhaustion and stress and cold” – she was taken to a nearby room.
She was then told that Labour’s conference policy did not allow service dogs entry without accreditation, registration, or formal training, and that only dogs registered with charities such as Guide Dogs and Canine Partners were allowed in.
Morell was offered a taxi back to her accommodation or her Kent constituency to ease her “distress”.
She was forced to return to the accommodation, where a neighbour offered to look after Rex for a few hours.
She returned to the conference that afternoon to challenge the decision, with support from Ellen Morrison, who represents Labour’s disabled members on its national executive committee (NEC).
They were told it would not be fair to reconsider the decision as other disabled people had been refused permission to bring their “unaccredited” dogs to conference.
This appears to be a clear breach of the Equality Act.
The Equality and Human Rights Commission has made it clear in guidance – updated this month – that there is no legal requirement for an assistance dog to be trained, that assistance dogs “can also be trained by their owners”, and that the law “does not require the dog to wear a harness or jacket to identify it as an assistance dog”.
Labour managers told Morell that other delegates with self-trained assistance dogs had been told they would not be allowed to attend conference “due to the impact on other attendees”.
The row meant she missed the whole of the Labour women’s conference on Saturday, at which she was supposed to be a delegate.
The next day, Sunday, she was told in an email from the secretary to Labour’s conference arrangements committee (CAC) that, after “careful consideration, and with consultation with the venue, the decision remains that you will not be able to bring your dog into the Conference site”.
The email added: “The Labour Party is committed to providing a fully accessible Annual Conference.”
Morell said the failure to accept her access needs had severely impacted her pain and energy levels, because Rex helped her manage her impairments.
It also meant she had to pay for dog-sitting for Rex.
She told Disability News Service (DNS): “They have not been able to produce the documentation that this policy is apparently based on.
“They have come up with an arbitrary rule.
“They don’t trust disabled people. That’s the vibe I get.
“I thought this was a party of equity and equality, and I can’t get through the door. I am gobsmacked and deeply exasperated.”
When she asked a question on Tuesday morning in the main conference hall (watch from five minutes), she listed a series of access failures.
They included the party’s refusal to allow “non-registered” service dogs to enter the event, but also lifts breaking down – she had spent nearly an hour stuck in a lift with two other disabled people the previous day – failures in delivering alternative format documents, an “almost complete lack of meaningful signage around and between the venues”, and inaccessible doors and toilets.
Morell also asked why the party had not engaged with access professionals and disabled leaders within the party on how to “transform access at conference so it is accessible to all of us”.
She said disabled people “need a place at conference where our voices can be represented”.
Lynne Morris, the CAC chair, said in reply: “We work hard to ensure conference is as accessible as possible for all delegates.”
She said a CAC member was “working closely with our accessibility stewards and… Disability Labour to find a solution to any issues”, and she invited Morell to a meeting later that day to “get a full picture of what the problems are so that we can try and resolve them, if not this year, then certainly for next year”.
Ellen Morrison told DNS that disabled members were facing issues with accessibility at the Labour conference every year, with some resolved in time for the following year’s conference.
But she said she had been “disappointed” that there was a disabled member and delegate who had “faced such significant issues with being able to engage with and participate in our conference”.
Morrison said she was still “unclear” as to why Morell had been denied permission to bring Rex into the conference, and that her experience highlighted the party’s lack of a policy on assistance dogs, and the lack of training for staff and role-holders on disability and access.
She added: “I will be taking these issues up with [Labour’s] general secretary, and trust they will be addressed for future years.
“I have already raised these points with the NEC at a meeting here in Liverpool, to get the assurances this will come back as points for the whole NEC to consider.”
Kathy Bole, chair of Disability Labour, which is affiliated to the party, said she believed the party had discriminated against Anna Morell, and had treated one of their own disabled delegates “like a third-class citizen”.
She said the party appeared to believe that those disabled people with more complex access needs were not welcome at conference.
Bole said she believed the party “seemed to be going backwards” on dealing with discrimination against its disabled members.
She added: “They clearly don’t have any real idea of what the Equality Act says and their duties.”
Morell told DNS: “Until Labour gets its head around the social model of disability and applying equality law fully, accurately and meaningfully, it is going to continue to discriminate against its disabled members.”
Labour had not responded by noon today (Thursday) to a request to comment on the refusal to allow Morell’s service dog into the event.
It is the latest in years of incidents of discrimination by Labour, which has frequently seen disabled members on the brink of taking legal action against their own party.
Last year, a wheelchair-user could easily have lost his life in front of hundreds of delegates at the same venue, after the party ignored years of safety warnings about the ramp used to access the speakers’ platform.
And less than two years ago, Labour was warned that it faced possible legal action over years of disability discrimination, after reneging on plans to hold a national disability conference and set up a committee of disabled members.
26 September 2024
DWP minister dodges question on Kendall’s ‘exclusionary’ decision to sideline disabled people
A minister has failed to explain why his boss set up a board of experts to examine “economic inactivity” without appointing a single representative of a disabled people’s organisation (DPO).
Sir Stephen Timms was asked about the decision of his boss, Liz Kendall, not to include any experts with lived experience of disability on her new Labour Market Advisory Board.
Kendall has made it clear that the key aim of the board is tackling the “spiralling inactivity” caused by a record number of people out of work due to long-term sickness.
But when asked on Monday about its membership, Sir Stephen failed to explain why there were no DPOs represented on the board, or apparently any disabled board members at all.
Disability News Service (DNS) told Sir Stephen that Labour had “repeatedly promised over the years that it would co-produce policy with disabled people and yet Liz Kendall failed to appoint any DPOs or experts with declared lived experience” to the new board.
DNS added: “It has been described as exclusionary. What has happened to that promise Labour made?”
Sir Stephen said Labour had made a “manifesto commitment to put the views and voices of disabled people at the heart of everything we do… and it is my job as the minister for disability, with a cross-government responsibility, not just responsibility in the DWP, to deliver on that commitment”.
He said he had had a number of engagements with “disabled people’s organisations”, and mentioned a meeting with Scope – which DNS pointed out was a disability charity and not a DPO – and planned to meet with the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group, whose members are nearly all service-providers and disability charities.
But he failed to address the issue of the membership of Kendall’s Labour Market Advisory Board.
Last week, disabled researcher Stef Benstead, author of Second Class Citizens, 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, described Kendall’s decision as “frustrating”, and Julia Modern, from Inclusion London, said that without disabled people’s input, the new board would be “as ineffective as it is exclusionary”.
26 September 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Unions have won a non-binding vote at the Labour party conference calling on the government to reverse its cuts to winter fuel payments. In an impassioned speech to Labour activists, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said she “did not understand” how the new Labour government could target pensioners while leaving “the super-rich untouched”. “This is not what people voted for. It’s the wrong decision and it needs to be reversed,” she told the hall: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdd4ejq32pdo
The parents of a student with chronic anxiety who killed herself ahead of a university presentation have welcomed new guidance for disabled students. University of Bristol student Natasha Abrahart was found dead in her flat in April 2018. The Equality and Human Rights Commission has published new guidance – contributed to by Ms Abrahart’s family – setting out what universities must do to comply with the Equality Act: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj31xj1enllo
A “devoted” mum and her “severely disabled” eight-year-old daughter found dead in a house in Salford in a suspected murder-suicide have been named by police. 40-year-old Martina and daughter Eleni were discovered at a home on South Radford Street on Monday, after emergency services were called over concerns for their welfare: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/breaking-mum-severely-disabled-daughter-33737057
26 September 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
