Summary
This page shows articles by John Pring at Disability News Service
1) Anger and concern over government’s ‘hand-me-down’ employment white paper
2) Employment white paper promises ‘fundamentally different’ approach, but fails to answer key questions
3) DWP must take urgent safety steps on large payments, says coroner after suicide, five years on from earlier inquest warning
4) Anger over ‘abhorrent’ assisted suicide poster campaign at Westminster tube station
5) Council suddenly pulls funding from disabled woman despite seven-year accessible housing nightmare
6) Disabled Labour MP uses memorial lecture to push government to implement UN disability convention
7) Disabled musicians face discrimination, harassment, racism, and debt, says new report
8) Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Anger and concern over government’s ‘hand-me-down’ employment white paper
Disabled people and their organisations have pointed to “fundamental” and “very concerning” flaws in the government’s “hand-me-down” employment support white paper.
The long-awaited Get Britain Working white paper was launched by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall on Tuesday, and includes proposals for a national jobs and careers service, plans for central government to work more closely with mayoral and local authorities, and a focus on using the NHS to tackle the rise in “economic inactivity” (see separate story).
There is also the promise of a “youth guarantee” in England, so every young person aged 18 to 21 has access to “further learning, help to get a job or an apprenticeship”.
But the white paper fails to answer key questions about how disabled people on out-of-work benefits will be treated by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), while it confirms that proposals for reforming the disability benefits system will not be published until next spring.
The attitude of disabled people and disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) towards the white paper was not helped by the prime minister’s decision to write a column for the Mail on Sunday.
The article criticised the last government’s “shirkers” rhetoric but then pledged to “get to grips with the bulging benefits bill blighting our society” and to “crack down hard on anyone who tries to game the system”.
This allowed the newspaper to run a front-page story that claimed “Starmer declares war on benefits Britain”.
A spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People said yesterday (Wednesday): “If the government was sincere in working with disabled people to improve our lives it would first agree a co-production process with our organisations towards designing a new disability strategy.
“Instead, we are hit with these hand-me-down relics of a discredited policy approach together with toxic messaging in hostile media from the prime minister.
“It is hard to see any difference between this and the last government.”
Linda Burnip, co-founder of Disabled People Against Cuts, said she was particularly concerned by the white paper’s emphasis on increasing engagement between disabled people on out-of-work benefits and employment support services, particularly those disabled claimants “who do not currently have any contact with Jobcentre Plus”.
She said: “These plans are only going to ramp up most people’s anxiety levels and probably make them even more ill.
“Any additional engagement with DWP or other services should be voluntary and initiated by disabled people who would like to work, not forced on them.”
And she highlighted the double impact of the white paper and tomorrow’s parliamentary debate and vote on Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s assisted suicide bill.
Burnip said she was concerned that this combination was “telling disabled people that if they don’t work, their lives are worthless”.
She pointed to a Labour advert that claimed the government’s “plan to get Britain working” would offer a “pathway back to work” for disabled people “who don’t want to be written off”.
John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle Campaign, said it was “deeply offensive and degrading” to refer to disabled people as “‘written off’, as if our lives have no meaning or purpose and that we exist on the margins, on the scrap heap of society”.
Although the government insists it will consult disabled people on its plans, through a new panel, disabled activists pointed out that proper co-production of policy should start at the beginning of the process, and not when a white paper had already been published.
Fazilet Hadi, head of policy at Disability Rights UK (DR UK), said: “Given that disabled people are the subject of the white paper, it is disappointing that we weren’t engaged with prior to its publication.
“There is mention of setting up a disability advisory panel to assist with the changes, which is welcome, but it is likely that this will have limited influence.”
She added: “Local disabled people’s organisations should be funded to engage with local job plans.”
Inclusion London said it was concerned that promises of consultation “come against the backdrop of a pre-stated commitment to deliver Conservative cuts of £3 billion from health- and disability-related social security payments.
“It is very difficult for disabled people and our representative organisations to see this as a good faith exercise of genuine consultation, when vital parameters have already been set without our input.”
Bill Scott, an independent policy consultant and previously head of policy at Inclusion Scotland, said the new panel “gives the appearance of co-production but avoids the substance” as the white paper proposals “have been arrived at with zero to minimal input from disabled people and their representative organisations.
“Any consultation with DDPOs* now will at best result in tinkering at the edges and at worst provide legitimacy for policies which punish rather than provide genuine support to young disabled people.”
There are also concerns that the government has yet to announce how it will find the £2.8 billion in savings by 2028-29 that the last government promised to find by tightening the work capability assessment.
And there was no mention in the white paper of how the Labour government plans to reform personal independence payment (PIP), following the last government’s controversial consultation that included a proposal to replace cash payments with a voucher system.
The government’s plans in these areas will not be published until the spring, and even then only in the form of a green paper that will be put out for consultation.
Inclusion London welcomed the white paper’s proposals to move away from enforcing benefit conditionality and DWP’s “punitive approach” that has been “dangerously traumatising” for disabled people and to move instead towards “genuine support”.
Julia Modern, Inclusion London’s senior policy and campaigns manager, said: “We’re pleased, for example, to see a commitment that there will be no national or local targets for Jobcentre Plus staff to apply sanctions; however, we believe there should be no place for sanctions at all in an effective social security system and we urge the government to move away from this failed policy entirely.”
Inclusion London also noted the “difference in language” between how the white paper refers to disabled benefit claimants and employers.
Modern said: “While the former must fulfil ‘obligations’ to receive assistance, the white paper discusses only how employers should be ‘supported’.
“This is despite employers having existing legal obligations to provide reasonable adjustments, a fact that is never mentioned in the paper, which also does not name the legislation, the Equality Act 2010 (passed by a Labour government), that enshrines this duty.”
Fazilet Hadi, from DR UK, raised concerns about the further reforms to come.
She said: “Whilst it is positive that the white paper is couched in more supportive and enabling language, it is difficult to fully believe in the change of tone, when proposals on benefit cuts are round the corner.
“Combining jobcentres with the careers service, devolving job plans to local and regional government and introducing a youth guarantee, are on the face of it positive; however, there are huge societal barriers to overcome if the dial on disability employment is to shift.
“Low educational attainment, inadequate social security levels, lack of health and social care support, discriminatory attitudes, inaccessible transport, and inaccessible jobs, remain very real barriers.”
Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, said the white paper contained few details on how government reforms would affect disabled people.
She called on the government to “take a more robust approach, working in coproduction with disabled people to redesign the benefits system to one that is supportive rather than punitive as well as to creating workplaces that are inclusive not discriminatory.
“Meanwhile, ministers must take urgent action to tackle the cruelty in the way the current system operates and prevent further tragic loss of life among disabled claimants.”
Bill Scott, who is former chair of Scotland’s Poverty and Inequality Commission, said his initial impressions of the white paper were that it contains “a number of positive proposals”.
But he said he was “really concerned that the announced increased investment in employability services and mental health support is completely inadequate to address the scale of the problems faced by young disabled people.
“That may result in young disabled people, particularly those with learning difficulties or mental health issues, being blamed for their failure to take up work and subjected to even higher rates of sanctions.”
Ken Butler, DR UK’s welfare rights and policy adviser, said: “A fundamental problem with the white paper is what it doesn’t say.
“While the government says that it wants to engage with disabled people, there was no such pre-white paper engagement.
“It is also silent as to whether benefit sanctions will be scrapped, and [whether] all participation by disabled claimants with the reforms proposed will be solely voluntary.
“In addition, what it doesn’t acknowledge is that the social security system itself is an obstacle to disabled people finding employment.
“So long as benefits inadequacy exists, disabled people will continue to struggle, so impeding their ability to gain employment.”
And he said there was “genuine concern that still undisclosed work capability assessment and personal independence payment reforms will result in reduced eligibility numbers and a drop in benefit levels paid”.
John McArdle was even more critical.
He said he believed the white paper was simply “preparation for and a smokescreen for swingeing cuts that will further impoverish and immiserate disabled people and irrefutably lead to countless more benefit deaths” and which were “based in a neoliberal ideology, a clear political choice to blame and punish disabled people for economic failure”.
*Deaf and disabled people’s organisations
28 November 2024
Employment white paper promises ‘fundamentally different’ approach, but fails to answer key questions
A new government white paper has promised a “fundamentally different” approach to employment support, including “tackling ill health as the biggest driver of inactivity”, but it has left critical questions unanswered about Labour’s plans for disability benefits.
Disabled people and their organisations pointed yesterday (Wednesday) to “fundamental” and “very concerning” flaws in the white paper, with one disabled people’s organisation describing the proposals as “hand-me-down relics” of the last government’s “discredited” approach (see separate story).
The Get Britain Working white paper includes plans to “transform” jobcentres so they move away from a focus on “box ticking around monitoring benefit compliance” and instead become part of a national jobs and careers service, with a “stronger focus on skills and careers”.
It says: “Checking work-related requirements will move from the foreground to the background of the customer-work coach relationship.”
Jobcentre Plus is likely to be rebranded as part of the white paper’s proposals, some of which will cover England only, while others will apply to the UK, to England and Wales, or to England, Scotland and Wales.
The white paper also focuses on the need to fix the NHS by cutting waiting-lists “so people can get back to health and back to work” and sets out plans to work more closely with mayoral and local authorities to “design and deliver” employment support.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said in a written statement to parliament on Tuesday that there were now “a near record 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness or disability” and claimed there was a “growing and unsustainable problem of people being out of work due to poor health”.
The white paper repeatedly mentions the need to tackle the rise in “economic inactivity” – the number of people who are not in work and not looking for work – particularly those with long-term sickness; young people not in education, employment or training; and women carers.
The phrase “economic inactivity” is mentioned 89 times in the white paper, with the government describing the need to reverse the increase as a “national priority”, with long-term sickness-related economic inactivity “at a near-record high”.
The government now plans to give new funding, powers and responsibilities to tackle economic inactivity to mayors and local areas, as well as Wales.
There is also the promise of a “youth guarantee” in England, so every young person aged 18 to 21 has access to “further learning, help to get a job or an apprenticeship”.
And there will be an independent review – running until next summer – into “the role of UK employers in promoting healthy and inclusive workplaces”, including what can be done to increase the recruitment and retention of disabled people.
But there are also huge gaps in the white paper.
Although the government says it will “establish a panel to consult disabled people as part of our wider efforts to ensure that the views and voices of disabled people are put at the heart of the design and delivery of our reforms”, this is only happening now the white paper proposals have been published.
There is also no mention of the significant and continuing safeguarding concerns linked to the Department for Work and Pensions, both through its benefits assessment and conditionality regimes and its universal credit working-age benefits system.
There is little or no information about the government’s plans for imposing conditions and sanctions on those receiving out-of-work benefits.
The white paper says the government wants “to ensure that more people are engaged with support that can help them to work”, but there is no discussion of what kind of pressure will be imposed on claimants to ensure this engagement takes place, although it does say ministers want a new system that “empowers people to feel able to engage with employment support and try work without fear of losing benefit”.
There is also no mention of a possible “duty to engage” with such support for all those who are economically inactive, an idea floated by former New Labour health secretary Alan Milburn in a report backed by Kendall in July.
Kendall promises only a green paper and public consultation next spring on the government’s plans for reform of the disability benefits system, which will include details on whether it plans to replace or reform the work capability assessment (WCA), and is likely to include further details on conditionality.
Because these proposals will be laid out in a green paper, which tend to set out proposals “which are still at a formative stage”, this suggests that any changes are still years away.
There is also no mention in this week’s white paper of where the government plans to find the £2.8 billion in savings that the last government promised to find by tightening the WCA.
This would have seen 424,000 disabled people lose their entitlement to extra support of up to £4,900 a year by 2028-29.
28 November 2024
DWP must take urgent safety steps on large payments, says coroner after suicide, five years on from earlier inquest warning
A coroner has told the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to take urgent safety measures following the suicide of a man who became paranoid after suddenly receiving £5,000 in benefit arrears, five years after a similar call by another coroner.
Richard Brookes took his own life on 25 January, just weeks after DWP paid the first instalment of the £37,000 they owed him into his bank account.
Coroner Anna Morris has now told DWP, in the latest of a series of prevention of future deaths (PFD) reports sent to the department by coroners over the last 15 years, that she believes its safeguarding processes in such situations are flawed.
When it was asked to respond to the report this week, DWP provided a deeply misleading background note to Disability News Service, claiming wrongly that the coroner had said DWP followed its processes correctly.
The coroner’s report comes five years after another coroner sent a similar PFD report to DWP, following the death of Alexander Boamah, who had also died soon after receiving a large payment of benefits arrears.
That coroner wrote in 2019 of “the potential that individuals, without capacity to manage their finances, may come into receipt of funds which place them at particular risk”, with DWP subsequently promising to update policy and guidance “to ensure necessary safeguards are in place”.
This month’s inquest into the death of Richard Brookes shows DWP failed to introduce the “necessary safeguards” to prevent further deaths.
The inquest heard that after the £5,000 appeared in Brookes’s account on 8 December 2023, he became paranoid about the source of the money, and sent text messages to his sister in the days before his death which indicated he did not know where the funds had come from.
Brookes, who appears to have lived in the Stockport area of Greater Manchester, had a diagnosis of possible paranoid schizophrenia and was taking antipsychotic medication at the time he received the money.
Morris said it appeared that a call to him from DWP was either not understood fully or fed into a period of “delusional thinking”.
Under DWP’s Guidance for Making Large Payments, he should have received a call from DWP’s customer experience and advanced support team (CEAST), to assess how best to make the payment.
But there is no record of the content of that conversation, and what steps were put in place to ensure he understood what he was being told.
The arrears had started to mount up in 2016 when he was transferred from disability living allowance to personal independence payment, but did not receive the severe disability payment he was entitled to on top of his employment and support allowance.
It was not until last November that DWP spotted the error, and calculated he was owed over £37,000 in arrears that had built up over those seven years.
The coroner concluded that Brookes had intended to take his own life.
In her PFD report, sent to DWP, she said she believed there was “a risk that future deaths will occur unless action is taken”.
She said DWP had made “a large payment of money to a vulnerable adult who was then required to self-manage that money.
“In these situations, it is important that there are robust systems in place for ensuring that the requisite assessments and checks are made of an individual to ensure that large payments can be made in a way that does not increase any vulnerability.”
But she said evidence showed that payments can be made “without there being a full note on the system of the content of the call with the individual”.
She added: “I am therefore concerned that there is no way that an agent, quality assessor or team leader can properly evaluate whether any agreement made between the DWP and an individual regarding repayment has fully considered all the relevant factors regarding their vulnerabilities before a large payment is made.”
But she also said DWP did not appear to be able to audit its other large payments to check whether similar failures had happened in any of those cases.
DWP will now have to respond to the coroner’s report.
When asked for its response to the report, why it did not appear to have implemented the changes recommended by the coroner in 2019, and why there was no recording of the CEAST call, DWP incorrectly stated that new processes introduced after Alexander Boamah’s death were followed and that coroner Anna Morris had noted this in her report.
DNS pointed out that this was deeply misleading because what Morris had said in her report was that it was “not possible to evaluate what was said, how long the call took and what steps were put in place to ensure that Rick understood the information within the call”.
She also said that it was “not possible to assess what Rick was asked about his state of mind, any vulnerabilities he was experiencing and his ability to safely manage the receipt of large payments of money”.
DWP also said that not all calls to and from the department are recorded, and it claimed that if a call recording had existed, it would have been submitted as evidence to the inquest.
A DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Mr Brookes.
“We will review the coroner’s report and respond in due course.”
John McArdle, co-founder of Black Triangle Campaign, said: “This is yet another tragic case of a death that could have been avoided had the department heeded the recommendations of PFD reports issued by coroners over the past 15 years.
“It is simply unacceptable that in spite of DWP’s protestations to the contrary, the same errors are made time and time again and disabled people are dying as a result.
“We consider that these systemic failures constitute a grave and systematic violation of disabled people’s human rights, in particular the right to life.
“The department must be held accountable for this trail of bureaucratic violence and neglect.
“It is now crystal clear to all that the department is incapable of self-regulation in fulfilling even a minimum duty of, and standard of, care to severely disabled people that we are entitled to require from a public authority.
“It is simply not fit for purpose.
“We submit that the only way forward to ensure that this duty of care is discharged is to establish an independent inspectorate, perhaps similar in form to Ofsted or the General Medical Council.
“As a precursor, [there must be] a full public inquiry into the department’s appalling litany of failures, leading to countless deaths of disabled people over the past 15 years.
“This inquiry requires to be urgently and immediately constituted to establish all the facts surrounding these tragic deaths and to work at pace to address the issue of how a DWP inspectorate can best operate to prevent further tragedies such as this one from ever happening again.”
The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press
28 November 2024
Anger over ‘abhorrent’ assisted suicide poster campaign at Westminster tube station
London transport bosses have refused to apologise for plastering the walls of a London Underground station with posters calling for the legalisation of assisted suicide.
Disabled activists were horrified by the sight of poster after poster greeting passengers walking through a tunnel at Westminster tube station this week, in the lead-up to tomorrow’s vote by MPs on Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s terminally ill adults (end of life) bill.
The posters were designed by the pro-assisted suicide campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, with one of the designs showing a photograph of a woman with terminal cancer dancing joyfully in her kitchen.
The sight of so many Dignity in Dying posters on both walls of the tunnel led disabled activists to label it the “Westminster death tunnel”, and warn of the potential impact on passengers with mental distress.
Campaigners later pasted posters for the Samaritans helpline over every one of the posters, although they were later removed.
Paula Peters, a disabled activist who campaigns against the legalisation of assisted suicide, called for the “immediate” removal of the posters.
She said: “It is absolutely appalling of Dignity in Dying to use Westminster and Oxford Circus stations to advertise for their campaign with their insensitive ads.
“Are they aware that in the year up to March 2024 (PDF), 68 people in mental distress attempted to take their own lives on London Underground, and 24 succeeded?
“That London Underground train drivers, platform staff and ticket line staff are traumatised by each incident of the act of suicide and suicide attempt on the network?
“This is totally insensitive of Dignity in Dying to use the London Underground in this way; they have scant regard for the passengers who have taken their own lives and the workers who have been traumatised.
“This is also insensitive of Transport for London (TfL) and the mayor of London.”
She said the posters appeared to breach TfL advertising standards.
Accessible transport campaigner Tony Jennings said he was “appalled” by the “abhorrent, coercive poster campaign” and said the posters would be “triggering” for those with mental distress and “need removing urgently”.
He called for TfL to “remove the tasteless posters” and for the RMT union to support that call.
Disabled activist Natalya Dell said that for those who experience mental distress, the posters “could be really triggering and upsetting”.
She said: “I think with an issue where there are strong feelings and a lot of painful memories [and] experiences on both sides, that is not something that needs to be on TfL’s advertising.
“It is too nuanced and painful an issue for posters.”
Dignity in Dying refused to explain why it placed so many of its posters in a location so strongly associated with suicides, whether it stood by that decision, and whether it would apologise and remove them.
But a spokesperson said in a statement: “Our Let Us Choose campaign features real people who want a change in the law on assisted dying, either because they are terminally ill and want the choice, or because their loved one wanted the choice but was denied it.
“The campaign uses positive imagery of these people living life on their own terms, alongside messages about why they are campaigning for greater choice.
“It is fully compliant with the Committee of Advertising Practice code.
“For some of our posters to be vandalised in this way is disappointing, and understandably upsetting for those pictured.
“We are in contact with them and we are making sure that they are being supported.”
TfL claimed that the DiD advertising campaign complied with its advertising policy (PDF) and the Committee of Advertising Practice code.
Its policy states that an advertisement will be considered “unacceptable” if it “is likely to cause widespread or serious offence to reasonable members of the public” or is “unacceptable for some other substantial reason”.
TfL refused to say if it thought that so many posters calling for assisted suicide to be legalised at Westminster station was appropriate, whether it was concerned about the impact on people in mental distress in a London Underground station, or who at TfL approved the campaign.
But a TfL spokesperson said in a statement: “We reviewed this advertising campaign against both our advertising policy and the Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) code, and it was found to be compliant.”
RMT had not commented by noon today (Thursday).
The office of the mayor for London, Sadiq Khan, refused to say if he thought that so many posters calling for assisted suicide to be legalised at one Underground station was appropriate, and whether he was concerned about the impact on people in mental distress in an Underground station.
But a spokesperson for the mayor said in a statement: “The mayor has no involvement in approving or deciding which ads run on the TfL network, and TfL’s policy reflects legal requirements.”
The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Samaritans, Papyrus, Mind, SOS Silence of Suicide and Rethink
28 November 2024
Council suddenly pulls funding from disabled woman despite seven-year accessible housing nightmare
A local authority has suddenly pulled the plug on funding that would have ended the seven-year accessible housing ordeal of a disabled woman and her family.
Afsheen Durrani, her husband Imran, and their two children, were finally told in March this year that contractors would begin work on building a ground-floor extension and wet room, seven years after they first appealed to the council for help.
But after months more delays, they were told last week by a council officer that Labour-run Hounslow council could no longer afford to carry out the £40,000 work on their council-owned home.
The work had been approved by the council, although it is not yet clear if it was being paid for through council funding or the government’s disabled facilities grant (DFG) programme, which provides hundreds of millions of pounds every year to help councils fund access improvements to disabled people’s homes.
The Durranis have been seeking a solution to their housing nightmare for seven years, because Afsheen has multiple health conditions, including diabetes, a heart condition, brittle bones, asthma, and osteoarthritis, and is waiting for dialysis and for kidney and pancreas transplants.
The bathroom is on the first floor of their end-of-terrace home, and the council concluded it was not possible or suitable to install a lift or stairlift, or a downstairs bathroom.
Afsheen and Imran now sleep in the ground-floor living-room, which has been turned into a bedroom.
But every time she needs to use the toilet, her husband needs to support her up the stairs to the bathroom, lifting her up each step one at a time.
The council has already accepted she is at risk of falls, following an occupational therapy assessment.
Imran, a former revenue officer for the council, has developed severe muscular problems due to his full-time caring duties.
Their living arrangements mean they cannot entertain friends and family in their home.
They first applied for help with adaptations to their home in April 2017, but after options like a stairlift or a lift were ruled out, the council suggested they move to an accessible property.
Hounslow council eventually accepted that none of the properties they were offered were suitable for Afsheen.
But they also failed to tell the family about the DFG system.
Early last year, the council was forced to apologise and pay the family £250 compensation – on the orders of the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman – because of its failure.
The family were told the extension and wet room would cost £40,000, so they applied through the council for a grant to cover the work, although it is not clear whether this was a DFG.
The council approved the £40,000 grant – certain to be many times cheaper than building a new accessible property – in February 2023, and after more than a year of further delays, they were finally given a date in March 2024 for the work to start the following month.
But last week, after months of poor communication and further delays, they were told that Hounslow council was abandoning the project because it no longer had the money to fund the work.
Afsheen told Disability News Service that she has been driven to the point of despair by the seven-year delay and the way they have been treated by the council.
She said: “It’s terrible, especially after seven years of waiting. They don’t care about our situation.
“It’s so difficult doing daily things. Going to the toilet is a mission for me.
“I was going to have my freedom and my dignity…”
Asked how he felt about the way they had been treated, Imran said: “I don’t have the words.
“My wife has suffered so much, I have suffered so much, my children.”
Hounslow council has so far failed to explain why the grant was suddenly withdrawn; how the council justified leaving the family in such an inaccessible and unsafe situation for the last seven years; and what action it was planning to take to provide safe, accessible housing for the Durranis.
Despite Afsheen providing written permission for the council to discuss their case, the council said it would be a “breach of privacy” to do so.
Instead, it produced a statement which failed to mention them by name, or comment on their situation.
Cllr Sue Sampson, the council’s cabinet member for housing management and homelessness, said: “The council is committed to championing equal access for all of our residents with disabilities.
“We work hard to ensure adaptation needs are met and have completed 174 adaptations within the housing stock to support residents with their housing needs this year alone.
“However, the current housing aids and adaptations budget is only £1.2 million, while requests for adaptations have risen by 15 per cent on last year, and unfortunately that means demand outstrips the budget and we have to assess cases based on priority and risk.
“As part of our development programme, we ensure that a proportion of our new affordable housing provision is accessible housing.
“Since March 2024, 31 new wheelchair-adapted homes have been handed over to be let.
“We also ensure all new developments in the borough meet planning requirements and planning policy on the provision of wheelchair-accessible homes.
“Forty-two new wheelchair-accessible homes are expected among the homes currently under construction by the council.”
28 November 2024
Disabled Labour MP uses memorial lecture to push government to implement UN disability convention
A disabled Labour MP has vowed to push her government to implement the UN disability convention into UK law, as she delivered a lecture set up to remember a much-admired activist.
Marsha de Cordova, the MP for Battersea, was delivering the first annual Ruth Bashall Memorial Lecture.
She also promised to continue to support the campaign for a public inquiry into the years of deaths caused by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
The lecture was hosted by Stay Safe East, a disabled people’s organisation which provides advocacy and support to Deaf and disabled victims and survivors of domestic and sexual violence, hate crime and harassment, and other crime in London.
Ruth Bashall, who died last November, was co-founder of Stay Safe East, as well as a long-standing director, chief executive and then policy manager of the organisation, and the idea of an annual lecture in her name was suggested by her friend and fellow disabled activist Kirsten Hearn.
Hearn said she had “wanted a space in which to honour Ruth’s life which reflected her contribution and would mark her legacy by encouraging Deaf and disabled people to present ideas about oppression, discrimination, harassment and hate and what to do about it nationally”.
In her lecture, de Cordova spoke about the ongoing barriers disabled people face across independent living, transport, housing, employment and education, with many living in poverty, while she said disabled women were more than three times as likely to experience domestic abuse than non-disabled women.
She also said that disabled people were too often “left feeling as though they’re not going to get the right support or the right outcome when they report hate crime to the police”.
De Cordova said that many disabled people were now “struggling after 14 years of austerity, as well as the impact of the pandemic”.
And she highlighted how a series of Conservative-led governments had created a “hostile environment for disabled people” through cuts to social security and local authority funding.
She said: “They were cruel and they were callous and it didn’t matter how many times they were warned about the damage their policies would cause, they did not listen.”
She said the harm they had caused and their “grave and systematic violations” of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities “could have been prevented had they chosen to see us as equals and see us as humans”.
She said she would “continue to fight” for the UN convention to be implemented into UK law.
De Cordova said she also wanted to keep pressing her government to examine policy areas in which it could incorporate parts of the convention into UK law, such as education, independent living and social security and support for disabled people.
Until that happens, she said, “we are not going to achieve equality and justice for us all”.
In response to a question from Disability News Service, she said she still believed there needed to be a public inquiry into the deaths associated with DWP because “somebody need to be held to account”.
She said: “My view hasn’t changed on that and it won’t ever change on that because we all know the impact that the Department for Work and Pensions’ policies have had on disabled people.
“The last 14 years have probably been the worst.
“I’ve heard of so many lives that have been lost as a result of hostile policies that have had a devastating impact.
“No government should ever have been allowed to get away with some of the violations [of the UN disability convention] that the Conservatives – with the support of the Lib Dems for five years – did to our community.”
De Cordova said she was “so inspired and impressed” by Stay Safe East’s work, particularly as it is led and controlled by disabled people.
And she praised Ruth Bashall’s work, which she said was “an inspiration to many”, and said she had “put solidarity into action” and “really was a voice for the voiceless”.
Savi Hensman, chair of Stay Safe East, said that Bashall was “deeply compassionate, committed to solidarity, and with a passion for social justice, as well as practical caring and changing policy structures and attitudes”.
A long-term client of Stay Safe East said in a statement read out at the event that Bashall had saved her life through the support she provided, and that she was an “extraordinary person” and had empowered her, taught her resilience, and helped her to live and “not to just exist”.
28 November 2024
Disabled musicians face discrimination, harassment, racism, and debt, says new report
A new report has revealed the widespread discrimination, sexual harassment, racism and financial problems faced by disabled musicians.
The report found that one in six (16 per cent) disabled musicians who are open about their impairment or health condition had experienced disability-related discrimination at work.
The proportion rose to 38 per cent of disabled musicians who identified as transgender.
More than half (57 per cent) of those disabled musicians who took part in the survey said they faced disability-related barriers that had affected their career and aspirations, with nearly one in 10 of this group (nine per cent) saying it was unlikely they would be working as musicians in a year’s time.
Nearly a quarter (22 per cent) of disabled musicians said they were in debt, in contrast to 13 per cent of non-disabled musicians, with an average pay gap of £4,400 between disabled and non-disabled musicians who earn all their income from music.
The report also says that nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of disabled musicians said they had been sexually harassed at work, compared to 13 per cent of non-disabled musicians.
And the report found that 27 per cent of disabled musicians had experienced racism at work, compared with seven per cent of non-disabled musicians, highlighting another of the areas of intersectional discrimination exposed by the report.
A previous report by Attitude is Everything and Black Lives in Music – Unseen Unheard – found 70 per cent of black disabled music creators and professionals had experienced racism or racial bias towards them, and 22 per cent had accessed counselling as a result.
The new report, Musicians’ Census: Disabled Musicians Insight Report, is based on a survey carried out last year by The Musicians’ Union and the charity Help Musicians, which saw responses from nearly 2,600 disabled musicians.
LLinos Owen, who plays bassoon with Welsh National Opera, said: “We live in a civilised society where asking for help and reasonable adjustments shouldn’t be seen as a nuisance, but I have noticed this can be the case, particularly in freelance roles.
“If I made a request but had to push back on a poor response, I would fear that I might not get booked again.
“It makes me realise how much I have to rely on goodwill, rather than it being a principle.”
She said that “most of the individual managers I have dealt with have been brilliant, going above and beyond and they have genuinely wanted to help me.
“However, when they get a ‘no’ or a poor response from the venue, it makes me nervous that they won’t feel comfortable to advocate further for me.”
Another female musician, aged between 35 and 44, said: “I am autistic and my social difficulties negatively impacted my ability to keep work – I was regularly discriminated against and the impact on my mental health was traumatic.
“I am very, very happy working in education where I am treated with professional dignity and respect.
“This was completely absent from my performing career and destroyed my love of my instrument.”
The Musicians’ Union and Help Musicians worked with the disabled-led accessible music charity Attitude is Everything to launch the report.
Naomi Pohl, the union’s general secretary, said: “The music industry is beginning to take steps to address accessibility and ensure more inclusive workplaces, but there is a long way to go and more progress is urgently needed.”
Paul Hawkins, Attitude is Everything’s head of skills development, said the industry, funders and government could all make it easier for disabled musicians to make a living.
He said: “Faster support for Access to Work and more flexibility around benefits for musicians who work irregular hours or apply for career development funding are vital, as are funders providing additional support for access costs, which has been introduced by members of our Next Stage Talent Development Group.
“Additionally, we encourage the industry to create a culture of disclosure via access riders, such as those developed by The Musicians’ Union and to ensure that the networking opportunities, conferences and workshops – as well as events themselves – are as accessible as possible for disabled musicians.”
28 November 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Former prime minister Gordon Brown has declared his opposition to the legalisation of assisted dying, saying the death of his newborn daughter in January 2002 convinced him of the “value and imperative of good end-of-life care”. He also said that “with the NHS still at its lowest ebb, this is not the right time to make such a profound decision. Instead, we need to show we can do better at assisted living before deciding whether to legislate on ways to die.”: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/22/gordon-brown-improve-end-of-life-care-rather-than-allow-assisted-dying
Campaigners including bereaved families met with MPs to voice their concerns about a mental health trust. Members of the Campaign to Save Mental Health Services in Norfolk and Suffolk travelled to London on Monday. Six prevention of future death reports have so far been sent to the service in 2024 – more than the total it received in 2022: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39nyy30pxjo
The children’s commissioner for England has called for an urgent review of the use of restraint and “calming rooms”, after leaked CCTV footage showed autistic children being pushed into a padded space where they were left distressed, self-harming and sitting in vomit. Footage obtained by the BBC as part of a three-year investigation into allegations of abuse and mistreatment of vulnerable children at a north London special school between 2014 and 2017 reveals for the first time the graphic reality of what happened: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/nov/27/watchdog-appalled-restraint-autistic-children-london-school
An autistic man has spent more than 10 years behind bars under joint enterprise laws for murder after his friend stabbed a man to death during a fight. Under the controversial joint enterprise law at the time, Alex Henry and another associate were deemed by the jury to have been able to foresee that their friend had a knife, with the prosecutor arguing “friends tell each other everything”. The jury were not told he was autistic and they had been incorrectly directed on the law: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/alex-henry-joint-enterprise-murder-united-nations-b2618711.html
28 November 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
