Mental health bill ‘will not stop us being locked up’, say disabled activists

A long-awaited new mental health bill falls far short of the fundamental reforms needed to ensure full human rights for disabled people, and will not stop them being subjected to forcible detention and degrading treatment, activists have warned.

The government yesterday (Wednesday) introduced its mental health bill into parliament, although it is based on a draft piece of legislation drawn up by the last Conservative government.

But one disabled activist said the new bill would not prevent disabled people being “locked up, abused, tortured, treated inhumanely and left to die through neglect”.

Other campaigners said many of the reforms would be “meaningless” in a system where community care was “chronically under-resourced”.

The last government’s draft bill fell “well short” of compatibility with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), activists warned at the time.

The new bill, which will reform the “outdated” Mental Health Act 1983, includes measures to end the use of police and prison cells as “places of safety” for people in mental health crisis; stop the “inappropriate” detention of autistic people and people with learning difficulties; and introduce statutory care and treatment plans.

The bill also gives patients more say over how they should be treated if they are sectioned under the act, and offers “stronger protections” for patients, staff and the public, the government says.

It also offers patients the right to choose a person to represent their interests and “greater access to advocacy” when they are detained, and reforms the use of community treatment orders so they are only used “when appropriate and proportionate”.

Disabled people’s organisations welcomed some aspects of the reforms, but they warned that the new bill would not comply with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

National Survivor User Network (NSUN), a user-led network of groups and people with experience of mental ill-health, distress, and trauma, said some of the proposals in the last government’s draft bill had “the potential to improve the experiences of people who are detained under certain circumstances”, if they were properly resourced and implemented.

But NSUN said the draft bill had not shifted far enough “towards truly rights-based care” and failed to provide “real alternatives to detention and properly-resourced community care”.

An NSUN spokesperson said: “Black people are over three times more likely to be detained under the Mental Heath Act and 11 times more likely to receive an inappropriate community treatment order, but the [government] press release fails to elaborate on steps toward addressing and reforming what we know to be a structurally oppressive system which further marginalises racialised communities.”

NSUN also said that measures to prevent people in mental health crisis being placed in prison, and ensure patients had as much control over their care as possible, were “ultimately meaningless in a system where community care is chronically under-resourced”, with significant question-marks over any additional funding.

Simone Aspis, project manager for Inclusion London’s Free Our People Now project, which is led by autistic people and people with learning difficulties, said the new bill “focuses on keeping people in psychiatric hospitals against their wishes”.

She said: “We don’t think this bill will stop us from being locked up, abused, tortured, treated inhumanely and left to die through neglect in psychiatric hospitals.”

Although the new bill introduces a 28-day limit for detention for autistic people and people with learning difficulties who do not also have a mental health diagnosis, many of those with another diagnosis or label would not have the same protection.

Aspis said: “We don’t think this will stop us from being locked up.

“Having statutory care and treatment plans for us will have limited impact if mental health professionals still have the power to lock us up, for years on end, without a release date.

“Increasing numbers of young people are being detained and we face widespread prejudice.

“It will take more than just involving more patients, families and carers to change this.”

Aspis said Free Our People Now “would welcome a mental health bill that is in line with our UN human rights as disabled people.

“This would focus on stopping us being locked up in the first place, and keeping us out of psychiatric hospitals for good.

“We need a bill that focuses on giving people with learning difficulties and autistic people the right to the support we need, to live great lives in the community.”*

Fazilet Hadi, head of policy for Disability Rights UK, said the bill would provide “some patient-centred improvements to existing practices and services” but “in no way upholds the civil and human rights of disabled people” under the UN convention.

She said: “Under the convention, disabled people have the right to liberty, the right not to be subjected to degrading and inhuman treatment, and the right to live independently in the community.

“The bill isn’t built on these principles and those in mental distress will continue to be forcibly detained against their will and to be subjected to degrading treatment.

“Whilst the bill promotes increased support in the community, the current underfunding of mental health services makes such a shift unlikely.”

Dorothy Gould, founder of the user-led, rights-based organisation Liberation, said the government’s announcement was “devastating news” because the bill appeared to be “in fundamental breach of full human rights for those of us given a mental health diagnosis”.

She said: “Information released about the bill demonstrates all too clearly that it is thought acceptable for us just to have ‘improved’ rights.

“Why should people experiencing acute trauma not have full human rights?

“Why are we continuing to be treated as second-class citizens like this?

“This is not a bill which brings the Mental Health Act ‘in line with the 21st century’.

“On the contrary, the UK government is continuing to breach our basic rights under the UNCRPD.”

She added: “The government has argued that continuing provision for disability-based detention and forced treatment is needed because of times when we are a risk to ourselves and others.

“However, this does not even seem to be based on adequate research evidence.”

She said: “What is true is that many of us are being traumatised further by the use of involuntary detention and forced treatment at the very times when we most need warm, human and genuinely healing approaches, and that the mental health system has resulted in death levels among us that are at horrific levels.

“It’s a national disgrace, a huge stain on past governments and now on the current government as well.”

She said the bill represented “a blatant failure to tackle the main causes of acute mental distress: discrimination, abuse and hate crime, inequality, poverty, the misery caused by the current welfare benefit system and the failure to provide adequate support for those of us who can work combined with intolerable pressures on those of us who cannot”.

Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said in a statement announcing the bill: “Our outdated mental health system is letting down some of the most vulnerable people in our society, and is in urgent need of reform.

“The treatment of autistic people and people with learning disabilities, and the way in which black people are disproportionately targeted by the act should shame us all.

“By bringing the Mental Health Act in line with the 21st century, we will make sure patients are treated with dignity and respect and the public are kept safe.”

The government told DNS yesterday that the new bill contains “a number of measures that go further than the previous draft bill”.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) did not clarify how many new measures there were in the new bill, but it provided two examples.

One change from the draft bill is that advance choice documents, which allow patients to set out their choices and wishes on their future treatment, will be written into law.

DHSC said the bill will also strengthen “safeguards for public safety”, for example by requiring clinicians to consult at least one other mental health practitioner before discharging a patient after they have been sectioned.

*Free Our People Now’s Bring People Home from Psychiatric Hospital network has created a list of requests (PDF) which represent “what we want the government to do to stop locking us up in hospital”. It has been signed by 27 organisations

Call for hate crime law reform, as broadcaster says young people too sick to work are ‘parasites’

A right-wing broadcaster is likely to escape police action despite describing young disabled people on out-of-work benefits as “parasites”, in a case that highlights long-standing concerns about inequality for disabled people in hate crime law.

Isabel Oakeshott, international editor for TalkTV, criticised chancellor Rachel Reeves for failing to announce a “crackdown” on young people on sickness benefits in last week’s budget.

Oakeshott told the TalkTV audience: “It is ludicrous. How many young people are supposedly too sick to work and being supported by the state?

“You know, these figures are absolutely off-the-chart, and they are completely unjustified.”

She said last week’s budget had removed resources from those who work “in order to keep on sustaining those who frankly can’t be bothered to get out of bed and get themselves out… to… any kind of job and prefer to just sit on the sofa and order their Deliveroo and drive their Motability free vehicle and take everything that the state can offer”.

Oakeshott, former political editor of The Sunday Times, told presenter Kevin O’Sullivan that “people like you and me and our very many listeners” were “grafting just to try to make ends meet, and basically these people are frankly parasites”.

TalkTV is owned by News UK, whose other outlets, including The Sun and The Times, have long pushed for a government “crackdown” on social security spending.

It is believed that a number of complaints have been submitted to broadcasting watchdog Ofcom about Oakeshott’s comments.

Dr Jenny Ceolta-Smith, a disabled activist and adviser with the charity Long Covid Support, is one of those who has complained to Ofcom.

She told the watchdog in her complaint that the kind of rhetoric used by Oakeshott “causes harm, it is distressing, fear inducing and for those of us who cannot work we feel blamed, vilified and victimised”, while “implying benefit claimants are lazy incites hatred”.

She said there were more than two million people in the UK with long Covid, including many who experience “debilitating fatigue and often need to spend considerable periods of time in bed or on the sofa/chair”.

It is likely that Oakeshott and TalkTV have breached the Ofcom Broadcasting Code.

Section 3.2 of the code says: “Material which contains hate speech must not be included in television and radio programmes… except where it is justified by the context.”

And section 3.3 of the code says: “Material which contains abusive or derogatory treatment of individuals, groups, religions or communities, must not be included in television and radio services… except where it is justified by the context.”

An Ofcom spokesperson said: “Every complaint we receive is assessed against our rules before we decide whether or not to investigate.”

Seven years ago, Theresia Degener, who at the time chaired the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, warned that disabled people could be at risk of violence, and even “killings and euthanasia”, because of their portrayal by the government and media as “parasites” who live on benefits.

She said in the BBC interview, in comments that were never broadcast but were reported by Disability News Service (DNS), that “disabled people being portrayed as parasites, living on social benefits, and welfare and the taxes of other people” was “very, very dangerous”.

She said such attitudes “will later on lead to violence against disabled people, we know it, if not to killings and euthanasia”.

John McArdle, co-founder of the disabled people’s grassroots group Black Triangle Campaign, said: “I find it totally unacceptable that in the 21^st century people should be able to brand a whole section of society as parasites.

“Words have repercussions, and I would like to reaffirm wholeheartedly what Theresia Degener said.”

Oakeshott’s comments have highlighted the continuing contradiction in hate crime law, which allows someone to be charged with stirring up hatred on the grounds of race, religion, or sexual orientation, but not on the grounds of disability.

The Law Commission recommended three years ago that this law should be extended to disability and transgender identity in England and Wales, but the last government failed to implement this and many other recommendations from the report.

Dr David Wilkin, a disabled activist, researcher, author* and support worker for victims of disability hate crime, said the Law Commission had “recognised that disabled victims of hate crime (as well as the transgender community) had no protection in law from those wishing to abuse them or from those wanting to stir up hatred and resentment against them”.

He said: “Were the recommendations of the commission adopted, we would have a robust suite of legislation to protect all disabled people from such crimes.

“For it not to have been put on the statute book is a wasted opportunity.”

He said there was now a good opportunity for the new government to “take a turn away from the divisive behaviour of summer 2024 and introduce new laws to protect susceptible groups”.

A TalkTV spokesperson told DNS: “We are aware of comments made by Isabel Oakeshott on Talk last week on Kevin O’Sullivan’s nightly political opinion show.

“Although Kevin O’Sullivan’s show is built on personal opinions on the news stories of the day, Isabel Oakeshott failed to caveat her comments to reflect she did not mean all benefit claimants were gaming the system.

“In debates on this issue, she frequently emphasises the importance of supporting those in genuine need. We regret any offence caused.”

Asked whether this meant that Oakeshott believed that some young disabled people who do not work were “parasites” but just not all of them, the spokesperson declined to comment further.

She also declined to say if this view was shared by News UK.

There was no mention of any apology from Oakeshott.

The Home Office said Labour had committed to changing hate crime laws on aggravated offences, but not yet on the stirring up hate offence and other recommendations made by the Law Commission.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We are absolutely committed to tackling all forms of hate crime and have already committed to protect LGBT+ and disabled people by making all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence.

“This government is carefully considering the recommendations made by the Law Commission in its report on hate crime legislation.”

*Disability Hate Crime: Perspectives for Change, was published by Routledge in September

Minister’s pledges are ‘beginning of the end’ of rail assistance ‘chaos’ and ‘nonsense’, says disabled peer

Labour’s rail minister had made a series of promises that could see “the beginning of the end” of sub-standard assistance for disabled passengers on the railway, following lobbying by two disabled peers.

Lord Hendy, former chair of Network Rail, told the House of Lords yesterday (Wednesday) that he was “personally ashamed” of the way the rail industry treated passengers who need assistance.

He said he was sending “a clear signal to train operating companies that they cannot ignore their legal duties to support disabled passengers and to ensure that disabled passengers have proper access to the railway as they need and deserve”.

And he said he had been left “shocked” after being shown the number of different mobile phone apps that disabled people must use to book assistance, a wheelchair space and a ticket for their rail journeys.

He also pointed to the “lack of consistency in train design”, and the “lack of reliable, accurate information” on whether facilities such as station lifts and accessible toilets are working.

As well as promising to improve assistance, Lord Hendy proposed an amendment to the government’s passenger railway services (public ownership) bill, which would amend the Equality Act to make it clear that publicly-owned train companies are subject to the act’s public sector equality duty.

This should make it easier for disabled rail passengers to hold rail companies to account for access failures, as the government gradually takes operators into public ownership when contracts with private companies expire.

The minister’s pledges followed a meeting with two disabled peers – Liberal Democrat Baroness [Sal] Brinton and crossbench peer Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson – and Liberal Democrat rail spokesperson Baroness Randerson.

Lord Hendy said: “Although it is the government’s view that the public sector equality duty [PSED] already applies to publicly-owned train operating companies, we are concerned that that is currently not as clear as it needs to be.

“By adding them to the list of public authorities in the act, we will ensure that there can be no mistake.

“Network Rail and Transport for London are already named in the act, but train operating companies previously were not, which is something that, if this amendment is agreed, we will remedy.”

This amendment to the bill was later agreed by peers.

Lord Hendy said the government’s future railways bill would allow Great British Railways (GBR) – the new over-arching body that will eventually run the rail system – to “begin to take a coherent approach” to access issues.

But he said some of the improvements should not have to wait for that bill to be passed.

He said the government would therefore begin to work with disabled people to develop an “accessibility road map” that would “explain the actions we intend to take to improve things for disabled people or others requiring assistance in advance of GBR being set up”.

He said the road map would include measuring and reporting on lift reliability and maintenance; confirming the legal obligation of rail operators to provide all disabled people with assistance when travelling, “whether or not a pre-booking has been made”; and improving “consistency” in the service provided to disabled rail passengers.

Lord Hendy said the government would also provide funding to improve the passenger assist app, and that this work “must be done” in consultation with disabled people, including Baroness Brinton and Baroness Grey-Thompson, to “ensure that it delivers the assistance that people deserve and addresses their needs”.

Baroness Brinton told fellow peers yesterday that disabled people had “for far too long been ignored by the train operating companies, with complex and different arrangements leading to chaos and unreliable services” and with many disabled people reporting “disrupted or poor services daily”.

She said the PSED amendment was “a big step forward” and the measures announced by Lord Hendy would eventually mark “the end of the current poor levels of assistance for passengers”, which would “transform the lives of disabled rail passengers”.

Last month, Baroness Grey-Thompson and Baroness Brinton described to fellow peers some of their experiences as disabled rail passengers.

Baroness Brinton spoke of the “absolute nonsense” of the multitude of mobile phone apps disabled people need to use to book their tickets and assistance, the “total chaos” of trying to arrange access at unstaffed stations, and the overall unreliable provision of assistance.

Baroness Grey-Thompson said the failure rate with assistance was “way too high, and many disabled people do not even try to travel because of the fear of what they expect”, while she also described the “victim blaming” of disabled people by rail staff when there is an assistance failure, with disabled people “constantly fobbed off and told it will never happen again” when they complain.

She told peers last month: “Quite frankly, I really dislike having to book, but I cannot face having to turn up at a train station and almost feel like I am begging to be allowed on the train.”

Meanwhile, the government has announced that Baroness Grey-Thompson will lead a new taskforce that will work with the industry and consumers over the next nine months to tackle the barriers to air travel for disabled passengers.

Among other disabled members are Sophie Morgan, a television presenter and founder of campaign group Rights on Flights; accessible transport campaigner Tony Jennings; and Helen Dolphin, a long-standing member of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee.

The taskforce will also include representatives of airlines, assistance providers and airports.

The group will agree “short- and long-term practical and achievable actions that can be implemented by the industry, the regulator or the government”.

Transport secretary Louise Haigh said: “For too long, disabled passengers haven’t had the standard of assistance and service they need.

“That’s why we are bringing together this expert taskforce to drive forward change.”

Baroness Grey-Thompson said: “I am looking forward to working with disabled people, industry experts and the Department for Transport to improve access to flying.

“It is essential that the rights of each passenger are protected at every aspect of their journey, so they can travel with the respect they deserve.”

Morgan said the government had “sent a powerful message to the community and airline industry, that change is in the air”.

DWP’s treatment of disabled people under Tories was ‘terrible and inexcusable crime’, says MP

The way the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has treated disabled people in the last 15 years “will go down in history as a terrible and inexcusable crime”, MPs were told this week during a debate on the new government’s budget.

Apsana Begum – who lost the Labour whip in July after voting to remove the two-child benefit limit – said there was “extensive evidence about the serious harm caused to people subjected to dehumanising assessments and sanctions, including reports of deaths* directly related to the social security regime”.

She called for a “long-term overhaul of the social security system”, which she said was “not fit for purpose”.

The independent MP also told the Commons that Labour’s commitment to deliver the same level of savings on disability benefits as the last government had planned was “more than alarming”.

She spoke out after chancellor Rachel Reeves pledged in last week’s budget to “reduce the benefits bill” and “ensure that welfare spending is more sustainable”.

Reeves said last week that the government would “deliver” the same cuts to spending as the Conservative government had aimed to make through tightening the work capability assessment.

Those changes would have been introduced next year and would have seen 424,000 disabled people lose their entitlement to extra support of up to £4,900 a year by 2028-29, cutting spending by £2.8 billion in the four years to 2028-29.

It is not yet clear whether the Labour government will introduce those changes, or if it will make the savings elsewhere.

Begum was not the only MP to refer to the impact of the last government’s welfare reforms on disabled people.

Labour’s Emily Darlington, MP for Milton Keynes Central, reminded MPs on Monday that under previous Conservative governments, disabled people had taken their own lives due to welfare reform.

She said that 14 years of “failure” had also led to “three million people using food banks, more than 700,000 children plunged into poverty, mortgage costs nearly doubled, the worst pay rises since the 1950s… mental health worse than at any time on record, more people sleeping rough and more families without their own home”.

She said the Conservative party continued “to deny, to justify and to refuse to apologise to those people right across the country and in my constituency”.

Labour’s Neil Coyle challenged former Conservative work and pensions secretary Mel Stride to explain why he had insisted there would be no investigation of DWP by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) into its unlawful treatment of disabled benefit claimants.

Stride had repeatedly insisted that DWP would reach a legal agreement with EHRC over allegations of discrimination in its benefits assessment processes.

The commission finally took the step to launch an investigation in May after discussions with the department that lasted more than two years and were supposed to lead to a legally-binding section 23 agreement that would have forced it to take action to address its discrimination.

Stride, who was this week appointed shadow chancellor by the new Conservative leader, Kemi Badenoch, did not answer the question, telling Coyle instead: “I stand by our record when I was secretary of state for work and pensions, particularly on the support that the department gave to the disabled, not least the results that we achieved in encouraging and helping them into work, which is the best possible outcome.”

During Monday’s debate, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall again spoke of “near-record levels of people trapped out of work due to long-term sickness” and the government’s plan “to drive down fraud and error in the welfare system”, including its controversial fraud, error and debt bill.

And she told MPs that her employment white paper, which is expected to be published later this month, would describe the “biggest reforms to employment support in a generation”, and “help us meet our ambition to achieve an 80 per cent employment rate” and “turn what is in reality a department for welfare into a genuine department for work”.

Deirdre Costigan, Labour MP for Ealing Southall, said she had visited her local jobcentre last month, and asked staff what support they could offer disabled people to return to work, but she said they “did not have an answer”.

She said: “As a trade unionist, I represented disabled workers for many years.

“So many of them wanted to work but were pushed out of their job because there was no support.

“There are three million people off work on a long-term sickness absence.

“Many would love to work, but the health service is not set up to support them and jobcentres do not have the right tools to help.”

She said Kendall’s plan to “bring jobcentres, careers services, skills providers and health services together will make a huge difference”.

*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press 

DWP denies destroying documents that would have shown why it weakened rules on secret suicide reviews

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has denied destroying documents that would have revealed why it weakened guidance on when to investigate the cases of benefit claimants who took their own lives, following a probe by the information commissioner.

Repeated searches by DWP civil servants – in response to a request by the Information Commissioner’s Office – failed to unearth a single document relating to the decision.

DWP says it is now impossible to explain “how the decision to change the criteria was made”.

Disability News Service (DNS) has been trying since March to obtain internal DWP documents that would show why the rules on when to carry out internal process reviews (IPRs) were altered in April 2021.

In 2020, DWP told the National Audit Office that it would always carry out one of its secret reviews when it heard of a claimant’s suicide, even if there were no allegations that DWP’s actions had contributed to that death.

But since April 2021, after weakening the rules, DWP now only carries out an IPR following the suicide of a claimant if there is already an allegation that DWP’s actions “may have negatively contributed to the customer’s circumstances”.

That decision meant far fewer internal process reviews were carried out.

In 2022-23, there were 89 referrals from within DWP for an IPR, but only 60 met the new criteria, while in 2023-24, there were 75 referrals and only 53 met the criteria.

DNS had asked DWP, through a freedom of information request, for any documents relating to the decision to weaken the criteria that were held by the team that made the change.

After the department claimed it held no such documents, DNS complained to the information commissioner.

In its response to the commissioner, DWP said it had searched its IT systems, with “file by file checks” of “each of the folders where it would be likely that recorded information would be held”, as well as “full site meta-data searches”.

A second “independent” check was carried out by “an experienced IPR team member”.

None of these checks produced a single document about the decision to weaken the criteria.

The information commissioner, John Edwards, told DNS this week: “DWP confirmed that it was not aware of any specific information that had been destroyed or deleted that related to the request.

“DWP explained that this was confirmed in conversations with colleagues responsible for the IPR team during the period covered by the request.”

When the commissioner raised concerns from DNS that this information should have been “recorded and retained”, DWP told him: “In an operational context, many decisions are made daily, often without them being officially recorded in specific documents.”

It added: “It is also worth noting the events occurring at the time in question, the department was still concentrating on supporting citizens during the pandemic and that may have impacted the decision-making process.”

DWP said it had been unable to confirm if information relating to the decision to weaken the IPR was ever created.

But it added that “if it was created during the period in question, we can confirm that it was no longer held when the original request was received”.

It also told the commissioner that “due to a lack of documentation, turnover of staff and the time that has passed since the period in question”, it could not explain “how the decision to change the criteria was made”.

Edwards ruled this week that, on the balance of probabilities, DWP does not possess the documents DNS was seeking.

He said he “understands why the complainant would believe that information was held” but “cannot determine whether information should be held, only whether on the balance of probabilities, it was held at the time of the request”.

DWP has a long history of hiding and delaying the release of embarrassing information about the deaths of claimants, and destroying incriminating documents.

The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the deaths linked to DWP and the years of cover-ups by the department, is published by Pluto Press 

DWP finally admits ordering more than 30 secret reviews into universal credit harm and deaths last year

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has finally admitted that it carried out more than 30 secret reviews last year into cases of serious harm or deaths involving someone receiving universal credit.

Internal process reviews (IPRs) are only carried out if there has been an allegation that DWP’s actions “may have negatively contributed to the customer’s circumstances”, or if it is asked to contribute to a safeguarding or domestic homicide review or an inquest.

The figures will add to concerns about the working-age benefits system, two months after the start of the rollout of universal credit to the remaining hundreds of thousands of disabled people still receiving income-related ESA.

The PCS union has described universal credit as a “dangerously flawed system” in which “the most vulnerable continue to slip through its cracks”.

DWP previously claimed it was just a mistake that figures on how many IPRs into the deaths of universal credit claimants were carried out were omitted from the department’s annual report for 2023-24.

The report, published just after July’s general election, introduced the figures on page 80, stating: “The chart below shows the primary service lines relating to the customers’ cases accepted to IPR across 2023-24.”

But there was no chart in the report that provided that information.

Now, more than three months later, DWP has finally published the missing figures.

They show that 31 IPRs were carried out in 2023-24 into suicides, other deaths, attempted suicides and cases of serious harm involving claimants of universal credit.

They also show 27 were carried out into cases involving personal independence payment claimants, and 15 into disabled people who were receiving employment and support allowance (ESA)*.

In 2023-24, DWP staff referred 75 cases for a possible review, but only 53 met the criteria and were accepted for an IPR.

Despite repeated concerns being raised about safeguarding and the safety of the administration of universal credit, none of the main political parties mentioned the issue in their election manifestos.

In July, DNS described how repeated failures by DWP led to the death of a disabled woman, Nazerine Anderson, after her case was randomly selected for a “performance measurement review” of her universal credit claim.

Last November, another coroner wrote to the department after the death of Kevin Gale, to warn DWP that it needed to act to prevent flaws in the universal credit system leading to further deaths, after Gale took his own life after becoming overwhelmed by the application process.

And last month, DNS reported how a disabled woman left traumatised by the daily demands of universal credit took her own life just seven days after being told she would need to attend a face-to-face meeting with a work coach. Her inquest has yet to take place.

Thanks to a secret DWP decision, the criteria for when to carry out an IPR was weakened in April 2021 (see separate story).

Previously, whenever DWP became aware that a claimant had died by suicide it would order an IPR, even if there were no allegations that its actions had contributed to the death.

But since April 2021, after weakening the rules, DWP now only carries out an IPR following the suicide of a claimant if there is already an allegation that DWP’s actions “may have negatively contributed to the customer’s circumstances” and the claimant has “suffered serious harm, has died (including by suicide), or where it has reason to believe there has been an attempted suicide”.

IPRs are also carried out if DWP is asked to participate in a safeguarding adults review, a significant case review (in Scotland), or a domestic homicide review, or is named as an interested party at an inquest.

*Many claimants will have been receiving more than one benefit

The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the deaths linked to DWP and the years of cover-ups by the department, is published by Pluto Press 

Access to Work spending doubles in seven years

Spending on supporting disabled people in work through a disability employment scheme has more than doubled in real terms in the last seven years, new government figures have revealed.

The new Access to Work statistics, published by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), show the amount spent on assistance such as equipment, travel and support workers increased from £127 million in 2016-17 to £255 million in 2023-24, once the effects of inflation have been allowed for.

Spending rose even faster last year, increasing by 34 per cent, from £191 million in 2022-23 to £255 million in 2023-24.

The largest proportion of spending was on support workers, with £178 million spent last year, followed by £43 million on travel to work and £21 million on aids and equipment.

The number of disabled people receiving Access to Work (AtW) support increased by more than 15,000 last year (from 34,800 in 2022-23 to 49,920 in 2023-24), a rise of 43 per cent.

There are now more than twice the number of people receiving Access to Work support than there were in 2017-18, when there were just 22,460.

But the figures also show that the average level of support per disabled person has fallen significantly in the last six years.

In 2017-18, the average level of support was £5,922, but last year it was only £5,112.

There are also continuing concerns with the way the scheme is run.

Last month, Disability News Service reported that disabled people working in the creative and cultural sectors were increasingly seeing cuts to the support they receive through AtW.

And employment minister Alison McGovern said early last month that there were about 55,000 AtW applications yet to be dealt with, in a response to a written question from Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson Steve Darling.

Despite the figures apparently showing a significant investment by the last government in supporting disabled people in jobs, Conservative ministers rarely if ever highlighted how much they were spending on the scheme.

At last year’s Conservative party conference, the minister for disabled people, Tom Pursglove, twice spoke about the importance of the scheme without mentioning a huge real terms increase in spending of 15 per cent on the previous year.

Instead, Conservative ministers focused their efforts on attacking disabled people who were not able to work and were economically “inactive” and receiving “welfare”.

Prime minister Rishi Sunak spoke at the 2023 conference of how supporting so many disabled people on out-of-work benefits was “not good for our economy” and “not fair on taxpayers who have to pick up the bill”, and he called it a “national scandal”.

The chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, spoke at the same conference of 100,000 people every year who were leaving jobs “for a life on benefits” after being found not fit for work.

For years under successive Conservative-led governments from 2010 onwards, spending on the scheme was restricted, with the numbers of disabled people receiving AtW support only passing the 2010 level in 2018-19.

Delay in publishing Leadbeater bill ‘is truly shocking’

Disabled activists have criticised the “truly shocking” failure of an MP to publish a bill that aims to legalise assisted suicide, just three weeks before it is due to be debated – and voted on – by MPs.

Labour MP Kim Leadbeater’s terminally ill adults (end of life) bill will be debated by MPs on 29 November.

But the bill has yet to be published, although it is now due to be released early next week after reports of growing concerns.

Disabled campaigners who have raised serious doubts about the safety of legalisation, say the failure to provide MPs and the public with enough time to analyse the contents of the bill shows a “shocking lack of democratic process”.

Disabled activist and author Ellen Clifford, coordinator of the coalition of UK disabled people’s organisations that monitors implementation of the UN disability convention, said: “The lack of published text is yet further evidence of why MPs must vote against this bill.

“The private members’ bill mechanism gives too little space for appropriate scrutiny and oversight for a matter of this significance.

“I would urge everyone who can to contact their constituency MP and make the case that even if they think they are in favour of legalisation, they cannot let the Leadbeater bill pass.”

Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, said it was “absolutely reprehensible that Kim Leadbeater’s bill has not been published and no text is available”.

She said: “MPs have no idea what is in the bill. This is a shocking lack of democratic process.

“This is literally life and death to disabled people. It’s terrifying.

“That MPs have no access to a bill they are supposed to debate and vote on is truly shocking.”

Peters called on disabled people to write to their MP about the bill and the “deep concerns” over the long-term impact of legalisation in countries such as Canada, where “medical assistance in dying” was the sixth highest cause of death in 2022.

A spokesperson for Leadbeater said today (Thursday): “The bill will be published early next week, giving MPs the best part of three weeks to study it before the debate on November 29th.”

Opposition to the bill among MPs – or at least to plans by its supporters to rush it through parliament – appears to be growing.

The Guardian reported last week that there was anger among new Labour MPs “about the speed of the bill” and “a strong feeling that the vote should not take place until the government can show significant improvements to the state of the NHS”.

Among senior figures in the government who have raised concerns about the bill and plan to vote against it are health secretary Wes Streeting and justice secretary Shabana Mahmood, both of whom would have key responsibilities for implementing any new law.

Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall and culture secretary Lisa Nandy are both reported to be in favour of the bill.

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

England’s overstretched adult social care services need urgent government intervention to stabilise them financially as rising costs and demand play havoc with council budgets, care bosses have warned. The financial challenge is “as bad as it has been in recent history”, the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services said, with services under “intolerable pressures”. Four out of five councils are on course to overspend their adult social care budgets, while more than a third have been forced to tear up savings plans and impose a fresh round of cuts mid-way through the year: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/06/adult-social-care-in-england-needs-urgent-help-from-ministers-say-bosses

The government is looking again at whether disabled people in England should be able to claim more than £30,000 to make adaptations to their homes. Ministers have agreed to review the cap on the Disabled Facilities Grant after a court challenge. The upper limit for claims in England has not been raised since 2008 and a pledge to increase it, made in 2021, was shelved by the last government: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmzjdllex9o

MPs are launching an inquiry into the cost of “inaction” on the adult social care crisis. After years of failure to fix the broken system, the health and social care committee will look at the impact on the NHS and local councils. It will also examine how any cost of inaction is felt if people feel the need to stop or cut their working hours as they wait for care or become full time unpaid carers: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/mps-launch-inquiry-cost-inaction-34026259

Parents have said their disabled children have been left “humiliated” at school after being told they must carry lanyards that detail their impairments. Disabled pupils at Werneth School in Stockport, Greater Manchester, have been told to wear or carry sunflower lanyards or face disciplinary action. One mother said it was “disgusting” that her 12-year-old autistic son Finlay had been “forced” to carry the pass, adding he had been targeted by school bullies as a result: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdrdxzx2e1jo

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

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