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DWP is ‘broken and not fit for purpose’, says disabled MP 15
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 21
Disabled man self-harms in public and dies after losing PIP, but DWP silent on 30 years of safeguarding failures
A disabled man who was plunged into poverty after his disability benefits were removed died hours after self-harming in public, apparently in protest at his treatment by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Afolabi Ojerinde, who was 48, was taken to Wythenshawe Hospital, south Manchester, after the incident but died of his injuries the following day, 5 September 2023.
Reports from an inquest into his death suggest that his mental health had deteriorated in the months leading to his death, after he lost his job and DWP stopped his personal independence payment (PIP).
This caused him to fall into arrears on his rent, and he was then forced to appear in front of magistrates, further worsening his mental health.
His death has echoes of many other tragedies, dating back nearly 30 years, that have been linked to fatal DWP errors, including those of Dermot Comiskey*, who took his own life in early 1997, weeks after his benefits were stopped; Timothy Finn, who starved to death in October 1998 after his benefits were stopped; and Errol Graham, who starved to death in 2018 after his benefits were removed.
All three were disabled people who were left with no money because of the failings of DWP or, in Comiskey’s and Finn’s cases, the Benefits Agency, which later became part of DWP.
DWP refused this week to say if it will examine the death of Afolabi Ojerinde through one of its secret internal process reviews, and refer it to its serious case panel.
It also refused to say if ministers were concerned that such fatal safeguarding failures were still taking place nearly 30 years after the death of Dermot Comiskey.
And it refused to say if such safeguarding failures showed it was not the right time to be publishing a green paper that reports suggest will further cut spending on disability benefits and increase the use of benefit sanctions (see separate story).
Instead, a DWP spokesperson said: “Our thoughts are with the family and friends of Mr Ojerinde.
“Supporting claimants is a priority across the department, with support in place to ensure customers are treated with dignity and respect, and those with complex needs are given the support they need.”
Afolabi Ojerinde was described during last month’s inquest as a “warm and welcoming” and “dignified” man who “had no money for a very, very long period of time”.
He had been diagnosed with “a psychotic disorder” and was said to have “delusional beliefs” that the government was interfering in his life.
The inquest heard that those responsible for his mental health had been focusing on the “real life factors” – such as the loss of his PIP – that had been worsening his situation.
Just days before he died, he told them that his PIP had been removed.
The coroner, Zak Golombeck, said – according to a report in the Manchester Evening News – that, “as part of his delusional disorder or paranoid schizophrenia, [he] had concluded that this was as a result of government intervention in his life”.
His consultant psychiatrist said he believed he may have harmed himself as a final act against those he believed were conspiring against him.
In a narrative conclusion, Golombeck stated that this action was “likely as an act of protest of what he perceived to be interference by the government or state”.
As with many other deaths linked to DWP over the last 15 years, the coroner had not named DWP as an “interested party” for the inquest, and so no DWP civil servants appear to have been asked to give evidence.
The coroner did write a prevention of future deaths report – and copied it to DWP – but it was focused on safety concerns around the public location where Afolabi Ojerinde had self-harmed, rather than DWP’s actions in removing his benefits.
*For more details, read The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, which is published by Pluto Press
6 February 2025
Disabled MP asks health and safety watchdog why it has never investigated DWP’s links to hundreds of deaths
The boss of the health and safety watchdog has been asked by a disabled MP why her organisation has never investigated the government’s “fitness for work” test, even though it was linked to nearly 600 suicides in less than three years.
Sarah Albon, chief executive of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), was giving evidence yesterday (Wednesday) to the Commons work and pensions committee on her organisation’s work.
HSE is sponsored as a public body by the Department for Work and Pensions, which is responsible for the work capability assessment (WCA).
Its work focuses on preventing work-related death, injury and ill health and it claims to be “dedicated to protecting people and places, and helping everyone lead safer and healthier lives” while also working “to ensure people feel safe where they live, where they work and in their environment”.
This year, HSE is celebrating its 50th anniversary, but the regulator has never investigated the safety of DWP – and particularly its assessment processes – over its connection with countless deaths of disabled benefit claimants over the last 15 years.
Disability News Service (DNS) raised this concern last week with Steve Darling, a disabled MP, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson, and a member of the work and pensions committee.
At the end of yesterday’s evidence session with HSE, Darling pointed to academic research from 2015 which found that a programme to reassess people on incapacity benefit through the work capability assessment was linked to 590 suicides in just three years.
He asked Albon to explain why HSE had never “explored that dynamic”.
She replied: “I must say that 2015 pre-dates my tenure in the HSE…”
But Darling told her: “The buck still stops with you today.”
She said: “I was going on to say that it was the first time I had heard that in such a stark way, and I need to sort of reflect further and come back to you in detail and would be very happy to arrange a meeting to talk through in detail about your concern in that area.”
Albon was sitting next to Sarah Newton, HSE’s chair, who was DWP’s minister for disabled people at a time when disabled people’s deaths were continuing to be linked closely to the department’s actions.
Among those who died while Newton was disability minister were Errol Graham, who starved to death after DWP wrongly stopped his employment and support allowance when he missed a WCA he was too unwell to attend; and Roy Curtis, who took his own life six days after being asked to attend a face-to-face WCA, despite DWP being repeatedly warned that its actions had made him suicidal.
In response to a freedom of information request submitted by DNS in September 2020, DWP has previously confirmed that it was required by HSE to put arrangements in place to control health and safety risks.
This included “assessments of the risks to employees, contractors, customers, partners, and any other people who could be affected by your activities”.
DWP later refused to release up-to-date risk assessments of its headquarters, two jobcentres, and a universal credit service centre, as it said this could provide details of safety and security measures, which could place staff and visitors “in harm’s way”.
The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press
6 February 2025
Covid inquiry ‘must examine’ pandemic’s steep rise in deaths of disabled people who receive care at home
Four national disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have called on the Covid public inquiry to examine why there was a huge increase in deaths of disabled people receiving care in their own homes in England and Wales during the pandemic.
By May 2021, at least 28,000 people receiving domiciliary care had died in their homes, and from March to June 2020, there was a 225 per cent increase in deaths among those receiving home care.
This was a bigger proportional increase in deaths (PDF) than among care home residents (208 per cent), the DPOs told the inquiry yesterday (Wednesday).
They said the reasons for this increase were “not yet well understood”, and that this figure may even have under-reported the true number of deaths because of regulations on reporting deaths to the Care Quality Commission.
Last month, they said, the UK Covid-19 Inquiry heard evidence that domiciliary care was “arguably even more misunderstood and overlooked [during the pandemic] than the fragmented and confused situation in care homes”.
The national DPOs Disability Rights UK, Inclusion Scotland, Disability Wales and Disability Action (Northern Ireland) are “core participants” in the inquiry’s sixth module, which is focusing on adult social care.
Their statement to a preliminary hearing for the sixth module was delivered by their barrister, Dr Alice Irving, who said that disabled people had suffered “significant and disproportionate fatalities and other harms during the pandemic” and that, for many disabled people, the impact on their lives was “ongoing”.
She pointed out that the rights of disabled people had been “actively reduced by statute”, after three of the four UK nations allowed local authorities to introduce “easements” to their social care legal duties, allowing them to halt formal social care assessments and reviews, and cut provision, without breaking the law.
Irving said: “As well as the significant practical consequences, the symbolic impact of this decision – what it said about the value placed on disabled people’s lives – cannot be overstated.”
In the end, only eight local authorities – all in England – introduced such easements, but the DPOs said there was “no follow up system to disclose how, or whether, they were used, and no external monitoring of their effect”.
Disabled people who used social care in areas that did not introduce the easements still experienced “significant reductions in their care and support”, often leaving them with “their most basic needs unmet”.
The DPOs said it was vital for the inquiry to discover if reductions in provision of support were “sufficiently proportionate, transparent, or consulted upon”, and whether consultation took place with DPOs, and if the cuts to social care were monitored.
Irving also told the inquiry that disabled people who rely on social care were “at the sharp end” of the misuse of “do not attempt resuscitation” notices, another area being examined in module six.
She said the module provided “an important opportunity to address unanswered questions” about the misuse of the notices, and to examine what work has been done to prevent that happening in any future pandemic.
The sixth module will examine the impact of the pandemic on adult social care in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
Among the key areas it will look at (PDF) are the impact of the pandemic on care homes and care provided in people’s homes; the decisions by governments to free up capacity in hospitals by discharging patients into care homes; the steps taken in care homes to prevent the spread of COVID-19; and the capacity of the care sector to respond to the pandemic.
The inquiry will also use module six to examine the impact of the pandemic on disabled and older people who were receiving social care; and changes to the social care inspection regime during the pandemic.
It will also hear evidence about deaths related to Covid infections, including those of service-users and staff.
The main hearings for module six will take place in London between 30 June and 31 July.
6 February 2025
DWP hides updated figures on life-threatening errors, just as Kendall prepares to announce cuts and reforms
The government is hiding figures that would show how often its civil servants are making life-threatening errors when dealing with the benefit claims of disabled people, just as media reports suggest it is planning sweeping cuts and reforms.
Last Friday, The Times reported that everyone on out-of-work disability benefits could be forced to carry out work-related activity, while hundreds of thousands of disabled people could see their support cut.
The article stressed that no decisions had yet been made, but The Times is known to have highly-placed contacts within both the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Treasury, which is said to be pushing for significant spending cuts.
But just as reports suggest the government is planning major changes that could impose significant safeguarding risks for disabled claimants, and increase pressure on DWP work coaches and jobcentres, DWP has blocked the publication of updated figures that would show the number of potentially fatal errors being made by its staff.
Last month, Disability News Service (DNS) reported on the long-delayed release of figures from last April, which showed how DWP staff were making thousands of potentially fatal errors every month when dealing with the benefit claims of disabled people, particularly in relation to universal credit claims and the department’s fraud and “compliance” work.
The reports analysed whether DWP staff were meeting 17 customer support standards (CSS), which had been designed to “improve the experience of customers with complex needs and significantly reduce instances of serious cases by providing the right support at the right time”.
The standards include having to identify if a disabled person will need extra support with their benefit claim; providing reasonable adjustments; and following the department’s six-point plan, which tells staff what actions to take when claimants say they intend to self-harm or take their own lives.
The documents were obtained through a freedom of information (FoI) request by welfare rights expert Owen Stevens, from Child Poverty Action Group.
The reports showed that, of a sample of 1,653 universal credit cases checked across April last year, there were 328 errors made in meeting the standards (19.8 per cent, if taken as a proportion of cases checked*).
Among the repeated errors made by DWP staff were failures to record a claimant’s support needs; to follow guidance and instructions; and to fulfil the access needs of disabled claimants, such as providing them with a hearing loop or large print versions of documents.
These reports related to testing of the performance of DWP staff in April last year – in response to a request Stevens made in June 2024 – but their release was delayed for several months after a freedom of information battle.
Following their delayed release, DNS asked on 3 January for the department to produce updated figures, from reports “for the latest month you have available”.
This should have produced results from testing how staff followed CSS in October, or possibly November.
Instead, DWP sent results from May 2024, just a month after the previous reports it had released.
The reports show 311 errors in meeting the standards across 1,452 universal credit cases checked (21.4 per cent, if taken as a proportion of cases), which suggests performance may have worsened over the course of that month.
Among the errors made were failures to add permanent notes to the system to show that claimants had been identified with an “immediate risk to welfare”; a failure to record that a customer was “vulnerable”; and a failure to note that a claimant had “suicide and self-harm” support needs.
But these figures are now significantly out-of-date, just as ministers prepare to publish their disability benefits green paper next month, and as right-wing media, peers and Labour backbenchers loyal to the government, such as Damien Egan, appear to be trying to prepare the ground for cuts and a harsher DWP regime.
DNS asked DWP this week if it had held back the latest report because it showed performance on safeguarding continuing to deteriorate, just as work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall prepares to release her green paper.
A DWP spokesperson refused to comment on why it had hidden the latest figures on CSS errors, and said it had “nothing further to add beyond the FOI response”.
But the spokesperson said: “Supporting claimants is a priority across the department, with support in place to ensure customers are treated with dignity and respect, and claimants with complex needs are given the support they need.
“Millions of people rely on our welfare system every year and it is vital that it can be accessed by all who need it.
“That’s why we will work closely with people with experience and expertise on these issues to consider how to address these challenges and build a better system so that it provides the support people need and genuinely helps them back into work.”
Asked to comment on the Times news story, the DWP spokesperson said: “We don’t comment on speculation.
“The proposals we will bring forward in the spring will ensure the health and disability benefit system is fit for purpose, fair on the taxpayer and delivers the right support to the right people.
“We will work closely with disabled people and their organisations to get this right and ensure their voices shape any proposals we bring forward.”
DWP insists that the results detailed in the CSS reports cannot be “scaled up” because they are just a “snapshot in time from a small sample”.
But if they were scaled up, they would show that DWP staff are making thousands – and possibly tens of thousands – of serious errors every month, with many of them potentially putting the lives of claimants at risk.
The potentially fatal impact of these errors was demonstrated two years ago by the death of Nazerine Anderson, from Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire.
Among the mistakes made in her case, DWP was repeatedly told of her mental distress and suicidal ideation, but her work coach failed to record her “vulnerability” on her profile, while also failing to record updated information about her repeated visits to hospital on the relevant part of the system.
*There may have been more than one error made in some of the sample cases checked, so it is not possible to say how many universal credit cases were error-free
The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press
6 February 2025
Disabled Londoners ‘face disaster’ if mayor and councils fail to take urgent action on accessible housing
There will be “disastrous consequences” for disabled Londoners if the mayor and local authorities fail to take urgent action to increase the number of accessible homes in the capital, according to new user-led research.
The Barriers at Home report, the product of two years of research by the disabled people’s organisation Inclusion London, says some local authorities have admitted to “very limited understanding” of the accessibility standards they are supposed to monitor when new homes are being built.
And of 33 local councils across the capital, 24 of them have made no plans for the building of new affordable, accessible homes.
The report – launched at City Hall last night (Wednesday) at an event hosted by Green London Assembly member Zoe Garbett – says the mayor’s Greater London Authority (GLA), London councils and central government must “massively increase” the supply of accessible social housing.
It says the shortage of accessible and wheelchair accessible homes is “particularly acute” in the social rented sector.
And it warns that, despite the acute shortage of wheelchair-accessible homes in the capital, London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, is failing to capture the data necessary to monitor how many accessible homes are being built.
Unless urgent action is taken, the report says, disabled people’s quality of life “will continue to drastically diminish, and health inequalities will rise”.
Among its conclusions, the report says most local planning authorities in London are not effectively assessing the housing needs of disabled residents, while most councils have limited knowledge of the accessibility of their existing housing stock.
Only two London councils were able to provide Inclusion London with a complete breakdown of how many accessible new homes they were approving across social housing and for private sale.
The data collection failures of both GLA and local authorities mean it is impossible to assess how many affordable homes are being built to accessibility standards and how many accessible homes are built for social rent or for sale on the private market, the report says.
Even though the mayor’s London Plan requires 90 per cent of new homes to be accessible and adaptable (meeting the M4(2) standard), and another 10 per cent to be suitable for wheelchair-users (meeting the stricter M4(3) standard, either because they are immediately accessible, or because they can be adapted for use by a wheelchair-user), he has failed to enforce those targets.
Data shows that the proportion of homes approved that met the M4(2) standard dropped from 58 per cent in 2018-19 to just 1.58 per cent in 2022-23, while the proportion of approvals meeting M4(3) dropped from 8.41 per cent to 3.75 per cent over the same four years.
The report makes 54 recommendations for the mayor, the capital’s 33 local authorities, and central government.
Tracey Lazard, Inclusion London’s chief executive, says in the report: “Most of the housing experiences we captured in this report reveal a stark and dire reality: too many people are living in extremely unsuitable conditions which severely impact their physical and mental health and prevent them from living independently.”
Abbi, one of the disabled Londoners who spoke to Inclusion London for its report, told the launch event last night: “When I live in an accessible home, the impact on my mental and physical health is tangible.
“I am less likely to take time off work, I have lower health and care needs, I am better able to take part in social activities and access the community.
“I am more likely to reach out to my own network for emotional and practical support, rather than being dependent on institutions.”
Adam Gabsi, chair of Inclusion London and a wheelchair-user and social housing tenant, told the event: “Social housing isn’t just affordable, it’s stable, and this stability is vital for disabled people.
“Knowing that I have a home where all of my needs are met and where I’m not at risk of sudden rent increases or eviction gives me peace of mind to focus on living my life.
“For disabled people who already feel uncertainty in other areas, secure housing provides a foundation for safety and dignity.”
He added: “We need more accessible housing, and we need more secure forms of housing within the social rented sector.
“Accessible housing should be affordable, and affordable housing should be accessible.”
Garbett had said earlier: “What this report highlights so clearly is that disabled Londoners feel [the housing crisis] even more acutely and have to contend with so many additional barriers to living comfortably.”
She said the stories outlined in the report were “absolutely heart-breaking and enraging and make it impossible to come away from reading this report without recognising the injustice faced by disabled Londoners and the urgent need for reform”.
She said she hoped it was “enough to shift the narrative, get accessible housing onto the agenda and put us on track to properly reckon with the housing crisis”.
A spokesperson for the mayor said in a statement: “The mayor is committed to meeting London’s diverse housing needs and has allocated more than £100 million in funding to deliver well-designed, supported housing to enable disabled Londoners to live independently and access appropriate care.
“The mayor also requires a minimum percentage of accessible and adaptable units in all new housing developments funded by his Affordable Homes Programme, helping to build a fairer and better London for everyone.”
The mayor’s office said it was the responsibility of local planning authorities to assess whether planning applications comply with the M4(2) and M4(3) requirements of the London Plan.
Before 2020, the high volumes of planning applications made it impossible for GLA to access live data and monitor compliance, the mayor’s office said.
But it said GLA had now introduced a digital approach to monitoring compliance, which has shown that the conditions required by the London Plan were not met in the past.
And it said GLA was continuing to work with local authorities to improve the quality of this data and improve compliance with the London Plan.
Of nearly 100 disabled Londoners who responded to an online survey for the Inclusion London report, a third of those with mobility impairments said they did not have level access in their homes, while a third had been forced to cut back on essentials such as food so they could afford to pay their housing costs, while a similar number had had to cut back on gas or electricity.
One in four respondents said they lacked the accessibility features they needed to use the toilet, while one in six lacked the adaptations they needed to use their bath or shower.
Cassie, one of the disabled people Inclusion London spoke to for its report, told its researchers: “When I can’t do things because my house is inaccessible, your sense of value just plummets, even though it shouldn’t.
“And even though you sit there and have every understanding of my value isn’t tied to my ability to do this, when you haven’t showered for eight days because you can’t because your house isn’t accessible… boy, do you feel like a piece of shit.”
Andrew, another disabled person who spoke to Inclusion London’s researchers, said: “I just want to have an accessible home and an accessible environment.
“You know, my body is wearing out quicker than most people’s. And it’s wearing out even quicker having to interact with environments that don’t suit me.”
Among the report’s recommendations, it calls on the mayor to make accessible housing a priority in his next London Plan, and in his next housing strategy, and to act urgently to ensure his existing accessible housing targets are met.
It also calls for London’s local authorities to improve the data they collect on disabled people’s housing needs and the accessibility of housing in their local area, so they can “plan and deliver the affordable accessible homes people need”.
And it calls for central government and GLA to work together to provide security of tenancy to disabled private renters and “protect them from spiralling rent costs”.
It also says that GLA and councils should “meaningfully engage” with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations to “co-produce housing policies with them”.
A consultation on the next London Plan is due to be launched in the spring.
6 February 2025
Bill would force banks to carry out ‘mass surveillance’ of millions of innocent disabled people, MPs are told
A new government bill would force banks to carry out “mass surveillance” of millions of innocent disabled people and other benefit claimants, MPs have been warned.
The measures in the bill would force banks to examine individuals’ accounts for potential breaches of benefit eligibility rules, and then pass that information to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
A series of opposition MPs raised concerns about the measures on Monday during the second reading of the public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill.
Among disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) that have previously expressed alarm at the bank spying powers are Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, National Survivor User Network and Disability Rights UK.
Although there are concerns about much of the 116-page bill, which was published less than a fortnight before Monday’s second reading, it is the measures that will force banks to spy on benefit claimants that have most alarmed DPOs and allies such as the civil liberties campaigning organisation Big Brother Watch and Public Law Project.
Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall told MPs on Monday that the measures would force banks to provide data to “help identify incorrect benefit payments people might be getting, including fraudulently, such as if someone has too much in savings, making them ineligible for a benefit, or if they are fraudulently claiming benefits abroad when they should be living in the UK”.
But independent MP Zarah Sultana said the “algorithm-driven financial surveillance” allowed by the bill would lead to errors that would disproportionately affect disabled and older people and “those already struggling to make ends meet”, and create “a two-tier justice system”.
She said: “Even a one per cent error rate in the AI system used by banks could lead to thousands of benefit recipients being wrongly flagged, unfairly investigated and forced into lengthy appeals.”
She said the bill would allow “mass surveillance” and was “deeply unjust” and would “subject millions of innocent people – disabled individuals, carers, jobseekers, pensioners and parents – to unwarranted financial surveillance, treating them as suspects by default, simply because they receive state support”.
It would, she said, turn banks into “agents of the state”.
Another independent MP, John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor, said the government was seeking powers for a “mass surveillance exercise”.
He said: “The reason why people will feel that it is unfair is that it specifically targets people who are often in desperate need.
“If there was a group of people whose accounts we would want to monitor because there has been a history of fraud, and who have had to pay money back – some have gone to prison – it would be MPs; I was here during the expenses scandal.”
He said: “The atmosphere that we now have is a climate of fear, and I am worried that this debate will add to that climate of fear.”
He pointed to academic research from 2015 which found that a DWP programme to reassess people on incapacity benefit through the work capability assessment was linked to 590 suicides in just three years.
And he highlighted how these concerns were raised in The Department*, written by John Pring, editor of Disability News Service, which exposes how DWP covered-up evidence of these and other deaths and refused to act to make its social security systems safe.
The Welsh Liberal Democrat MP David Chadwick, who spent seven years as a data protection consultant, said the bill represented “an intrusion by the state into the privacy of individual citizens” and would give the government “sweeping powers to access and monitor the personal financial records of citizens, even without any evidence of suspicious activity to justify such actions”.
He said: “Under the bill, individuals could be presumed guilty until proven innocent, with their personal data shared, investigated and scrutinised without sufficient cause or due process.
“We have all seen the devastating impact of errors made by the Department for Work and Pensions on individuals.
“Such a system could lead to disastrous consequences, where it falsely flags someone as fraudulent due to simple administrative errors or unintentional mistakes.”
And he said the bill “risks creating a two-tier society where certain groups are subjected to intrusive financial monitoring by the state while others are not, which would undermine the principles of equality and fairness that our society is built on”.
The Green MP Sian Berry said the heart of the bill had been retrieved by Labour from the “most dark corner” of the last Conservative government.
She said it was “based on blame and suspicion of people in need of help” and had “a focus on fraud when a far bigger issue is unclaimed and under-claimed benefits due to a lack of awareness, complexity in the system and stigma”.
She said she was most concerned about the new bank measures and called on the government to “start again with a process of genuine listening and co-production, with those who claim social security, about appropriate, fair, respectful and secure ways of ensuring that people in need of support can receive what they are entitled to”.
But Kendall told MPs: “People should not be getting benefits they are not entitled to, and the alerts will make the process of identifying potential fraudsters much simpler, quicker and easier.”
She insisted that DWP “will not be able to access people’s bank accounts or look at what they are spending” and “will not share any personal information with banks”, while “any final decision about someone’s benefits will always be taken by a human being”.
Andrew Western, the DWP minister for transformation, said he did not share concerns about the “potential erosion of data protection powers”, and said the new powers would involve “very limited data sharing”.
He said DWP was “not monitoring accounts, and we will fine banks if they overshare in that space”, and the department “will not ask banks to take decisions on whether somebody has committed fraud”.
He said: “Banks will not make decisions – a human within the DWP will carry out that investigation.”
He pointed to concerns about potential errors in this new system, and said the department intended to “scale it up in a ‘test and learn’ phase, doing so gradually so that we can get it right, but we simply cannot ignore the problem and not look to take these powers when we had a £7.4 billion problem with fraud in the DWP last year”.
Debbie Abrahams, Labour’s chair of the Commons work and pensions committee, said: “I believe that there is a genuine commitment from ministers to change the DWP’s culture and build trust with its service users, but the bill will be seen by many as more evidence not to trust the DWP and not to engage.”
She said the bill was “too important for us to mess it up and for innocent people to become the victims”.
Steve Darling, the disabled Liberal Democrat MP and shadow work and pensions spokesperson, said it was unclear what safeguards there would be around the use of artificial intelligence.
He said DWP was “a broken department” and he pointed to the research linking DWP with the 590 suicides.
He said: “I suggest to the secretary of state that, while one understands the aspirations of this bill, it is far too much of a Big Brother Bill.
“It is far too much of a snoopers’ charter, and I suggest to the government that they withdraw it.”
Kendall claimed her bill would “deliver the biggest ever crackdown on fraud against the public purse” and that the measures were “tough but fair”.
She said the bill was “tough on the criminal gangs and individuals who cheat the benefit system, and it is fair to claimants who make genuine mistakes, by helping us to spot and prevent errors earlier”.
She even appeared to channel the controversial words of the former Conservative minister for disabled people, Tom Pursglove, who once promised in a heavily-criticised video posted on social media: “We will track you down. We will find you. And we will bring you to justice.”
Kendall tweaked Pursglove’s clumsy parody of a line from the violent Liam Neeson thriller Taken, warning: “We will find you. We will stop you. And we will get our money back.”
The independent MP Richard Burgon pointed out that only 0.2 per cent of personal independence payment (PIP) claims in 2022-23 were fraudulent, and that “as we pursue organised criminal gangs, it is really important that we make it clear that there cannot be a hostile approach to disabled people claiming PIP or disabled people more widely who are using the benefits system as they deserve to”.
Kendall replied: “People who are genuinely entitled to claim benefits have nothing to worry about from this bill, but we believe that the £7.4 billion wasted every year through benefit fraud must be cracked down on.”
The bill’s second reading was passed by 343 votes to 87, and it will now proceed to its committee stage.
*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press
6 February 2025
DWP is ‘broken and not fit for purpose’, says disabled MP
A disabled MP has warned the government that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is “broken” and “not fit for purpose”, and that major changes to the social security system need to be co-designed with disabled people and benefit claimants.
Steve Darling, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on work and pensions, told MPs on Tuesday that the government needs to “lift the bonnet and redesign the system”.
He also pointed to research that showed universal credit was driving people “even deeper into poverty” because the level of payments was too low.
He was taking part in the debate on the annual order to uprate social security payments, which in April will see the state pension rise by 4.1 per cent, and most other benefits, including personal independence payment, by 1.7 per cent, increasing spending by £6.9 billion in 2025-26.
Debbie Abrahams, the Labour MP who chairs the Commons work and pensions committee, of which Darling is a member, had earlier told MPs that the “currently inadequate social security system” was driving disabled people and others into poverty because of a “steady and consistent erosion in the value of social security support”.
She said this had affected the value of universal credit, jobseeker’s allowance, employment and support allowance (ESA), income support, housing benefit, child tax credit, working tax credit and child benefit.
She said she wanted to focus her words on disability benefits because of recent “media speculation” about the government’s plans, which is likely to include last week’s article in The Times which reported that all those on out-of-work disability benefits could be forced to carry out work-related activity, while hundreds of thousands of them could see their support cut.
Abrahams said people were already “barely clinging on”, and she pointed to a report on UK benefit levels by her committee last year – when it was chaired by Labour’s new social security and disability minister, Sir Stephen Timms – that suggested benefit levels were “too low and that claimants are often unable to afford daily living costs and extra costs associated with having a health condition or disability”.
She pointed to academic research from 2015 which found that a programme to reassess people on incapacity benefit through the work capability assessment was linked to 590 suicides in just three years.
And she highlighted the “horrific” deaths of social security claimants whose benefits had been stopped, including Errol Graham, who starved to death after his ESA was halted when he missed a face-to-face assessment.
She had begun her speech by responding to “quite dangerous” comments made by Conservative shadow work and pensions minister Danny Kruger.
Kruger had told MPs that “too many people are being consigned to a life of inactivity and dependency, especially via the categories of sickness benefit”, which he said “reflect the fact that we have bad rates of physical ill health, including obesity and, as is strongly evidenced in the statistics, bad backs because we simply do not move around enough in the day”.
He claimed the rise in “welfare claims cannot be attributed to worsening health or longer NHS waiting lists; the problem is growing far faster than that”.
He said: “People are not being incentivised to take jobs because the offer from the welfare system is better.”
He claimed that for many people “the incentives made them go the other way, further away from work into the sickness category, because that is where the good money is” and was “sometimes £3,000 more than the minimum wage” and was “big and unconditional money”.
Kruger said he was “encouraged” by “exciting hints in the media” that the government could “scrap the limited capacity for work category altogether, scrap the work capability assessment, merge employment and support allowance into the personal independence payment system, or require people on sickness benefits to engage with work coaches”.
And he called for “tougher conditions” to be imposed on disabled claimants and “a clear message to go out from the government that unless a person is so severely disabled or ill that they genuinely can never work at all, they will not have a life on benefits”.
Abrahams accused him of using “policy-based evidence” in his call for stricter conditionality.
She said research had shown there was “no evidence to support tough sanctions” and warned him that claimants had “lost their lives because of sanctions”, and that sanctioning benefits had “real-life consequences”.
Darling also disagreed with Kruger and told him that “an awful lot of people are off sick with hip problems or mental health challenges, and the challenge people have in getting back into work is the broken health system that was left by the previous Conservative government”.
Sir Stephen said the government would lay out its plans for reform of health and disability benefits this spring.
Meanwhile, more than 200 benefits claimants have been awarded between £200 and £3,000 in damages for losing out on income after being moved on to universal credit in the years leading up to January 2019.
The claimants lost out on severe disability premium (SDP), enhanced disability premium (EDP), or both, in the years before DWP changed the migration rules to ensure that disabled people no longer missed out in the move to universal credit.
The drop in income was as much as £180 a month.
The loss of income was challenged in the high court by two claimants, known as TP and AR, represented by solicitors Leigh Day.
After the court ruled in favour of TP and AR, Leigh Day partner Ryan Bradshaw represented another 275 claimants who had experienced a similar loss of income.
DWP has now awarded compensation for stress and injury to feelings to each of these 275 claimants, and the department has until August to set up a compensation scheme that will also repay them for their loss of income.
Bradshaw believes more than 15,000 disabled people who were forced onto universal credit in 2016, 2017 and 2018 because their circumstances had changed – and experienced a sudden loss of up to £180 a month – could also be entitled to financial compensation.
He called for the government to introduce a scheme to compensate all those who have “endured discrimination at the hands of the DWP”.
6 February 2025
Not one of 115 organisations supported Tory proposal to replace PIP cash with vouchers, DWP reports show
Not a single organisation that responded to a consultation by the last government was in favour of replacing a monthly cash payment for disability benefits with vouchers or one-off grants, civil servants have finally admitted.
Documents obtained through a freedom of information request show a “consistently negative” response from disabled people and others who were asked about proposals floated by the Conservative government shortly before its defeat at last year’s general election.
More than 16,000 individuals and organisations responded to the consultation on the Modernising Support for Independent Living green paper, which was launched just before the election.
The green paper was described at the time as a “brutal, ideological attack” on disabled people’s support.
The new Labour government refused to scrap the consultation but also declined to publish its results or respond to it.
Now the Benefits and Work website has obtained reports – much of them heavily-redacted – prepared by civil servants in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to sum up the responses from the consultation.
The confidential reports were sent to work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall and the minister for social security and disability, Sir Stephen Timms.
The most controversial measures proposed in the green paper had been replacing cash payments for personal independence payment (PIP) with a catalogue of equipment to choose from; with vouchers to contribute towards the cost of a disability aid; with a system forcing disabled people to claim back the cost of equipment by providing receipts to DWP; or with one-off grants for major purchases such as expensive equipment.
But the DWP reports obtained by Benefits and Work show that, of 115 named organisations that responded* – including British Deaf Association, Centre for Disability Studies at the University of Leeds, Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People (GMCDP), Inclusion Barnet, Disability Rights UK (DR UK), Merton Centre for Independent Living, National Survivor User Network, WECIL and WinVisible – not one of them supported any of these ideas.
Of all the named organisations that answered the question, 92 per cent were opposed to vouchers (with the others neutral), with 91 per cent opposed to using receipts, 87 per cent opposed to the catalogue, and 84 per cent opposing the use of one-off grants.
Some of them suggested the proposals could push disabled people further into poverty.
DR UK said in its response that any future changes to the support provided by PIP “should focus solely on increasing the already meagre financial support given to claimants and should be co-produced with Disabled people”.
GMCDP made similar points, telling DWP: “The current entitlement thresholds are too high, meaning people who need PIP are denied it. More people should get PIP.”
It added: “Any changes should be done in co-production with disabled people and our organisations.”
One of the DWP reports said that organisations had raised concerns that “the independence that PIP was brought in to provide will no longer be there if cash payments were replaced”.
And one individual who responded to the consultation said: “I hate the very notion of a voucher scheme for anyone, as it stigmatises people and restricts what they spend their money on. It’s treating people like second-class citizens.
“I think the government should allow people (who are already stressed and ill) to spend their benefits on how they see fit.”
*DWP told Benefits and Work that a further 445 responses to the consultation had stated they were an organisation but had taken part through an online form and DWP had failed to ask for the name of the organisation on that form
6 February 2025
Watchdog shows UK has taken zero action in response to UN recommendations in six areas of disability rights
Successive UK governments – mostly Conservative-led – have failed to take any action to address six key disability rights recommendations made by the UN over the last decade, according to the human rights watchdog.
Among the areas where governments have failed to act are calls to introduce a right to independent living, to examine the overall impact of austerity on disabled people, and to do more to stop disability hate crime.
The failings emerged from a set of more than 200 assessments by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) of whether the UK and Welsh governments have taken action to address human rights recommendations made by independent experts on UN committees.
They include recommendations made by the UN committees associated with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and other human rights treaties the UK government has signed and ratified.
The assessments examine whether the government has taken all the action recommended by the committees, significant action, some action, inconsistent action, or no action.
Analysis of the reports through EHRC’s ongoing Human Rights Tracker project shows the UK government has failed to take any action at all on six disability rights recommendations, as well as only taking some action on more than 25 recommendations linked to the rights of disabled people, such as inclusive education, benefit sanctions, and access to healthcare.
One failure to act was on the call in 2017 for the UK government to recognise in UK law disabled people’s right to live independently and be included in the community, so it can be enforced in UK courts.
Such a right was one of the demands made before the last general election by the Disabled People’s Manifesto.
EHRC said successive governments have also refused to take any action to assess the cumulative impact of austerity measures on disabled people and other marginalised groups, a recommendation first made by the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2016.
The repeated failure to carry out such an assessment came even though the commission provided a model for how it could be done in 2018, when it published its own cumulative impact assessment of social security reforms.
That work was seen as “a vindication” of years of campaigning by grassroots groups such as WOWcampaign to persuade the government to carry out such an assessment.
Another recommendation ignored by successive UK governments is the call to incorporate CRPD into UK law, made by the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2017.
Labour dropped its long-standing pledge to implement the treaty into UK law in the run-up to last year’s general election.
EHRC also pointed to the failure to act on last year’s call by the UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights committee for the UK government to take action to provide equal protection from hate crime to all protected groups, including disabled people.
The Law Commission called in 2021 for equal protection for all groups covered by hate crime laws, including disabled people, although the new government has pledged to review all the Law Commission’s recommendations.
The Law Commission report said the current hate crime regime was “widely seen as unfair and sends a distinctly negative message to victims of hate crimes on the basis of disability, sexual orientation and transgender identity”.
And EHRC said that both the UK government and the Welsh government had failed to create a legal duty for local authorities to fund sign language lessons for parents of Deaf children, more than seven years after the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities had called for action.
The EHRC assessments also show that the UK government has ignored calls from the UN committees on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) to take action on intersectional discrimination.
Successive governments have refused to implement section 14 of the Equality Act on dual discrimination, the commission said.
Baroness [Kishwer] Falkner, EHRC’s chair, said: “Our Human Rights Tracker is a unique online tool which allows everyone to monitor the status of key human rights issues in the UK.”
She said the tracker would allow the UK and Welsh governments, and the public, “to keep track of what needs to be done to implement international obligations and improve human rights in Britain”.
6 February 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
A disabled tenant was confined largely to his living-room for eight years after a council failed to make his home accessible. A watchdog ordered Kingston council to pay the man £10,000 after slamming its failure to install vital adaptations, despite multiple reports from an occupational therapist recommending them. The case has been highlighted in the Housing Ombudsman’s latest “learning from severe maladministration” report, which looks at landlords’ responses to “mental and physical health needs”. The report outlines significant failings in 35 key cases where residents had asked for an adaptation to their home or a service adjustment: https://www.mylondon.news/news/south-london-news/south-london-mans-10k-payout-30930704
Social care means-testing thresholds are being frozen for a 15th consecutive year, dragging more people into having to self-fund their care. The upper and lower capital limits governing access to care in England in 2025-26 will remain at levels set in 2010, the Department of Health and Social Care said yesterday in its annual social care charging circular. This means people with assets worth more than £23,250 will continue having to fully fund their care unless their council sets a more generous threshold for services other than permanent care home placements, which very few do: https://www.communitycare.co.uk/2025/02/04/social-care-means-testing-thresholds-frozen-for-15th-consecutive-year/
Benefit claimants received £4 billion less than they were entitled to last year, putting them at increased risk of hardship, MPs have warned. The public accounts committee also said people claiming disability benefits are getting “unacceptably poor service”, as they wait on average 10 times longer for their calls to be answered. The report found underpayment rates were highest for disability benefits: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-benefit-claimants-recieved-4billion-34583901
6 February 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
