Contents
DWP hides truth from coroner on exactly what happened in lead-up to Jodey Whiting’s suicide 1
Call for public inquiry into deaths after coroner rules suicide was ‘triggered’ by DWP 3
Beresford’s book shows how disability movement can be part of ‘antidote’ to neoliberalism 14
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 17
DWP hides truth from coroner on exactly what happened in lead-up to Jodey Whiting’s suicide
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has hidden the truth from a coroner about its role in a disabled woman’s suicide, allowing ministers to avoid having to explain how they would prevent more benefit claimants taking their own lives.
Helga Swidenbank, DWP’s director for accessibility, disability services and disputes resolution, was chosen by the department to give evidence on its behalf this week in the long-awaited second inquest into the death of Jodey Whiting in February 2017.
The inquest found that DWP’s wrongful decision to stop Whiting’s benefits – along with a string of safeguarding failures – was the “trigger” for her to take her own life.
Coroner Clare Bailey found that Whiting’s “deteriorating” state of mental health had been “precipitated” by the withdrawal of her out-of-work disability benefits (see separate story).
But Swidenbank’s evidence helped persuade Bailey not to write a prevention of future deaths (PFD) report, which would have obliged DWP to explain in writing how it would prevent further such tragedies.
During the inquest, Swidenbank, who only joined DWP in 2022, failed to answer key questions from barrister Jesse Nicholls, who was representing Whiting’s family.
DWP has refused to tell the family, and their legal team, whether it ever carried out a secret internal process review (IPR) into the circumstances leading up to the death, even though its guidance suggests it almost certainly will have done so.
But when Swidenbank was asked by Nicholls on Monday to confirm if an IPR was carried out into Whiting’s death, she said she didn’t know and would have to ask colleagues.
During Monday’s inquest, at Middlesbrough’s Teesside Justice Centre, Swidenbank declined to comment several times when asked key questions about Whiting’s case and the procedures in place at the time of her death.
Asked why both DWP and Maximus – the private sector contractor paid to carry out work capability assessments – had failed to deal with Whiting’s request for a work capability assessment to be carried out in her home, she said: “I’m not able to comment on that.”
Asked by Nicholls if anyone had ever asked the DWP decision-makers and call-handlers who dealt with Whiting’s benefit claim “how this happened”, she said she didn’t know.
And asked if DWP had identified if there were problems at the time with the “decision-makers’ guide” – the guidance for DWP staff who make decisions on benefit claims – she said: “I can’t comment on that.”
Swidenbank said she believed there had been a “culture shift” within DWP since 2017 towards becoming “much more compassionate” rather than being “process-driven” at the time of Whiting’s death, although she said the department still had “more work to do”.
She said DWP was “deeply sorry” for its failings at the time, and accepted the findings of an Independent Case Examiner report that found in 2019 that the department had failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to her death.
Swidenbank also said DWP had launched new customer experience standards – which were set up in 2023 – to “test how our teams are working”.
But she failed to tell the inquest that an internal survey last year of how they were being applied found that DWP staff were failing in two out of five cases to meet those standards.
Jonathan Dixey, the barrister representing DWP, said there was “a lot of work going on” within the department, including a public consultation on whether DWP should have a statutory safeguarding duty.
He said the department accepted that further improvements could be made, and that it would be responding to a new report by the Commons work and pensions select committee on “safeguarding vulnerable claimants” within DWP.
But Nicholls later told the coroner that even though it was more than eight years since Jodey Whiting’s death, there were a “substantial” number of matters that caused “ongoing concern” about the risk of future deaths linked to DWP.
He said: “There still remains ongoing concerns about the risks of vulnerable benefits claimants dying on the termination of their benefits and related processes.”
He said a number of Swidenbank’s replies were either that an answer was “not one that I can give you” or that DWP was “awaiting the outcome of the department’s response to the select committee’s investigation”.
He said: “That is not a basis for not making a PFD report. Quite the opposite.”
But Bailey told Monday’s inquest that she would not be sending a PFD report to DWP.
She said she had heard of “many changes” made by DWP since Whiting’s death, and had been told that actions were still being taken, with new structures being put in place “to support vulnerable claimants”.
And she said the committee’s report would be “keeping this issue front and central for the DWP”.
She said that for these reasons she believed “sufficient steps will be taken”, so there was no need to write a PFD report.
Bailey is not the first coroner to be convinced by DWP’s insistence in a court hearing that it is already addressing failures that have caused the death of a disabled claimant.
Six years ago, two senior DWP civil servants persuaded a coroner not to write a PFD report following the death of Errol Graham – who starved to death when DWP wrongly stopped his out-of-work disability benefits – after providing her with misleading information about a safeguarding review.
More than a decade of evidence now links the department with hundreds – and probably thousands – of suicides and other deaths of claimants.
Bailey was probably unaware that DWP’s chief medical adviser had told MPs in January that PFD reports are crucial in persuading DWP to act on safeguarding issues.
Dr Gail Allsopp said in January that she focuses on PFDs – rather than IPRs – when it comes to learning lessons from suicides and other deaths.
*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, including those of Jodey Whiting and Errol Graham, is published by Pluto Press
**The following organisations are among those that might 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
5 June 2025
Call for public inquiry into deaths after coroner rules suicide was ‘triggered’ by DWP
The mother of a disabled woman who took her own life after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) wrongly stopped her benefits has called for a public inquiry into the years of deaths linked to the department’s actions.
Joy Dove was speaking to Disability News Service (DNS) after a long-awaited second inquest into the death of her daughter, Jodey Whiting, from Stockton-on-Tees, concluded that DWP’s decision to stop her out-of-work benefits after a string of safeguarding failures was the “trigger” for her to take her own life on 21 February 2017.
But both Dove and her ex-husband, Eric Whiting, told DNS that they do not trust the department to make the changes needed to prevent further deaths of disabled people like Jodey.
Dove said yesterday (Wednesday) that she “100 per cent” supported calls for a public inquiry into the hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths linked to DWP’s actions and failings, and hoped to carry on campaigning for other disabled people.
She said it was difficult to trust DWP to make the necessary changes after everything they have done over the eight years since Jodey died.
Her message to DWP has not changed, she told DNS: “It should never have happened.”
Dove said she was growing increasingly concerned that many more disabled people would die – just as her daughter had – due to the Labour government’s planned cuts of billions of pounds to disability benefits.
She said: “It’s hard to think that everything is done and dusted in other people’s eyes after the coroner’s decision, but I will always feel the same.
“It’s never going to bring her back. I still miss her so much.”
She is now thinking of writing a second book about her campaigning.
Coroner Clare Bailey concluded on Monday that Jodey Whiting’s “deteriorating” state of mental health had been “precipitated” by the withdrawal of her benefits.
A DWP director told the inquest that there had been a “culture shift” since 2017 towards becoming “much more compassionate” rather than being “process-driven” at the time of her death, although DWP still had “more work to do”.
She said DWP was “deeply sorry” for its failings at the time, and accepted the findings of an Independent Case Examiner report that found in 2019 that DWP had failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to Jodey Whiting’s death.
The coroner said she had heard of “many changes” made by DWP since her death, and that actions were still being taken by the department, with new structures being put in place “to support vulnerable claimants”.
And she said a new report by the Commons work and pensions select committee on “safeguarding vulnerable claimants” would be “keeping this issue front and central for the DWP”.
She said that for these reasons she believed “sufficient steps will be taken”, and so there was no need to write a prevention of future deaths report, to which the department would have had to respond (see separate story).
The coroner’s ruling follows Dove’s eight-year campaign for justice.
She also worked with DNS for years to campaign for a public inquiry into DWP deaths, including a parliamentary petition in 2019 that secured more than 55,000 signatures.
She and her ex-husband told DNS on Monday that they did not trust DWP to make the changes it had promised to make during the inquest.
Dove said after the inquest: “I have always known that the failings of the DWP led to Jodey’s death and now this has been confirmed by this inquest.
“I feel like I’ve got justice for Jodey, but I still need to carry on.
“I have got my Justice for Jodey page and I am sure people will keep getting in touch.”
She said many others had also lost their lives due to DWP failings, and she said she believed it would “get worse” because of the Labour government’s cuts to disability benefits.
The first inquest in 2017 lasted just 37 minutes and Dove had to fight for years through the high court and the court of appeal for a second inquest, with the support of solicitors Leigh Day.
The coroner at the first inquest had failed to examine DWP’s role in her death or take evidence from any DWP witnesses, and failed to criticise the department.
Dove began her quest for justice even before the first inquest, after approaching the local paper, the Gazette.
She said on Monday that Jodey had been “a perfect daughter” and “would help anyone in need or with problems”.
She said she had always believed that DWP caused her daughter’s death and that it should not have taken an eight-year fight to secure “justice for Jodey”.
She said it had been an “uphill battle trying to get answers and accountability”.
Eric Whiting told the inquest that Jodey “always put others before herself” and was like a “pied piper” because she always had children around her.
He told DNS that the way DWP had conducted themselves had been “appalling”.
He said: “They say time heals. I am still waiting.
“I just hope that the DWP have learnt a few things and start to make a lot of changes so other people and families don’t go through what our family have and are still going through.”
He said the family felt “cheated” and that Jodey “touched the hearts of everyone she knew” and that her smile could “brighten the darkest room”.
He said later that DWP had tried to “sweep things under the carpet and hide this for the last eight years” but today “it has all come out”.
The family’s solicitor, Merry Varney, from Leigh Day, said DWP had been the cause of many deaths.
She said: “Today’s conclusion shows the importance of thorough inquests that properly investigate how a death occurred.
“Without them, the dangerous and sometimes deadly way that those unable to work due to ill-health or disability are treated by the DWP will remain covered up and unchecked.”
She said Joy Dove’s efforts had not only secured “justice for Jodey” but had “shone a light for many others that must now lead to change to prevent further deaths and further families being broken by the acts and the omissions of the DWP”.
*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, including Jodey Whiting’s, is published by Pluto Press
**The following organisations are among those that might 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
5 June 2025
Coroner finds DWP’s decisions and safeguarding failings were ‘trigger’ for suicide of Jodey Whiting
A coroner has found that the decision of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to wrongly stop a disabled woman’s benefits after a string of safeguarding failings was the “trigger” for her to take her own life.
Coroner Clare Bailey found that Jodey Whiting’s “deteriorating” mental health had been “precipitated” by the withdrawal of her out-of-work disability benefits after she missed a work capability assessment (WCA).
The decision of the coroner follows an eight-year campaign for justice by the family of Jodey Whiting – who died on 21 February 2017 – led by Jodey’s mother, Joy Dove.
The first inquest in 2017 lasted just 37 minutes and Dove fought for years through the high court and the court of appeal for a second inquest, with the support of solicitors Leigh Day.
She also worked with Disability News Service for years to campaign for a public inquiry into DWP deaths, including a parliamentary petition in 2019 that secured more than 55,000 signatures.
The coroner at the first inquest had failed to examine DWP’s role in Whiting’s death, or take evidence from any DWP witnesses, and had failed to criticise the department.
Although the new coroner at this week’s second inquest declined to send a prevention of future deaths report to DWP (see separate story), she became one of the few coroners in the last 15 years to conclude that the department’s actions had triggered the suicide of a benefit claimant.
That conclusion particularly echoes the inquest into the death of Michael O’Sullivan in September 2013, and a coroner’s ruling that the trigger for his suicide was being found fit for work by the department.
Bailey concluded at the end of Monday’s long-awaited second inquest, at Middlesbrough’s Teesside Justice Centre, that Whiting had taken her own life.
She said: “Her actions were in the context of her benefits having been wrongly withdrawn by the DWP in circumstances where there had been five missed opportunities to avoid the significant errors.
“This had the effect of negatively impacting upon her mental health and was the trigger to her [decision to take her own life].”
She said the context of her suicide was “a deteriorating mental state precipitated by the withdrawal of state benefits”, and she concluded that she had probably intended to take her own life.
She had told the inquest that Whiting’s life “was all about her family” and that she had “just loved being a mum”.
The inquest heard that she was the mother of nine adult children and six grandchildren, and that eight years after her death – at the age of 42 – she was still “deeply missed by all of her large family” (see separate story).
Whiting, from Stockton-on-Tees, had multiple health conditions, including chronic pain and longstanding mental distress – including a diagnosis of emotionally unstable personal disorder – and was on eight different medications, including two lots of morphine, a tranquiliser, anti-anxiety medication, and two anti-depressants.
By the time of her death, she was rarely able to leave her flat and was unable to afford a mobility scooter because DWP had cut her personal independence payment.
She had missed a WCA in January 2017 because she had recently come out of hospital for treatment for pneumonia and a cyst on her brain, was not coping well with her correspondence, and had not opened the appointment letter from Maximus, the private sector contractor paid by DWP to carry out assessments.
DWP wrote to her that month to ask her why she missed the assessment.
But Maximus and DWP had both failed to consider her request for the WCA to take place in her own home, while DWP then failed to phone her to check why she missed the assessment, and failed to consider a safeguarding visit, and failed to contact her GP for more information about her health.
On 6 February 2017, Whiting received a second letter from DWP, telling her she had provided no good reason for missing her face-to-face assessment and therefore would be considered fit for work and her employment and support allowance (ESA) would be stopped on 17 February, while her housing benefit and council tax benefit would also stop.
DWP made this decision, even though it had been told in 2014 of her suicidal thoughts, that in October 2016 she had made it clear she was seeing a psychiatrist and was under the care of a mental health crisis team and could not cope with work or looking for work, and that a “vulnerability” red flag had been placed against her name on DWP’s system.
Her mother described to the inquest how her daughter had been left “shocked and distressed” and “felt desperate” and “looked as though she had lost all hope” because she believed she would be left destitute.
On 20 February 2017, the jobcentre rebuffed Dove’s attempt to help her daughter, and when she told her what had happened, she said she saw the hope fading from her eyes and said: “Mum, what am I going to do? I can’t walk out the door, I can’t go and sign on, I can’t breathe.”
The following day, concerned that her daughter was not answering her phone, Dove rang the police and then she and two of Whiting’s daughters – Emma and Amy, who were also concerned – visited her flat and were let in by the concierge.
They found her dead on the sofa, next to a notebook of individual messages she had left for each of her children, and for Joy, and other notes which the coroner said showed “how desperate Jodey felt about her financial situation and her inability to pay her bills”.
Just weeks after she died, on 31 March, in response to an appeal lodged by Dove, DWP overturned the decision to stop her benefits and admitted that she did have good reason not to attend the assessment and had been entitled to ESA.
Dove took up the fight for justice, and complained to the Independent Case Examiner (ICE), which two years later concluded that her benefits should never have been stopped and that DWP had failed five times – a conclusion supported by the coroner – to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading to her death.
A DWP director told the inquest that the department was “deeply sorry” for its failings at the time and that it accepted the ICE findings.
Psychiatrist Dr Trevor Turner, who was commissioned originally by the family’s solicitors and then by the court, concluded in his second report that DWP’s failings had “substantially affected” Jodey’s mental health and decision to end her own life.
He found that the decision to cut her benefits would have had an “acute and pervasive effect” on her mental state and could be seen to some degree as “the straw that broke the camel’s back”.
He said the key factors affecting her mental state were the psychiatric diagnosis, her chronic pain condition, and the withdrawal of her “necessary benefits”, and that “her mental state at the time of her death, in particular the negative and depressive conditions, would have been substantially enhanced by the experience of her benefits being withdrawn and the seemingly insurmountable difficulties that would present in her day-to-day life”.
Dove said on Monday that Whiting had been “a perfect daughter” and “would help anyone in need or with problems”.
She said she had always believed that DWP caused her daughter’s death and that it should not have taken an eight-year fight to secure “justice for Jodey”.
She said it had been an “uphill battle trying to get answers and accountability”.
Whiting’s father Eric told the inquest that his daughter “always put others before herself” and was like a “pied piper” because she always had children around her.
He told DNS that the way DWP had conducted themselves had been “appalling”.
He said: “I just hope that the DWP have learnt a few things and start to make a lot of changes so other people and families don’t go through what our family have and are still going through.”
He said that DWP had tried to “sweep things under the carpet and hide this for the last eight years” but today “it has all come out”.
The family’s solicitor, Merry Varney, from Leigh Day, said DWP had been the cause of many deaths.
She said: “Today’s conclusion shows the importance of thorough inquests that properly investigate how a death occurred.
“Without them, the dangerous and sometimes deadly way that those unable to work due to ill-health or disability are treated by the DWP will remain covered up and unchecked.”
*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, including those of Jodey Whiting and Michael O’Sullivan, is published by Pluto Press
**The following organisations are among those that might 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
5 June 2025
Union activists applaud challenge to minister over billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits
Disabled union activists repeatedly challenged a Labour minister at a conference this week on the government’s plans to cut billions of pounds a year from spending on disability benefits.
There was prolonged applause when one disabled delegate, Mark Anthony Bastiani, from the Communication Workers Union, asked Sir Stephen Timms why a Labour government was targeting “the most vulnerable in society” with its cuts rather than “super-rich tax evaders”.
Delegates were questioning the minister for social security and disability – who appeared online rather than in-person – at the annual TUC Disabled Workers’ Conference in Bournemouth.
A delegate from the retail trade union USDAW challenged Sir Stephen to justify the huge cuts to disabled people’s income when one charity had estimated that a maximum of three per cent of disabled people having their benefits cut would benefit from £1 billion in new funding for employment support.
Another delegate, Pat Roche, from the University and College Union, asked what steps Sir Stephen would take to stop the demonisation of disabled people as “lazy, workshy and benefit scroungers”.
And a UNISON delegate asked him if the government had estimated how many disabled people would lose their jobs through plans to tighten eligibility for the daily living part of personal independence payment (PIP), which will mean only those who receive at least four points in at least one of the activities claimants are assessed on will continue to receive it.
In his responses, Sir Stephen mostly repeated previous government lines on the cuts, including the insistence that only 10 per cent of those receiving PIP in November 2026, when DWP starts to review claims under the new rules, will have lost it by 2029-30.
He said the Learning and Work Institute had told DWP that the government’s plans to boost employment support could increase the number of disabled people in work by 165,000.
Sir Stephen described the government’s plans as “bold”.
He said it was a “very fair point” that many disabled people used PIP to stay in work, but he insisted again that “the numbers that are going to be affected by these changes are a good deal less than some people are suggesting”.
Sir Stephen said far fewer disabled people would lose PIP than those who currently do not receive four points in any activity because there would be “a good deal of behaviour change”.
He said this would be at least in part because the healthcare professionals carrying out PIP assessments for the companies contracted by DWP would “reflect” the importance of four points.
He said: “So, there is going to be much more focus on that, the assessors are going to reflect that.”
This suggests that disabled people should trust those working for companies such as Maximus and Capita, which have both been associated with poor quality assessments, the deaths of claimants, and – in Capita’s case – countless dishonest PIP assessments.
In the case of Maximus, its link to the death of Jodey Whiting was exposed again this week during the long-awaited second inquest into her suicide (see separate stories).
Sir Stephen also repeated the government’s position that the increase in PIP spending was “unsustainable”.
He said: “If it is unsustainable then in the end it is going to be the people claiming the benefit who lose out.
“I appreciate that it doesn’t always feels like that but that is actually what is motivating this and the reason it is so important.”
But he failed to explain the logic behind his statement, which appears to suggest that cutting benefits from disabled people receiving PIP now will benefit those people because it will prevent them having their benefits cut in the future.
He also claimed that the government wanted to “tackle head on that kind of demonisation that you were talking about”, and suggested Labour may introduce new legislation to address it, telling the conference: “It is completely wrong, and, you know, it may need some legal changes to improve the position.”
And he insisted that Labour had already taken several steps to increase taxes on the wealthy, including introducing VAT on private schools and private jets, cutting exemptions on inheritance tax, doubling the stamp duty on second homes, and increasing capital gains tax.
He added: “And as you know, we have abolished non-dom tax status.
“We’re told that a few people have left the UK in response to that. I think we will manage without them.”
But there are also questions this week over whether Sir Stephen asked the TUC (Trades Union Congress) to ensure that his speech to the conference, and the question-and-answer session, were not livestreamed.
Key parts of previous conferences, including last year’s speech by Labour’s then shadow disability minister Vicky Foxcroft, have been livestreamed by the TUC.
And until questions were asked of the TUC by Disability News Service (DNS) this week, there was a message on the conference webpage stating that its public sessions, including keynote speakers, would be streamed online.
That message was then removed from the TUC website.
One delegate told DNS that they had been informed by a TUC staff member that the ban on livestreaming was introduced at Sir Stephen’s request.
But the TUC has strongly denied that Sir Stephen requested that his session should not be streamed live.
It insists that it told DWP the conference would be a closed event with only delegates in attendance, and that the message had been placed on the conference webpage by mistake.
It says that none of its equalities conferences have been livestreamed this year, although DNS has found this speech that appears to have been filmed openly with TUC approval and streamed at the TUC Black Workers’ Conference in April.
A TUC spokesperson said in a statement: “Disabled Workers’ Conference is a closed event for TUC delegates.
“No TUC equalities conferences have been live streamed this year.
“The chair of the disabled workers’ committee reminded delegates that there should be no filming of the conference, which is to ensure delegates feel able to speak freely about personal testimonies.”
DWP had refused to say by noon today (Thursday) if the minister had requested that his speech and question-and-answer session should not be livestreamed, but a spokesperson said: “This was a private event which the minister attended virtually due to diary pressures.”
5 June 2025
Activists consider legal action after DWP cancels only face-to-face benefit cuts consultation event in Wales
Disabled activists are considering taking legal action against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) after it scrapped the only event due to take place in Wales as part of the consultation on its disability benefits green paper.
They say MPs should not be allowed to vote on the government’s plans – with a bill due to be published within days – until there has been a “full and genuine” public consultation.
They spoke out after DWP cancelled a consultation event on the Pathways to Work green paper just days before it was due to take place at a hotel in north Cardiff on Tuesday.
Disability News Service (DNS) has seen an email sent by DWP which blamed “an unexpected last minute cancellation by the venue”.
But the email also offered those who had been due to attend “a priority space on our other virtual events in place of this cancelled event”, or a place at “a new Wales-only online event for the end of June on the entire consultation”.
It would have been the only face-to-face consultation event on the green paper in the whole of Wales, although disabled activists had already complained about the inaccessible location of the hotel venue in north Cardiff.
They are now considering “all options”, including legal action, due to the discriminatory way the consultation event had been organised, and the failure to carry out a genuine consultation process in Wales.
Disabled People Against Cuts Cymru (DPAC Cymru) went ahead with a planned protest on Tuesday – outside Cardiff Central rail station – even though the consultation event had been cancelled.
DPAC Cymru said: “We are not surprised that private venues do not want to be seen hosting a toxic consultation on proposals to take more than £5 billion away from disabled people.”
DPAC Cymru said it was now possible that MPs could be voting on many of the proposals in the green paper by the time the replacement event had taken place.
It called for a “full and genuine public consultation in Wales” that is run by Welsh disabled people’s organisations with DWP attending only as observers, and called for supporters to sign an open letter backing their demands.
Among those who have signed the open letter, and attended Tuesday’s protest, was Plaid Cymru MS Sioned Williams, who raised the concerns in the Senedd later the same day.
DPAC Cymru is still calling for Swansea West MP Torsten Bell – a work and pensions minister – to debate the green paper publicly with DPAC.
Disability Wales said it was “aghast” at DWP’s decision to cancel the only in-person consultation event in Wales.
It said: “The decision silences disabled people across Wales – those who would be most affected by these devastating changes.
“An online alternative is no substitute for meaningful, accessible, face-to-face engagement.
“Cancelling the in-person meeting effectively cancels our right to be heard and erases lived experience from the conversation.”
DWP had refused by noon today (Thursday) to confirm if there would be a replacement face-to-face consultation event in Wales before the consultation finishes at the end of this month.
Instead, a spokesperson said in a statement: “We will never compromise on protecting people who need our support, and our reforms will mean the social security system will always be there for those who will never be able to work, and that their income is protected.
“We are working to rearrange the event in Wales as part of a series of face to face and virtual consultations, so the views and voices of sick and disabled people are at the heart of our reforms.”
It is just the latest setback for DWP since it launched the consultation on the green paper, including disabled activists gate-crashing a “sham” consultation event in Manchester and persuading civil servants to let them put questions that ministers had not wanted to be asked.
The DWP consultation process is only seeking views on 10 of the 22 controversial proposals in the green paper, including ducking questions on Labour’s plans to cut billions of pounds from spending on personal independence payment (PIP) and the health element of universal credit.
In April, leading disabled people’s organisations wrote to work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall to express “serious concerns” about the human rights implications of her “incredibly dangerous” plans to cut spending on disability benefits.
Last week, Disability News Service reported how disabled activists had been left shocked after Sir Stephen Timms, the social security and disability minister, was accused of walking past and ignoring a disabled woman who had collapsed on the floor at the end of a small consultation meeting with a charity.
Meanwhile, a group of disabled actors and artists who will be directly affected by the cuts will be leading a protest outside Tate Modern art gallery in London on Tuesday (10 June) at 2pm.
The protest will include a “die-in” – with activists invited to lie on the ground in a symbolic gesture “to remember all those who have died because of cuts and all those who might die if more cuts go ahead” – followed by a minute’s silence.
A disabled actor will then read out statements submitted by disabled people from across the UK, highlighting the consequences of these policies, followed by contributions from other protesters who wish to speak.
A spokesperson for Fight4Life, the new campaign group organising the action, said: “We hate the fear and despair the announcement of these cuts has caused disabled people, their carers and loved ones by our so-called Labour government.
“If they go ahead, it will be at the cost of many lives. We are determined to fight back.
“So we’re asking disabled people and our allies to stand up against these cuts by lying down at a public ‘Die In’ to symbolise the lives that will be lost if the cuts go ahead.”
Fight4Life is encouraging supporters to attend the protest.
To contribute a statement or for details on how to take part, including organising your own #Fight4Life event or contributing from your home, visit the Fight4Life website.
5 June 2025
Beresford’s book shows how disability movement can be part of ‘antidote’ to neoliberalism
A new book by a leading disabled academic-activist explores how people-powered movements – including the disability movement – can end the dominance of the “man-made disaster” that is neoliberalism.
Professor Peter Beresford has been at the heart of the movement and wider battles for rights for more than 30 years, and his new book – The Antidote – charts how people-powered movements could offer an “effective route” to ending the global dominance of an ideology that has championed deregulation and the slashing of state support.
His book, published last week, explains how these movements can provide an antidote to the “global catastrophe” that is neoliberalism, which has brought staggering profits for a tiny minority, and, for others, “insecurity, threat and disaster”, including isolation, inequality, poverty, disease and environmental crisis.
The Antidote makes a case for a new politics based on principles such as inclusion, support for user-led organisations, sustainability, empowerment and valuing lived experience.
And it includes an examination of how the national disabled people’s organisation he co-chairs, Shaping Our Lives, found ways to address the barriers to communication that can prevent disempowered groups from challenging neoliberalism.
It also hears from Dr Sally Witcher, former chief executive of Inclusion Scotland and founder of the social enterprise Inclusive New Normal, about how she witnessed a new grassroots community-led movement spring up among those who are clinically at very high risk from COVID-19, or who have long Covid.
Beresford told Disability News Service: “As the book highlights, disabled people long facing many routine exclusions themselves have organised to lead the struggle for physical, cultural, communication and digital access and equality which has benefited many other groups.
“They saw large-scale reforms they’d been told weren’t possible, for example, for home and distanced working, implemented wholesale post-Covid.
“Yet they’ve also increasingly been cast in the role of benefit cheats by neoliberal politics and ideology in its efforts to cut public services and divide and rule.
“There’s a powerful message here to highlight minorities within minorities and build equal alliances, seeing disabled women lacking access to anti-domestic violence provision and disabled gypsies, Roma and travellers (GRT) facing additional barriers because of their community’s longstanding fears of officialdom.”
The book builds a case for the disabled people’s movement to work with other oppressed groups by gaining an understanding of the links between their “different experience and identities rather than just emphasising the differences”.
Beresford says the “breakthrough issue” is to “recognise our common oppression and develop lines of action that build on this”.
He says in the book: “The lone teenage mother and refugee, the homeless person oppressed by the welfare benefits system and the trans person struggling to get through the bureaucratised gender reassignment process may not only be one and the same person, but they’re also people with a crucial thing in common – and that’s the discrimination they face under neoliberalism.”
He says that movements that unite with each other in a “genuine and transparent” way “are likely to exert much more strength and solidarity than those that continue to plough a lone furrow”.
Among those praising his book, human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell says it “explains how personal politics and new social movements forge human connections that can be harnessed to transform society and shape a future beyond neoliberalism”.
The Antidote: How People-Powered Movements Can Renew Politics, Policy and Practice, by Peter Beresford, is published by Policy Press
5 June 2025
Rail travel has become less accessible since pandemic and cost-of-living crises, researchers are told
There are fewer staff at stations and ticket counters and increased ticket prices since the emergence of the Covid pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis, disabled rail passengers have told researchers for a government report.
Some of those interviewed for the research* said they believed rail travel had become less accessible, which left them feeling “less inclined” or less able to travel frequently.
There were also “frequent reports” of disabled passengers who met with “negative attitudes and inconsiderate behaviours” from both train staff and other passengers, the report found.
And disabled interviewees told researchers that staff who could support them “were not always easily identified” and were often “busy or preoccupied”.
Those using wheelchairs or mobility scooters reported a “carriage space lottery”, because of the limited availability of suitable spaces, and said they often found their reserved spaces already occupied by other wheelchair- and mobility scooter-users or blocked by prams and luggage.
This usually left them with no choice but to wait for the next train.
They also described feeling they could not trust staff to be “understanding and compassionate”, or even to turn up in time, to support them in boarding and leaving trains.
One wheelchair-user told researchers: “The amount [of people] that I see in the disabled forums who are [saying] there wasn’t anyone there, or they didn’t turn up, or saying [that] because I wasn’t 10 minutes early for my train, although they’re there with the ramp, they wouldn’t let me get on.
“I [personally] have had a woman with a pushchair tell me that she’s not moving [because] there’s nowhere else for her to go with the pushchair.
“I’ve had luggage there [in the wheelchair space] and there’s no one around.
“Both of those times I’ve asked the conductor to help me, and they’ve said no.”
Reports of the Passenger Assist scheme – which allows disabled passengers to book assistance in advance by telephone, email and online – were mixed.
Those who used it successfully said they valued it highly and saw it as a “crucial source of support”, with experiences “for the most part extremely positive”, but users “often felt that the service was under resourced, and most reported instances of service failure”.
One wheelchair-user with a visual impairment said: “Often, they say we’ve radioed ahead and they’re expecting you.
“But then no one comes with the ramp, and you get left on the train.”
The Department for Transport commissioned the research last year from agency Verian to examine how disabled people’s travel behaviour had changed post-2020 following the emergence of the pandemic and cost-of-living pressures.
Researchers carried out 60 online interviews with disabled rail users and non-users, and also carried out 10 accompanied journeys with disabled passengers.
*Disabled People’s Experiences of Rail: Qualitative Research Findings
5 June 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
More than 2,500 figures from the arts, including leaders at the National Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, have signed an open letter stating that the government’s proposed changes to the Access to Work scheme could “risk disabled people being excluded from the workforce entirely” and would have a “devastating impact” on disability employment rates in the cultural sector: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jun/04/labour-plans-risk-excluding-disabled-people-uk-arts-access-to-work
Nearly four in 10 disabled workers have experienced bullying, discrimination and harassment at work, polling has shown. The Trades Union Congress warned disabled people are facing “pervasive” mistreatment at work. This includes being the butt of offensive jokes or “banter” and being subjected to intrusive questioning about their disability: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/disabled-workers-face-pervasive-abuse-35325282
5 June 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
