Contents
Disabled MP drops support for assisted dying bill over ‘broken’ social care and health services 1
Mass lobby of MPs marks ‘important’ moment in fight against Labour’s benefit cuts 3
Welsh government’s disability rights plan ‘is a smokescreen’ to hide lack of teeth and targets 6
Equality watchdog must investigate ‘urgent threat’ posed by Labour policies, say DPOs 10
Most employers have had zero contact with DWP, report shows, in blow to green paper plans 11
Disabled peers speak of ‘daily fight’ against access barriers in House of Lords 13
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 15
Disabled MP drops support for assisted dying bill over ‘broken’ social care and health services
A disabled MP has dropped his support for the assisted suicide bill, largely because of concerns that “broken” social care and palliative care services could push terminally-ill people into seeking an assisted death.
Steve Darling told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that he had not yet decided how he would vote on the bill’s third reading, which is likely to take place next month, but he said he had moved from being “marginally in favour” of the bill at its second reading last November, to now being “marginally against”.
He said this was because of growing concerns about the lack of safeguards and the broken health and care system, and that he now had “more concerns than I did then”.
Darling, the Liberal Democrats’ work and pensions spokesperson, said he believed that, after talking to fellow MPs, the momentum in the Commons was shifting against the bill.
Although he did not speak in Friday’s debate, during the first day of the bill’s report stage, DNS noticed that Darling had voted with opponents of the bill – along with most other disabled MPs, such as Labour’s Jen Craft, Liam Conlon, Marsha de Cordova, Emma Lewell, Marie Rimmer and the party’s former shadow disability minister, Vicky Foxcroft – whereas in November he had voted with the bill’s supporters.
Darling said he had been influenced by conversations with two senior consultants at a hospice in his Torbay constituency.
He told DNS that he wanted to see “appropriate funding” for palliative care so terminally-ill people would have a “genuine choice” at the end of life between palliative care and an assisted death.
And he said that the clearer it becomes that the health and care systems are “broken”, the “more challenging it is to feel that people are able to make good decisions about how they should end their lives” if assisted dying is legalised.
Darling said legalisation could lead terminally-ill people to “feel that because of the lack of systems being appropriate for them… they’re pushed in that direction rather than actually being able to have a proper informed choice.
“I think a lot of my concerns around the assisted dying bill are making sure that there’s properly-funded services so people can have proper, informed decisions.”
He said the hospice consultants had made it clear that the social care system also needed to be properly funded.
But he said health and social care secretary Wes Streeting had kicked the reform of the social care system “into the long grass… which is horrific, because getting social care properly sorted could help the acute care system massively”.
He added: “In principle, I am supportive of assisted dying.
“However, there need to be appropriate safeguards, and I’m getting more worried that the appropriate safeguards are not appearing as clearly as I would wish to see in the emerging bill.”
He also voted on Friday to express his concern that only a small proportion of those MPs who had wanted to speak in Friday’s debate had been able to do so.
And he is concerned that the bill’s committee stage – which was led by supporters of the bill – had granted too many powers to ministers to change the bill if it becomes law, using so-called “Henry VIII powers”.
His comments were welcomed by Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK), which leads disabled people’s opposition to the bill.
Mike Smith, a spokesperson for NDY UK and former disability commissioner of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, said: “NDY are aware of an increasing number of MPs who have reservations about this legislation, whether it’s that the safeguards aren’t strong enough, or the process has been rushed and flawed, or simply that it’s dangerous in the context of current social care and health provision.
“During the debate last Friday, we heard some MPs dismiss disabled people’s concerns as not valid. This is completely unacceptable.
“NDY do not know of a single disability organisation that supports this bill, and many disabled voices are campaigning against it.
“It’s really important disabled MPs use their insight, gained from personal understanding of the structural disadvantages disabled people face, to better explain the consequences of this badly conceived bill.
“We would encourage more disabled MPs to educate their colleagues on why this bill, as drafted, will lead to the unnecessary deaths of many in our society.
“Having choice is only valid if it’s a meaningful choice, and for many disabled people we strongly fear it won’t be.”
22 May 2025
Mass lobby of MPs marks ‘important’ moment in fight against Labour’s benefit cuts
Disabled people from across the UK converged on parliament yesterday to challenge their MPs in face-to-face meetings about the government’s proposed cuts to disability benefits.
Disabled activists travelled from Northern Ireland, from Wales – including a group of Disability Wales members – and from Scotland for the opportunity to express their anger and distress about the billions of pounds of cuts to support announced by the Labour government in March.
So many disabled people travelled to Westminster for the event that the parliamentary authorities at one point had to introduce a “one in, one out” rule to ease overcrowding in 900-year-old Westminster Hall.
Notes taken by Disability News Service (DNS) during the event yesterday (Wednesday) suggest that as many as 40 MPs – and possibly more – may have held meetings with disabled constituents during the mass lobby over the cuts laid out in March in the Pathways to Work green paper.
Among those who made time for meetings with constituents were former Conservative work and pensions secretary Sir Iain Duncan Smith; Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats; and former Green party leader Sian Berry.
But other MPs dodged meetings with constituents.
Among those who sent messages to constituents during the lobby that they were not available to meet to discuss the cuts was Ellie Reeves, chair of the Labour party and sister of chancellor Rachel Reeves.
Last month, DNS reported that an ombudsman had linked the 2020 suicide of one of Ellie Reeves’ constituents with the flawed personal independence payment (PIP) system, with the report completed just as her sister announced £4.5 billion cuts to PIP spending.
The mass lobby was organised by the Coalition Against Benefit Cuts, Disabled People Against Cuts, Disability Rights UK and Well Adapt.
Nancy Kelley, from Brighton, reported a “very positive” and “supportive” meeting with her MP, Sian Berry.
She told DNS she had raised her “really profound concern” that the cuts were being made to “already inadequate benefits” and would push hundreds of thousands of disabled people into poverty, as well as damaging people’s health and wellbeing.
She had also highlighted the “moral unacceptability” of the cuts.
Kelley said she had urged Berry to “keep speaking out” about the cuts following questions she has already asked in parliament, including in prime minister’s questions.
She said: “Overall, it was a very positive conversation from an MP who I felt was quite engaged and very open to doing more.”
She added: “I think it matters when MPs see disabled people showing up to advocate for our rights to live in dignity; it matters for us to be so visible here.
“It will affect [MPs], whether they meet us, whether they have been requested a meeting and dodged it, or whether they are just walking past.”
But John Ley, a management committee member of METRO GAD in Greenwich, waited in vain for several hours to speak to his MP, housing minister Matthew Pennycook.
Pennycook had not responded to an email request to attend the lobby or to a “green card” request submitted on the day of the lobby.
Ley said: “I am not very impressed with Matthew at all.”
Dermot Devlin, co-founder of DPAC Northern Ireland, had flown to London from Northern Ireland on Tuesday to attend the event, and had to undergo medical tests to check that it was safe for him to fly, while the trip is likely to have a significant impact on his health in the weeks to come.
He said: “That shows how important it is that people back home are being represented here today.”
Although the Pathways to Work green paper and its associated billions of pounds of cuts do not apply to Northern Ireland, the Northern Ireland Executive’s finance minister, John O’Dowd, said earlier this month that it was “becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible” to mitigate against spending decisions made in Westminster.
Devlin said: “It will affect us too. We need to show our faces too. It will impact us.”
He said he believed the biggest influence of the mass lobby would be the “visual impact” of so many disabled people gathered in the House of Commons to lobby their MPs.
Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, said her party hoped the government would revise its plans for the PIP cuts, just as the prime minister had announced hours earlier at prime minister’s questions that he would look again at Labour’s cuts to winter fuel payments.
But she said that, as the government’s plans stand, the Liberal Democrats were “very likely” to vote against the PIP cuts when legislation is presented to parliament, probably next month.
She told DNS: “It’s abundantly clear to me that there is already a huge amount of distress that is being caused to people with disabilities and their carers as well, and if the government is serious about getting people into work, or helping people in work stay in work, then cutting the support that helps them do that is not the way to do it.
“I have spoken to a number of people who are here today as part of this rally to lobby their MPs and what I can hear is that people are angry and people are scared.”
She said people rely on PIP “just to keep their head above water for day-to-day life, or keep them in work”.
One of her constituents told her he is desperate to stay in work, and that PIP allows him to do that by contributing to his travel costs.
She said: “It’s hard enough to get PIP as it is, and making it even harder is really tough.”
Neil Duncan-Jordan, who sponsored the event with fellow Labour MP Richard Burgon, told DNS he believed momentum was growing against the cuts among Labour MPs.
He said: “I think you’re getting more and more MPs feeling uncomfortable about what they are being asked to vote for, particularly because they are probably going to be asked to vote for it prior to actually having any real detail in front of them about the impact of that.
“Let’s get disabled people in front of MPs, let’s get the arguments out there, let’s see the MPs respond and see whether or not they are persuaded. I hope they will be.”
He added: “It’s important that disabled people meet their MPs directly and lay out in front of them what these cuts are going to mean on a day-to-day basis, how it’s going to affect them, how it’s going to affect their lives.
“Being an MP in Westminster, it’s easy to feel disconnected from the real world; it’s important that we start connecting again with ordinary people and that they tell us how our actions affect their daily lives, and that’s what I think this lobby is about.”
The mass lobby took place as the Commons work and pensions committee sent a letter to work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall calling on her to delay cuts to PIP and to the universal credit (UC) health element, and to co-produce new measures with disabled people.
It also called on her to carry out an “independent, comprehensive analysis of the impact of the proposed cuts in UC health support on employment, poverty and health outcomes”.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said the mass lobby was “an important moment in what’s going to be a long struggle”.
She said: “It’s not the last time that we will be mobilising.
“What we are facing is so devastating. Effectively, we are looking at the dismantling of disability benefits as we know it.
“It makes no policy sense, it makes no political sense, and it definitely doesn’t make any ethical justice sense.”
And she said that comments by Liz Kendall, in a speech yesterday at the IPPR think tank, that the welfare state might not survive without the cuts to disability benefits, were “desperate” and “absurd”, particularly because social security spending was stable.
DPAC’s Andy Greene, whose MP Dame Emily Thornberry sent a message during the event to say she could not attend the lobby, said he believed Labour’s plan in government had been “just not to engage” with disabled people.
But he said it was “really encouraging” to see so many new faces among the disabled people who attended the event, which “bodes well for the struggle ahead”.
He said: “It’s really important that disabled people take every opportunity they have to get together.
“Secondly, it’s an embarrassment for the government when a lot of people turn up to say ‘look at this’ and they are too afraid to show their faces.
“These people are making these decisions but are then not willing to engage.”
DNS editor John Pring attended a meeting with his MP, Matt Rodda, as part of the lobby, but as Rodda is parliamentary private secretary to Northern Ireland secretary Hilary Benn, he was not able to give an interview about his views. But Rodda requested a written briefing from Pring, and promised to read it
22 May 2025
Welsh government’s disability rights plan ‘is a smokescreen’ to hide lack of teeth and targets
The Welsh government has been accused of putting up a “smokescreen” after publishing a draft disability rights plan that lacks “teeth” and is full instead of pledges to carry out reviews and produce guidance while offering no new money.
The 10-year Draft Disabled People’s Rights Plan aims to improve the rights of disabled people in Wales, but there are no significant promises on key areas such as social care, accessible housing and transport, and disability poverty.
The Labour plan is also short of concrete targets, which means it would be almost impossible for disabled people to hold the Welsh government to account on progress.
Instead, the 61-page document, which is now out for a 12-week consultation, mostly offers descriptions of the barriers disabled people already face in housing, transport, access to justice, social care, education and employment.
Alongside the plan is a separate document listing 48 short-term actions.
They include a promise to work with local authorities to improve accessible housing; a pledge to collaborate with disabled people’s organisations to “design and deliver a new funding stream that addresses social care needs”; and plans for a public campaign to “challenge ableism” and focus on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Despite the lack of concrete targets, the draft plan says the Welsh government’s Disability Disparity Evidence Unit will “set out a model which explains how change is expected to follow the actions set out and the evidence needed to measure change”.
Jane Hutt, the Welsh government’s social justice secretary, said the draft plan was based on the work of the Disability Rights Taskforce and its 10 working groups.
The taskforce was set up by the Welsh government following the 2021 publication of the groundbreaking Locked Out report on the discrimination experienced by disabled people in Wales, particularly during the pandemic.
But there was half-hearted support for the draft plan this week, and even outright criticism from some of the disabled people who chaired the working groups.
Damian Joseph Bridgeman, a disabled adviser and campaigner, who chaired the taskforce’s housing and community working group but also worked on other areas of the plan, said the document was “a smokescreen” rather than a plan.
He said it was a “collection of vague intentions dressed up as progress”, and he added: “No targets. No teeth. No real-world accountability.”
He also pointed to the absence of new money and no mechanism to track delivery of the action plan.
He said: “So what are we actually committing to? Awareness-raising? Reviews? Guidance updates?
“Disabled people have been reviewed to death. What we need is action – and there’s none of that here.”
He said he feared the plan had “already been quietly kicked into the long grass”.
Bridgeman said some of the most practical, necessary recommendations that came out of the co-production phase of the process “never even made it into the final plan” because the government “doesn’t know how to deliver them”.
He said: “In the current political landscape – with the DWP ramping up sanctions, Access to Work collapsing under its own weight, and social care in crisis – this strategy feels like yet another reminder that disabled people don’t matter.”
He called for a new Welsh Disability Office to “embed disability inclusion across all policy portfolios”, and a disability rights commissioner for Wales, as well as “real funding, hard timelines, legislative reform, and meaningful power”.
Joe Powell, chief executive of All Wales People First – which receives funding from the Welsh government – who chaired the taskforce’s access to justice working group, was also unenthusiastic about the draft plan.
He said in a statement that the plan was “a positive step forward in the sense that disabled people across Wales have worked in co-production to envisage a better future for disabled people in Wales.
“However, in order for this plan to succeed we need the appropriate investment into the infrastructure and services to make this aspiration a reality.
“We need clear targets about how we are going to achieve this.
“Without these, it is very difficult to see how the plan will make a difference to disabled people in Wales.”
Dr Natasha Hirst, a disabled activist who chaired the taskforce’s access to services working group, said a “key concern” was the lack of a mechanism for scrutinising and holding the Welsh government to account, as well as the lack of “clear and robust targets” and no new funding for implementing the actions.
Although the taskforce had involved “a groundbreaking process of coproduction”, she said the action plan itself was not co-produced and many of the recommendations from the working groups were not included in the consultation document.
She said: “It’s vital that disabled people and their organisations respond to the consultation to highlight areas that are missing or not meeting expectations.”
And she called on political parties in Wales to make clear manifesto commitments to “supporting, implementing and extending the action plan over the long term”.
She said the Welsh government has “shown better leadership on the issue of disability rights and inclusion” than the UK government, and there was now an “important opportunity to embed this approach in the longer-term political infrastructure of Wales”.
But she added: “Everything that the plan aspires to do will be undermined and impossible to implement if the UK government’s proposed PIP cuts go through.
“Wales has higher levels of poverty and a larger proportion of disabled people and not enough resources to mitigate the cuts and attacks on disabled people’s rights coming from Westminster.”
Asked why there was no funding announced alongside the plan, why there was no significant action to tackle key issues such as social care, accessible housing and transport, and disability poverty, and why the plan was short of concrete targets, a Welsh government spokesperson released the following statement.
“We are committed to ensuring disabled people can fully participate in Welsh society, and our draft 10-year plan – shaped by lived experience through the Disability Rights Taskforce – demonstrates our long-term commitment to meaningful change.
“We are holding a 12-week consultation on the draft plan, which seeks views from individuals and organisations, with a particular emphasis on hearing directly from disabled people about their priorities.
“Disability rights will become part of every department’s core budget, creating a lasting commitment, with disabled people helping shape priorities through our new External Advisory Board.
“Alongside the actions we will take now, our progress report demonstrates the many positive actions already being taken to advance positive outcomes for disabled people in Wales.
“We have focused on creating the right governance structure, placing disabled people at its centre, and the External Advisory Board will work with us to ensure we are delivering change to improve disabled people’s lives.”
22 May 2025
DWP’s unlawful silence on ‘critical friend’ report raises questions over minister’s transparency pledge
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has unlawfully failed to respond to a request to see a secret paper on the department’s safeguarding failures, casting doubt on a minister’s pledge to open DWP to “public scrutiny”.
The “critical friend” paper was written four years ago by Conservative minister Baroness Neville-Rolfe and appears to be a report analysing the department’s safeguarding strategy.
It is likely to discuss the links between the department’s actions, policies and practices and the deaths and other harm caused to countless disabled benefit claimants.
But despite Disability News Service (DNS) submitting a request for a copy of the report on 1 April, DWP’s freedom of information team has not even responded to the request, or to a follow-up email on 12 May.
Both emails received automated confirmations that they had been received.
Public bodies have a legal duty to respond to freedom of information requests within 20 working days (about a month).
DWP’s actions have cast further doubt on the pledge of Sir Stephen Timms, Labour’s minister for social security and disability, that he would “open up what is going on in the Department for Work and Pensions to public scrutiny”.
Despite Sir Stephen’s transparency pledge, his department continues to prevent the release of vital documents.
It is fighting at least two information rights tribunal cases, one involving recommendations made about the flawed universal credit system by DWP’s secret internal process reviews, and another seeking the release of a DWP paper “detailing the impact of errors on vulnerable customers”.
DWP is also fighting the release of a transcript of a training session on human rights law delivered to DWP staff by a government lawyer in November 2023.
The existence of the “critical friend” paper only emerged when DNS obtained a memo that proved it was former Conservative work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey who banned her department from using the term “safeguarding” in February 2021.
That memo was titled “Readout of meeting with the SoS department’s response to Baroness Neville Rolfe’s critical friend paper”.
Among those who attended the meeting were senior civil servants with responsibility for service excellence, customer experience and safeguarding strategy.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe worked in John Major’s policy unit when he was prime minister and was more recently a Conservative minister in departments including the Cabinet Office and the Treasury.
Baroness Neville-Rolfe had not responded to a request to comment by noon today (Thursday).
DWP had also not responded by noon today.
22 May 2025
Equality watchdog must investigate ‘urgent threat’ posed by Labour policies, say DPOs
More than 50 disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have called on the equality watchdog to investigate the “urgent threat” to the equality and human rights of disabled people posed by the new Labour government.
In a letter to the chief executive of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, John Kirkpatrick, they say the “disproportionate impact” of the policies taken together breaches the Human Rights Act.
And they criticise the government’s failure to consult with DPOs on its cuts and reforms to disability benefits before publishing its Pathways to Work green paper in March.
They also call on the watchdog to carry out the same “cumulative” assessment of the impact of all the government’s cuts that it carried out into policies implemented by successive Conservative governments from 2010 to 2018.
The letter warns that Labour’s cuts to benefits will push many disabled people into poverty; that the cuts will cause “many more deaths” of claimants; and that “negative, misleading and false statements” about disabled people and benefits, made by prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, chancellor Rachel Reeves and work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall, are increasing disability hate crime.
It also points out that the government has failed to address the concerns raised last year by the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities.
The committee found that the Conservative government had “failed to take all appropriate measures to address grave and systematic violations of the human rights” of disabled people.
Among the cuts announced by the Labour government since last July’s general election victory, the letter points to billions of pounds of reductions in spending on personal independence payment (PIP) and cuts to the health element of universal credit, including plans to remove eligibility for the health element from disabled people under the age of 22.
But the letter also highlights concerns in areas other than social security, including “ongoing cuts to NHS and mental health services disguised as efficiency savings” and the impact on adult social care of “ongoing austerity budgets for local authorities”.
And they point to the impact on disabled people and DPOs of tax rises faced by NHS and social care service-providers.
Among the DPOs to sign the letter were Disabled People Against Cuts, Recovery in the Bin, The Alliance for Inclusive Education, All Wales People First, Inclusion London, WOW Campaign, West of England Centre for Inclusive Living, Deaf Ethnic Women’s Association and National Survivor User Network.
An EHRC spokesperson said: “We have received this letter from several Deaf and disabled people’s organisations.
“We will carefully consider the concerns raised and respond in due course.”
22 May 2025
Most employers have had zero contact with DWP, report shows, in blow to green paper plans
Most employers had no contact with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in the previous year, according to new DWP research, highlighting the task facing the government as it tries to boost the number of disabled people in work.
The results of the DWP Employer Survey 2024 show four-fifths of employers (79 per cent) had not been in contact with DWP in the previous 12 months.
Just 11 per cent of employers had received support through the Access to Work (AtW) scheme.
And only 21 per cent of employers were even aware of AtW, a sharp drop compared with 26 per cent in 2022.
The survey results also showed that just one per cent of employers had been in contact with the department about its much-criticised Disability Confident scheme, another of the foundations of DWP’s efforts on disability employment.
Earlier this month, Disability News Service (DNS) reported that AtW was under attack from the government, with the launch of a new cost-cutting drive that insiders fear could destroy the scheme and lead to disabled people being forced to quit their jobs.
These cuts come as Labour ministers continue to insist that their Pathways to Work green paper – and its billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits – is focused on helping disabled people find work and stay in employment.
DNS reported in February that four work and pensions ministers had failed to sign up to Disability Confident, six months after Labour won power at the 2024 general election.
In November 2016, DWP itself was declared a Disability Confident “leader” – the highest of the scheme’s three levels – days before it was found guilty of grave and systematic violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The new DWP survey results also show that just under three in 10 (29 per cent) employers collect information on whether their employees are disabled or have long-term health conditions.
Only about a quarter of employers (26 per cent) said they currently employ any disabled people, while only 89 per cent of organisations with at least 250 staff say they employ at least one disabled member of staff.
The report shows the results of a survey of about 8,000 employers across Britain.
The research examined employers’ attitudes, behaviour and provisions around staff health, sickness and disability.
But it showed that confidence in recruiting disabled people and people with long-term health conditions was low, with only 35 per cent of employers saying they were confident in doing so.
Asked if the research showed DWP was under-performing when it comes to engaging with employers, that the government has a huge task in persuading employers to increase disability employment, and whether ministers saw the results as a setback for their Pathways to Work plans, a DWP spokesperson said: “We are determined to create a welfare system that supports people into work and out of poverty.
“At the heart of our reforms is a £1 billion scheme to help the long-term sick or disabled find good, secure jobs.
“This is on top of our Get Britain Working white paper, which set out the biggest employment reforms in a generation, to drive up employment and opportunity and grow the economy.”
DWP also said it was consulting on the future of Access to Work.
22 May 2025
Disabled peers speak of ‘daily fight’ against access barriers in House of Lords
Disabled peers have told a committee of MPs that they face a “daily fight” just to be able to do their job, because of their continuing battle against the access barriers within the House of Lords.
Members of the Commons modernisation committee heard how disabled peers and civil servants had to confront both physical and attitudinal barriers in their daily work in the Lords.
The committee – which is carrying out an inquiry into the accessibility of the Commons and its procedures – had heard from disabled MPs last month that the Lords was “aeons ahead” of the Commons on providing an accessible working environment for parliamentarians.
But the evidence given by four disabled peers on Tuesday suggested the Lords was far from being a beacon of equality and accessibility.
Labour’s Lord [David] Blunkett, crossbench peer Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson, Liberal Democrat frontbencher Baroness [Sal] Brinton and Conservative peer Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin all spoke of the daily frustrations they face in trying to do their jobs in the House of Lords.
Baroness Brinton said she was no longer able to open the doors in the corridors of the Lords because they are too heavy and are kept shut for “security reasons”.
She said she was nearly at the point of needing a personal assistant to allow her to move around the Lords.
And she spoke of the battle she had as a user of an electric wheelchair to be able to manoeuvre in and out of one of the accessible toilets.
She said: “And that day-to-day experience, multiplied across virtually every disabled toilet in this place, except the Changing Places one, is really infuriating, and you just feel you are doing a battle with the building every day.”
She told the MPs: “We respect the history and tradition in our House, which goes back way beyond yours… but we are a functioning parliament and we need to have a House that can actually work effectively, and sometimes I’m afraid the building does get in the way.”
She spoke of the long-delayed plans to renovate the Palace of Westminster, and said it was currently impossible for a wheelchair-user to speak as a minister from the despatch box in the House of Lords.
She said: “I don’t think the consultants who are doing the design work understand these issues fully, and it will be outrageous if we came back to a brand-new building that presumably is expected to last for 200 years, and there is nothing to make sure that a politician in a wheelchair could use either despatch box [in the Lords or the Commons] or be the Speaker or the Lord Speaker… or a senior clerk.”
Lord Blunkett told the committee: “I just think that there’s goodwill about modernisation, but there’s not good practice.
“It has taken a long time before, for instance, those operating IT have the least idea how to cope with variations and requirements for those who have got special needs.
“It’s getting there and there’s some very good people trying very hard, but it’s taken a long time.”
Asked about the balance between tradition and the need for adjustments for disabled people, he said: “I’m an out and out modernizer, I believe that tradition is often used as an excuse for inaction.”
And he said that the financial supplements that some disabled peers receive to support them with their assistance requirements are only available when the House of Lords is sitting.
He said: “I can live with that because I’m very fortunate, I have outside earnings and I can afford to top that up together with my own daily allowance to pay my assistant, who’s brilliant, who I couldn’t do anything without, but other people can’t.”
He added: “I do resent the feeling that they’re doing people a favour.
“I think that is the worst feature of some of the attitudes in this place, and I’ve been here 37 years, man and boy, the supercilious pretence of being understanding whilst actually being patronizing and not understanding at all.
“And in the Lords, finance are the worst.”
Baroness Grey-Thompson, a retired multi-gold-medal-winning wheelchair athlete, said that new carpets laid in the House of Lords were “virtually impossible for me to push on”.
She said: “You can’t push in a straight line because the way they’re laid it sends your wheelchair in all sorts of odd directions.
“Considering that the House of Lords has a reasonable number of people who have some form of disability or impairment, it’s actually just hard to kind of do your daily business.
“It shouldn’t be a daily fight just to do your job.
“I’m not sure whether it’s because I’m getting older, but it does feel that it takes more and more energy just to be able to do the things that maybe others take for granted.”
Lord Shinkwin said that a meeting held last week by the Lord Speaker [who presides over the House of Lords] to examine access issues did not provide a palantypist, so a peer with a hearing impairment was unable to understand what was being said.
He said he believed that disabled peers were facing cultural and attitudinal problems.
He said: “Every time I come into work… I’m reminded that this is an institution that was designed and built by non-disabled people for non-disabled people, and it’s still run by non-disabled people for non-disabled people.”
He said he did not understand why the authorities did not appoint a disabled person at a senior level to address “so many of the issues that we’re encountering”.
Lord Shinkwin said: “In the time I’ve been here, we must have had three or four disability access audits that have simply gathered dust on some shelf, but after probably hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ money has been spent on having them done.”
He told the committee: “There’s no real recognition that as a body that passes laws on disability discrimination and equality, we might just have a duty to be a beacon of best practice.”
22 May 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Rachel Reeves’ local Labour party will call for the chancellor to abandon her plans to cut disability benefits, as rebellion among MPs over the policy grows. The Leeds West and Pudsey constituency Labour party, which campaigned to return Reeves to parliament last year as its MP, has agreed to write to her “as soon as possible” to make clear it does not support the cuts: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/may/17/rachel-reeves-labour-leeds-disability-benefits
A wheelchair-user missed her train when staff refused to assist her with a ramp and called her “rude” after she complained. Anna Landre had planned to travel to Cambridge from London Liverpool Street on Sunday, but was forced to cancel her plans when station staff were “too busy” to help her onto the train: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wheelchair-travel-train-staff-ramp-anna-landre-b2754235.html
22 May 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
