Contents
Reports send separate warning shots to English and Scottish governments on social care reform 14
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 19
DWP helped cause mental distress of poverty-stricken benefit claimant who took her own life, says coroner
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failings contributed to the mental distress of a disabled woman who took her own life after being left with less than three pounds in her bank accounts, a coroner has concluded.
An inquest in Stockport has found that DWP’s actions were one of the factors that contributed to a decline in the mental health of 31-year-old Krissi Hunt before her suicide on 23 November 2023.
By the time she died, she was underweight, had almost no food left in her flat, and was not due to be paid for another five days.
Her family have now warned the Labour government that its planned cuts of billions of pounds to spending on disability benefits will cause further such tragedies by placing similar intense levels of pressure on disabled claimants with significant levels of mental ill-health.
And they point to tragic echoes of other deaths linked to DWP’s actions over the last 15 years*, including those of David Clapson, Mark Wood, Philippa Day, Errol Graham and Sophia Yuferev.
The inquest had originally been due to take place last June and last just three hours, but Krissi’s family asked the coroner to take a detailed look at the actions of DWP, other local agencies and her workplace, and it was twice adjourned until a three-day inquest finally took place last week.
The inquest in Greater Manchester had heard that Krissi, who had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, was claiming both personal independence payment (PIP) and employment and support allowance (ESA), and had not worked for 13 years.
But she started working less than 15 hours a week as a fundraiser under DWP’s permitted work system, which allows those on ESA to work for up to 16 hours and earn a maximum of £167 a week while still receiving their out-of-work disability benefits.
On 26 June 2023, she informed the ESA team she had started work and would not work more than 16 hours a week.
The next day, HM Revenue and Customs told DWP’s anti-fraud team she had started a job.
The anti-fraud team assumed she had not informed DWP because her call to the ESA team had not been recorded properly.
The ESA team then sent her a letter about alleged fraud and a permitted work form to complete within 14 working days.
The following month, the DWP anti-fraud team analysed information which mistakenly showed she had earned above the permitted work limit.
She was fined £50 for failing to inform DWP she had started work, and she was told she had now been overpaid £149.
Krissi was repeatedly told by the DWP that she needed to repay the ESA overpayment and the £50 fine.
DWP then told her local council that her ESA had been stopped for one week.
The council wrongly concluded that her ESA had stopped entirely, and told her she owed £828 in housing benefit.
DWP’s errors and her mounting debts led to her mental health spiralling downwards, and she repeatedly tried to resolve the dispute and clear her debts.
She made repeated calls to DWP to try to resolve the errors, without success.
In her final call to DWP, which a relative has listened to, and which was discussed during the inquest, Krissi was clearly in distress, but DWP agreed that its telephone agent failed to check on her welfare.
By now, Krissi had taken a full-time, high-pressure job at a care home, working 12-hour shifts with two hours’ travel a day, which her family believe may have been an attempt to clear her debts.
Her family say the physical demands of the job – including an incident at work in which her laptop charger was stolen, leading to a work meeting the day before her death – led to her becoming increasingly unwell.
She took her own life less than two months after starting the job.
Her family and friends described her as a bright, vivacious young woman who cared deeply about other people and who aspired to be a nurse.
Her family’s own circumstances, including her step-father’s wife, Jenny Barrow, having long Covid, meant they had not been able to keep as close an eye on Krissi’s life as they had wanted to.
At the inquest, DWP accepted that the £50 charge should never have been issued and the overpayment should have been rescinded because her average income over a five-week period was within the rules, even without the error in calculating how much she had earned.
The coroner, Andrew Bridgman, found that DWP’s failures contributed to the decline in Krissi’s mental health, along with other factors, including harassment from a neighbour and the strain of beginning full-time work with an intense shift pattern.
But the coroner said it was not possible to say whether these factors contributed to her decision to take her own life.
He concluded that she died by suicide.
The inquest had also heard that Krissi’s PIP claim was being reviewed, and that she had twice been unable to attend assessments, on 16 and 22 November, because of her new job.
She had been told that unless she attended a reassessment, her PIP would be stopped.
Although the coroner did not include this as one of the factors that impacted her mental health, her family believed it had done so.
DWP did not rescind the fine and the overpayment until July 2024, eight months after Krissi’s death, and only after her family had requested a mandatory reconsideration and review into the department’s actions.
Jenny Barrow and her husband fought after her death for the coroner to ensure a detailed examination of the agencies that the family believed had failed her.
Jenny said Krissi’s death showed again the “significant concerns regarding the safeguarding of people in receipt of DWP benefits, especially those with poor mental ill-health”.
Now she is desperate to warn MPs that countless more disabled people are likely to die if the government pushes ahead with its cuts to PIP and universal credit described in its Pathways to Work green paper (see separate story).
And she wants DWP to change its procedures so that it takes more account of inquest findings that do not lead to prevention of future deaths reports, as such reports are so rare.
She said: “We must ensure that the DWP has effective safeguards for all people in receipt of benefits.
“It’s very concerning thinking about what might happen to so many disabled people with the current proposed cuts to benefits and known harms to people’s health and well-being, including suicidal ideation.”
She said the family “cannot comprehend the safeguarding failings across many of the agencies involved with Krissi brought to light over the three days of the inquest”.
And she praised the work of their solicitors, Leigh Day, and Greater Manchester Law Centre, which introduced the family to their barrister, Ciara Bartlam, from Garden Court North Chambers.
Colin Barrow, Krissi’s stepfather, said: “Knowing Krissi, she would have felt the pressures of the DWP reported debts.
“Even with the positive aspects of her new job she would have been in a panic.
“She would have thought her flat would be in jeopardy. But she continued with her new job and looking positive.
“All the stresses she experienced close to her death would have been too much for her and she would have put on a brave face that she wanted people to see, especially at work.”
Leanne Devine, a partner at Leigh Day, said: “The desperately sad deterioration in Krissi’s mental health was contributed to by failings at the Department for Work and Pensions.
“No family should have to hear that DWP failings contributed to a spiral in their loved one’s mental health, yet in our legal work we hear this kind of narrative again and again.
“For that reason, it is incredibly disappointing that Krissi’s family were not granted legal aid for legal representation at her inquest, despite the fact that all of the other parties including the DWP were legally represented and funded by the public purse.”
She said it was only through the tenacity of Krissi’s family that the events leading to her death were fully investigated.
The inquest ruling comes as the Commons work and pensions committee is set to publish a report next week on how DWP safeguards “vulnerable” claimants.
DWP said it was reviewing the approach it takes to safeguarding.
A DWP spokesperson said: “Our sincerest condolences are with Ms Hunt’s family and friends in this tragic case.
“Our aim is always to provide the best possible support to those who need it, ensuring they can access the appropriate services.”
*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
**The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
8 May 2025
Second wave of cuts could lead to ‘decimation’ of Access to Work scheme, but DWP refuses to comment
The Labour government has launched a new cost-cutting drive aimed at Access to Work, which insiders fear could destroy the scheme and lead to disabled people being forced to quit their jobs.
Leaked information from multiple sources suggests the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is planning two waves of cost-cutting that will make it significantly harder for disabled people to secure support through the disability employment programme.
The 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.
One disabled expert who works in the sector told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that the changes will “directly undermine” the government’s disability employment agenda.
DWP had refused to comment on the leaks by noon today (Thursday), nearly three days after DNS requested a response.
There will be significant alarm among disabled people that the cuts are being introduced while proposed changes to Access to Work (AtW) are currently being consulted on as part of the green paper, with that process not due to end until the end of next month.
The AtW scheme is already under huge pressure, with lengthy delays for new claimants and renewals, and frequent complaints about funding decisions made by case managers.
DNS and disability consultant Alice Hastie – who specialises in providing AtW advice – were separately contacted last week by DWP insiders with information about changes to AtW “operational delivery”.
Both sources said ministers were introducing cuts this week that would reduce the range of equipment that AtW will fund.
This will mean AtW no longer funding items such as headsets, voice recorders, software for reading and writing, back supports, footrests, and chairs, desks and keyboards, even if they are ergonomic, as they will be seen as “standard business items”.
AtW will also introduce a strict cap on the hourly rates it pays support workers.
Hastie’s source said AtW was also now taking a stricter view of the kind of tasks that support workers are allowed to carry out if they are funded as “job aides”.
Tasks such as typing emails and notetaking will only be funded for a maximum of 20 per cent of a disabled person’s working hours, as such tasks will be seen as “replacement” rather than “enablement”.
Hastie said DWP was likely to explain the new measures as “a clarification of existing rules” rather than a new policy.
But she added: “What it’s actually saying is cuts, cuts, cuts.”
In a post on LinkedIn, Hastie said of this week’s cuts: “Overall, in my opinion, these changes will directly undermine the Government’s stated aims of getting more disabled people working and off disability benefits.”
She told DNS the impact of the cuts would be hugely significant, particularly for self-employed disabled people, many of whom have started working for themselves as their last attempt at staying in work, often because of their high support needs and unsupportive employers.
She said: “There are some good points. Employers need to take more responsibility for standard business costs, particularly big employers such as the NHS and big universities who need to provide reasonable adjustments.
“But my biggest worry is the impact on the self-employed and small businesses.
“These costs could be completely unmanageable for them.
“I suspect people will struggle on for a while, and their health and mental health will get worse.
“I suspect in the medium term, people will stop working.
“And at the same time, there are all the worries about personal independence payment being taken away (see separate story). It’s a nightmare for people.”
But on top of the changes taking place this week, DNS has also been told of a “second wave” of cuts that will be introduced later this year, probably in August or September.
These appear to be even harsher cuts, with the government moving to “tear up Access to Work as we know it”, as the DNS anonymous source described the measures.
AtW grants will be reduced from three years to just one – although in practice most grants are now already restricted to one year – forcing disabled people to re-apply annually for support.
Ministers will also introduce a new maximum of 35 hours-a-week funding for support workers.
This may pose particular problems for Deaf recipients of AtW funding who need an interpreter with them throughout a regular 40-hour week.
But the measure most likely to alarm AtW recipients and those in the disability sector is that from later this year – DNS has been told – DWP will stop funding any support workers other than interpreters and job coaches.
This would mean that disabled people with significant physical impairments would no longer be able to secure funding from AtW to pay for support workers to help them with physical tasks such as operating office equipment or completing paperwork.
Hastie said this second wave of cuts was “really quite alarming” and together with the first wave would “lead to the decimation of the scheme as we know it”.
Her source told her yesterday (Wednesday) that case managers believed that this second wave of cuts “will be stronger and focussed on travel support and support workers”.
Hastie said: “They have been told that people will be unhappier with that wave coming in autumn.”
The source of the DNS leak said in an email: “It is unclear under what logic DWP have decided to make this huge decision to hack away at support.”
Another source, who works regularly with AtW, said some of the measures being announced to DWP staff this week were already standard practice.
She said it was already difficult to secure AtW funding for support workers, which are “the last thing they will give you”, while most support packages are being cut by between 40 and 60 per cent when they are up for renewal.
She said: “They are systematically cutting people’s grants.”
And she said the “ultimate outcome” of the cuts would be a higher benefits bill and greater costs for the NHS.
She added: “Keir Starmer wants to get people working; this is doing the opposite to that.”
The government’s Pathways to Work green paper is currently consulting on the future of Access to Work, and it suggests that ministers want to cut future spending on the scheme, which is set to increase from £142 million in 2019-20 to £385 million this year.
Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, said in a written answer in March that ministers were “keen to ensure that… we can demonstrate the value for money delivered through a new [Access to Work] model as well as the positive impact it is having”.
8 May 2025
‘Sinister’ government analysis of assisted dying bill adds weight to fears of financial incentives for deaths
A “sinister” government analysis of the impact of a bill to legalise assisted suicide suggests it could eventually save public bodies more than £100 million a year in health and social care costs, benefits and pensions.
The figures – which the government warned were “uncertain”, and could be even higher – were published just two weeks before MPs are set to vote on the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill at its crucial report stage.
They will add weight to fears that some cash-strapped public bodies might be tempted to suggest the option of an assisted suicide to a terminally-ill patient or service-user as a cheaper option than continuing to provide them with expensive health and social care services.
The impact assessment makes it clear that the “monetised impact” of legalisation in England and Wales is “for the most part uncertain” and the “upper bound of these ranges should not be interpreted as maximum values”.
A separate equality impact assessment (EIA) warns of the “scarcity of evidence” on the impact of assisted suicide legislation in the 25 states and countries that have introduced some form of legalisation and regulation of the process.
But the impact assessment says the potential savings could reach £59.6 million a year in “unutilised healthcare” by the 10th year of the law’s introduction, in addition to £18.3 million in unpaid pensions, £6.2 million in unpaid attendance allowance, and £3.17 million in unpaid personal independence payment, as well as £10.5 million in unpaid care homes fees and £8.69 million in unpaid domiciliary care fees*.
The assessment points out that there would also be significant costs of legalising assisted suicide, including staff costs in delivering the assisted suicide service at up to £11.5 million a year by the 10th year, and the costs of running an assisted suicide commissioner’s office at £10 million a year and another £3.6 million to run a panel to approve each suicide.
The assessment estimates that nearly 5,000 people a year in England and Wales could opt for an assisted suicide by year 10.
Baroness [Jane] Campbell, who for years has led the fight against legalisation as co-founder of Not Dead Yet UK (NDY UK), told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that she found the “narrative surrounding a cost benefit analysis of assisted suicide quite sinister”.
She said: “Having surveyed assisted suicide legislation in other jurisdictions across the globe, I believe it will subtly incentivise doctors, inheritance beneficiaries or other public health and social care services to see an assistive early death as a positive treatment option for all concerned.”
She remembers telling fellow peers in July 2009, when they were debating a bid by Labour peer Lord Falconer to legalise assisted suicide, that such a move would “place a new and invidious pressure on disabled and terminally ill people who think that they are close to the end of their lives.
“Some will consider death as preferable to fighting for support to live with dignity. It will be the cheapest, quickest and simplest option.”
She told DNS that, 16 years later, nothing had changed, and that those diagnosed with a terminal or progressive illness or long-term medical condition were even in a “more precarious position due to deterioration in our NHS and social care public services”.
Her fellow disabled activist Liz Carr, whose award-winning BBC documentary about assisted suicide, Better off Dead? – still available to watch – explains the dangers of legalisation to a mainstream audience, said she was shocked by how the government’s equality impact assessment “was so focussed on ensuring equal access to assisted suicide for all rather than equal protection for all under the law”.
She said: “There’s no recognition, for example, of the inherent discrimination in a bill that offers ill, older and disabled people suicide support rather than offering them suicide prevention like everyone else.
“That is not equality, that is discrimination – deadly discrimination.
“But no, instead, the equality impact assessment’s focus is on ensuring reasonable adjustments are made so information about assisted suicide is in accessible formats.”
Mike Smith, an NDY UK spokesperson, said the two assessments had only heightened concerns about the bill.
He said: “We already know that disabled people ‘cost money’ when it comes to decent social care.
“It’s chilling that the impact assessment talks about potential cash savings.
“So in a world where resources are already constrained, another way of saving money could be to encourage disabled people to opt for assisted suicide.
“Whether that was explicit, or just implied, it still puts disabled people’s lives at risk.”
He said the EIA “spends more time explaining how disabled people might be excluded from accessing assisted suicide because of their impairments, with only a passing reference to coercion and pressure.
“It is focused entirely on the provisions of the bill alone, missing out the wider issues in society into which the bill will be introduced.”
Smith said NDY UK was equally concerned** about the assisted dying for terminally ill adults (Scotland) bill, which will be debated in the Scottish parliament on 13 May, and is “in many ways… an even more dangerous piece of legislation”, as it has a broader definition of terminal illness.
The impact assessment for the England and Wales legislation points out that one of “the main reported disbenefits” of legalisation for people who are terminally-ill is that they “may feel pressured into have an assisted death”.
In the US state of Oregon, which has similar laws to those that could be introduced in England and Wales, research last year found that 42 per cent of terminally-ill adults reported feeling a “burden on family, friends/caregivers” before their assisted suicide, with nine per cent reporting concerns about the “financial implications of treatment”.
The equality impact assessment says evidence suggests disabled people “may be more susceptible to feeling as though they are a burden on those around them” and “may feel subtle pressure due to attitudinal barriers or a lack of alternative appropriate services and support”.
It also points out that disabled people are twice as likely as non-disabled people to be victims of domestic abuse, which includes coercive behaviour, while evidence suggests healthcare professionals lack training and education on domestic abuse and may be “unwilling to engage in conversations about domestic abuse”.
And it says the Equality and Human Rights Commission has highlighted how older people “may feel subtly pressured to end their lives prematurely”, and that regional variations in the provision of palliative care could be another reason for some patients to consider an assisted death.
*The assessment suggests that local authorities will not gain financially because if they are no longer funding the care of someone who has had an assisted suicide “they would instead pay for someone else”
**NDY UK has organised email and postcard campaigns for people in England, Wales and Scotland to highlight their concerns with their MPs and MSPs
8 May 2025
Disabled activists gate-crash DWP event and send message to ministers: ‘Your consultation is a sham’
Disabled activists gate-crashed one of the government’s “sham” consultation events on its disability benefits green paper, and persuaded civil servants to let them put questions that ministers had not wanted to be asked.
The direct action, led by Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts, saw activists gather outside and occupy the foyer of the four-star Crowne Plaza hotel in Manchester city centre.
They refused to leave the hotel until they were allowed to address the handful of disabled people who were taking part in the consultation event.
Despite a police presence, there appear to have been no arrests.
Activists were angry that the consultation event, and others taking place around the country, are only seeking views on 10 of the 22 controversial proposals in the Pathways to Work green paper, including ducking questions on Labour’s plans to cut billions of pounds from spending on personal independence payment (PIP).
After an hour-long stand-off, the activists eventually persuaded Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) civil servants to allow one of them, Rick Burgess, to address the disabled people taking part in the consultation.
He asked those present to vote on whether they wanted to give their views on the whole of the green paper, and not just the questions selected by ministers.
When they voted strongly in favour of giving their views on all the questions in the green paper, about a dozen disabled activists filled up the rest of the tables and Manchester DPAC took over the event from DWP and posed all the questions the government had not wanted to be asked, with DWP staff taking notes of the contributions made in response.
This meant that those attending the consultation were asked what they thought of government plans to scrap the work capability assessment and create a single assessment to decide on eligibility for both personal independence payment (PIP) and the universal credit health element.
They were also asked about the government’s plans to freeze the value of the health element of universal credit until 2029-30, with new claimants seeing their weekly premium almost halved to £50 in 2026-27.
And they were asked about the green paper’s most controversial proposal: to cut spending on PIP by more than £4.5 billion by requiring all claimants to be awarded at least four points on at least one “activity” to qualify for the PIP daily living component.
To end the event, they asked those attending whether they approved of the green paper as a whole. All of them rejected it.
Burgess said: “Our position was this was a sham of a consultation, so all the disabled people here want to come in and we want to tell you what we think of the green paper, and not the questions you prepared.
“We didn’t budge, and we said we weren’t leaving.
“We told the senior civil servant that our message to the minister was to abandon the green paper.
“Our message to the public is to find out where the consultation events are, go along, and if they won’t let you in to talk about all the issues then try and shut it down, because they are an absolute sham.
“Unless they are letting all the disabled people in to talk about all of the problems the green paper is going to make worse, then it’s just like asking us to co-operate in our own abuse.
“The consultation takes the form of: ‘We are going to do this terrible thing, how should we do this terrible thing, and how do we help the few people that might survive it?’
“We are not answering that, we are not doing that.
“I hope the message is loud and clear that we do not accept this consultation, we do not accept the green paper, and that disabled people should demand the other consultations are open to everybody who wants to go, and they get to talk about every part of the green paper they want to talk about.”
Burgess said the government’s restricted version of a consultation was “an anti-democratic trick by ministers and we are just not going to accept it.
“What they are attempting to do is bypass genuine democracy.
“They don’t want the voices of disabled people who disagree with them, which as far as we can tell is all disabled people.”
Another disabled activist who took part, Luke Beesley, said: “The message from Manchester DPAC is that anyone can do this.
“You don’t need loads of experience, you don’t need hundreds of people behind you, just disabled people showing up, being gobby and being assertive; that can get you in the room.
“Now it’s happened once, it can happen whenever.”
Dennis Queen, another disabled activist, said they “took control back”.
“We need to show the government and the DWP that we are not going to put up with this and we are not just going to sit there and tell them which knife it’s OK to cut us with and how deep.
“We’re not going to do that.”
Asked if DWP welcomed the action by Manchester DPAC and if it would now extend its other consultation events so those attending would be asked about all the issues in the green paper, a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “We’re determined to fix the fundamentally broken system we inherited, and encourage sick and disabled people to have their voices heard through our consultation to help build a system that works better for all.
“As part of our Plan for Change, we’re creating a sustainable welfare system that will always be there to protect those who need it most and genuinely supports sick and disabled people into work – backed by our £1 billion employment support offer.”
8 May 2025
Cuts to disability benefits will exert pressure on services, and likely lead to more deaths, MPs are told
The government’s multi-billion pound cuts to disability benefits will cause huge pressure on services, make it harder for disabled people to find work, and likely lead to more deaths of claimants, disabled campaigners have told a cross-party committee of MPs.
They were giving evidence to the Commons work and pensions committee, as part of its inquiry into the government’s Pathways to Work green paper.
The evidence given yesterday (Wednesday) by Ellen Clifford and Mikey Erhardt repeatedly dismantled the arguments offered by Labour ministers for proposals laid out in the highly-controversial policy document.
But they also warned of the serious consequences of those policies.
The government announced billions of pound of cuts to disabled people’s support in its Pathways to Work green paper in March, particularly through £4.5 billion a year cuts to personal independence payment (PIP), and billions more from disabled people’s out-of-work benefits, although it has yet to reveal the true extent and likely impact of the cuts.
Clifford, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts, told the committee that it was “quite difficult to fathom” how the government justified taking the social security safety net away from “huge numbers of people”.
Erhardt, campaigns and policy officer for Disability Rights UK, warned that the spending cuts would probably increase the pressure caused by the current benefit assessment system, and likely lead to further fatalities, following many years of suicides and other deaths linked to DWP’s actions.
He said: “The assessments will get harder, the stress will be higher, and there is no way of sugarcoating that.”
Clifford told MPs she was not aware of any evidence for the government’s claim that the current disability benefits system disincentivises people from working, a claim it is using to justify cutting the universal credit health element.
This will see the health element cut for new claimants from £97 per week currently to £50 per week in 2026-27, while freezing it for existing claimants until 2029-30.
Clifford said the disincentive argument does “not seem to take into account the very real barriers that people face”.
She said: “I don’t think there’s an evidence base for this, and it’s certainly nothing that I’ve ever witnessed.”
Erhardt said the green paper seemed to suggest that people are only “deserving of support if you are working, and if not, you are in some ways a different class of citizen”, which was “incredibly distressing” and something that “loads of disabled people I speak to all the time already experience”.
He said the green paper was “just opening that up for more and more people”.
And he said workplaces are often “hostile to disabled people and our needs, they are pressurized, competitive in a lot of cases, in some ways dangerous and destabilizing environments”.
He added later: “You can’t cut people’s support and then think that that’s just going to lead to people going into work.
“It’s just fundamentally not how it works. We’re going to have more and more people feeling at risk, not getting the kind of support that we need.”
Clifford said she believed there would be a “huge additional pressure” placed on services by the billions of pounds of cuts to PIP.
She said: “If people have their PIP reduced, it’s going to mean that the amount that local authorities can charge for social care is going to be reduced.”
She added: “Where people are consigned to a life in poverty, there’s no hope for people, and when people don’t have hope, then they turn to drugs and alcohol.
“I really worry for our communities and the impact that these cuts will have.”
And she said the cuts would also create pressure on mental health services because of the impact on claimants who may not even end up losing their PIP.
Clifford said it would also likely see hundreds of thousands more people going through the benefit appeals system, which will create even more trauma for claimants.
She said that those who do not end up losing their PIP will still be traumatised because “the points awarded at assessment is done in such an arbitrary manner, so nobody is going to feel safe at all, and that means much wider impact than just talking about those who are going to lose it”.
She added: “There is huge amounts of information which is missing, and this isn’t something that MPs should be voting on when they don’t have that information.”
Erhardt said the cuts to PIP – even though it is not an out-of-work benefit – would also “make it potentially harder for people to find work, to have the solid base that you might need to feel that you can push on”.
James Taylor, executive director of strategy, impact and social change at the disability charity Scope, told the committee he believed the government’s plan to prevent those under the age of 22 from accessing the health element of universal credit would have “disastrous consequences” and risked “increased poverty, loss of independence, and barriers to employment”.
He said that, like many of the measures in the green paper, “a lot of the impact and detail is not there… and we’re sort of clutching at straws as to what the intent is”.
Jonathan Andrew, head of public affairs at the mental health charity Rethink, told the committee the government appeared to be working from the “strange logic” that “if you just take things away from people, they will realize they weren’t really ill and go back to work.
“It doesn’t work like that.”
Erhardt said the decision to remove the health element from younger disabled people was “completely arbitrary” and “really dangerous” and “fails to acknowledge all the reasons that young disabled people end up in a scenario where they might not be going on to further education or to work”.
Clifford said the damage this could cause young disabled people was likely to lead to “longer term negative life outcomes, which then require intervention and support throughout people’s lives”.
8 May 2025
Reports send separate warning shots to English and Scottish governments on social care reform
Separate reports have highlighted how years of failed government promises on reform have left broken adult social care systems in both England and Scotland.
In England, MPs on the Commons health and social care committee published a report this week warning of the “human and financial cost of inaction” on reform of a “failing system”.
And in Scotland, two disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and four umbrella bodies have combined in a new paper to raise concerns about the “debacle” of Scottish attempts at reform since an independent review was published more than four years ago, which have left adult social care in an “increasingly perilous state”.
The health and social care committee called on the UK government to commission research that would quantify the “cost of doing nothing on adult social care reform”, including the costs to disabled and older people, carers and care workers, local authorities, care providers, the NHS and the wider economy.
It said this research would enable the government to “start building the public and political support it will need to guarantee the longevity of reform”.
And the report called on the government to publish an annual assessment of the level of unmet care needs for both older people and working-age disabled adults in England.
The report says: “The Government needs to fundamentally change how it views the social care sector, seeing it as an enabler and talking about it in those terms in the public debate – both for the invaluable service it provides to so many people and also as a driver of economic growth.”
It also criticises the government’s lack of official data and its apparent ignorance of the potential benefits of a reformed system, while it continues to pay £32 billion a year for “a broken system”.
And it says that every £1 invested in social care would generate a £1.75 return to the economy, while an extra £1 billion spent on social care would create 50,000 jobs across the country.
Layla Moran, the committee’s Liberal Democrat chair, said the social care sector had “enormous potential to contribute to the government’s wider agenda on economic growth and employment”.
Health and social care secretary Wes Streeting told MPs on Tuesday that he would “look carefully” at the committee’s report.
The report was published days after the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) published the terms of reference for the three-year independent commission into adult social care, which is being chaired by Baroness [Louise] Casey.
The first phase, to report next year, will examine how to implement a National Care Service by taking a “data-driven deep-dive into the current system”.
It will examine the support needs of older people and working-age disabled people separately.
DHSC said the commission should produce “tangible, pragmatic recommendations that can be implemented in a phased way over a decade” and aim to make the system “more productive, preventative and to give people who draw on care, and their families and carers, more power in the system”.
The commission’s second phase, reporting in 2028, should make “longer-term recommendations for the transformation of adult social care”, DHSC said.
Meanwhile, six organisations have warned in a discussion paper that the Scottish government’s need to “grip the problem” of adult social care is greater than ever.
DPOs Glasgow Disability Alliance and Inclusion Scotland worked on the paper with Coalition of Carers in Scotland, Coalition of Care and Support Providers in Scotland, Health and Social Care Alliance Scotland, and Scottish Care.
They spoke out to raise concerns about the lack of progress on reform of care and support since the publication of the Independent Review of Adult Social Care in Scotland.
The review, published in February 2021, was authored by Derek Feeley, the Scottish government’s former director general for health and social care, and it was commissioned by the Scottish government.
They say in the paper that disabled and older people who receive care and support, and carers, have been “left to look on from the margins”, with their needs and rights not being met, while the sustainability of social care in Scotland “has slid into an increasingly perilous state”.
In January, the Scottish government scrapped its plans for a National Care Service, which had already been scaled back and delayed, and which the paper says was a “fundamental pillar” of the reforms.
The six organisations say they are “profoundly disappointed” at the government’s failure to secure consensus on its reforms, which led to the “jettisoning” of much of its planned legislation at a “critical time for social care support”.
And they express “dismay” in their paper at the “debacle” of the last four years of attempted reform.
The Feeley review had called for a human rights-based approach to social care through a new National Care Service on an equal footing with NHS Scotland, with accountability for social care moving from local government to Scottish government ministers.
But the new paper highlights the lack of progress since the Feeley review and warns: “Four years later we are scarcely any further forward.”
It says the passage of proposed legislation was dominated by disagreement between the Scottish government and the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities, and that the “protection of vested interests” prevented the culture change necessary to achieve the necessary reform.
Although it welcomes some of the measures that are set to proceed through the Scottish government’s care reform (Scotland) bill, the paper warns that “the reform required to meet need and respect, protect and fulfil people’s rights to independent living and provide access to timely, acceptable and quality social care support, cannot be delivered through piecemeal changes”.
The paper calls on the Scottish government to focus on developing consensus on the purpose of a human rights-based National Care Service; the importance of oversight and accountability at a national level, probably through an arms-length government agency; ethical commissioning and procurement of care and support services; and the need for transparency on funding and investment.
8 May 2025
Activist’s legal threat set to lead to more generous compensation for rail passenger assistance failures
Rail companies are likely to be forced to provide more generous compensation when they fail to assist disabled passengers, thanks to the actions of an accessible transport campaigner.
The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has written to train and station operators to tell them it plans to strengthen guidance on how they should compensate disabled passengers for failed assistance.
It has taken the action after disabled activist Doug Paulley threatened legal action because rail operators were basing compensation for failed assistance on the price of the rail ticket.
This has meant that disabled passengers who have experienced significant and upsetting discrimination and major disruption to their travel plans have received just the price of their ticket by way of compensation.
Paulley pointed out to ORR that the compensation available through the courts, when taking a case for discrimination under the Equality Act, was often many times higher than that offered by the operators.
He has already exposed how compensation cases taken to the Rail Ombudsman have been leading to “ridiculously low” awards when compared with county court actions.
Now ORR has written to train and station operators to warn them that it plans to reconsider its guidance on how they should draw up their own Accessible Travel Policies (ATPs)*.
It plans to draft new guidance that will tell operators to consider future compensation claims “on a case-by-case basis, informed by an assessment of the circumstances and the impact on the passenger, and in consideration of all relevant legislation”.
The regulator said it was acting after Paulley’s legal threat, and court and ombudsman decisions that showed that in some situations “significant” financial compensation can be appropriate.
It also pointed out that, in 2023-24, less than one in four disabled passengers whose assistance had failed had sought compensation.
Paulley welcomed the ORR decision to draft new guidance.
He told Disability News Service: “For far too long, train and station operators have failed to treat assistance failures as what they are: incidents of illegal discrimination which have a profound effect on disabled travellers.
“Instead, they treat them as a minor customer services failure.
“As a result, compensation has been equivalent to ‘delay repay’, as opposed to the thousands that may rightly be awarded in court.
“It is good to see that the courts, then the ombudsman, and now the ORR, may finally recognise appropriate compensation levels.
“I hope that as many disabled people as possible demand appropriate compensation for their distress at every incident.
“It may well concentrate the minds of rail companies – given the moral imperative hasn’t reduced frequency of these incidents, perhaps the financial cost might.”
But Paulley said he was worried that the changes only apply to booked assistance, and he called on ORR and the train and station operators to give “equivalent consideration” to those disabled passengers who try to “turn up and go” without booking assistance in advance.
Stephanie Tobyn, ORR’s director of strategy, policy and reform, said: “Our work with industry is first and foremost to ensure they deliver assistance to passengers that need it.
“But when assistance isn’t delivered it is important there is fair redress in place.
“We’ve listened to affected passengers and we believe it is right to review redress policies for failed passenger assistance.
“This will help ensure that train and station operators assess all passenger claims for redress on a case-by-case basis.”
*All train and station operators must establish and comply with an ATP – and have it approved by ORR – as a condition of their licence, setting out the services they will provide for disabled people
8 May 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Two disabled activists who say they are being failed by the UK’s flawed response to climate breakdown are taking their case to Europe’s top human rights court. Doug Paulley and Kevin Jordan say their lives have been ruined by the rising temperatures and extreme weather caused by the climate crisis, and that the government’s response fails to respect their human rights: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/may/05/two-britons-to-challenge-uk-weak-response-to-climate-crisis-in-european-echr-court
A number of Labour MPs have said they will vote against the government’s proposed cuts to disability benefits. Nine Labour MPs voiced concern over the government’s plans to make it harder for people with less severe conditions to claim disability payments during a debate on Wednesday: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5y4yrq013yo
The government’s planned disability benefit cuts will hit 700,000 families who are already in poverty, according to internal Department for Work and Pensions forecasts obtained by the Guardian. The figures, sourced under the Freedom of Information Act, are in addition to the projected 250,000 people who will be newly driven below the poverty line by the cuts, as set out by the government’s impact assessment in March: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/07/disability-benefit-cuts-to-hit-700000-families-already-in-poverty-dwp-forecasts-show
Ministers have been accused of hiding behind EU law to avoid having to fit lifts at train stations. Disability campaigners have been told that small stations do not need to be made step-free because of an obscure clause in an EU regulation that the UK adopted in 2014: https://www.thetimes.com/article/26aede8c-89b9-4884-b849-fdfcd7d82f31?shareToken=67f02a45c9daf0fd422ad1254049e777
Macmillan Cancer Support is to scrap its £14 million-a-year specialist advice service, which helps tens of thousands of people every year, in what has been described as a betrayal of “vulnerable” patients: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/05/macmillan-cancer-support-charity-specialist-benefits-advice-services
The crisis in special educational needs provision appears to be worsening, with nine out of 10 school leaders finding it harder to meet pupils’ needs than they did a year ago, according to a survey. Almost all (98 per cent) of the respondents to a National Association of Head Teachers’ poll covering England, Wales and Northern Ireland said they did not have the resources to meet the needs of all their pupils with special educational needs and disabilities: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/may/02/headteachers-england-wales-northern-ireland-send-schools-survey
8 May 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
