Contents
Disabled people of colour speak of terror and safety fears after mass far-right protest. 1
‘DWP were pushing, pushing, pushing my wife to kill herself, but nothing has been done’ 4
Praise for ‘incredible’ new plan to replace ‘deeply-flawed’ PIP. 9
Government ditches much-criticised accessible transport adviser. 13
MPs’ report calling for ‘root and branch’ SEND transformation ‘should have been bolder’ 15
Opponents of assisted dying outnumber supporters as bill starts Lords journey. 17
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week. 20
Disabled people of colour speak of terror and safety fears after mass far-right protest
Disabled people of colour say last weekend’s “horrific” far-right protest in London has left them feeling terrified and unsafe.
Saturday’s protest was supposedly aimed at “free speech” but most of those who attended appeared to be there to complain about immigration, while the event was awash with racist conspiracy theories and anti-Muslim hate speech.
The event saw more than 110,000 nationalist protesters – mostly white – marching through the centre of the capital, and many of those who took part were white disabled people.
One disabled woman of colour, who was in central London on Saturday, told DNS that the protest had left her feeling scared and “terrorised” and concerned that it marked “a real turning point” in the threat caused by the far-right to people of colour.
She said: “This protest was about race, about immigration, Muslims, religion, culture, about making Britain white again, and starting a race war.”
The chief executive of a disabled people’s organisation, who lives in London, told Disability News Service (DNS) that seeing the images had left her the most scared she has been since she and her sisters were chased down a street by racist children 45 years ago.
Disabled writer, artist and filmmaker Dolly Sen, a Londoner living in Norwich, said that seeing pictures of the far-right protest in the capital was “terrifying”.
She told DNS: “I was not there, but I could feel the viciousness and hatred from here.
“I am brown, my mum is white, my dad Indian. I have experienced racial violence in the 70s and 80s and it feels like I have gone back in time, where my heart was always shaking, waiting for the next attack, hoping it would be only verbal and not physical.
“I feel like I am back to those times, as if time hasn’t moved on.
“I am hypervigilant most of the time, but I am also angry: will my life ever be where I am not fighting for the right to survival or the right to be?”
She added: “I feel the coldness of the world at the moment.
“I feel vulnerable and very lonely whenever I venture out of the door and if I wasn’t the age I am with my life and activist experience, it had the potential to push me into deep mental distress or suicide.
“What really makes my heart heavy is that some disabled people are racist, and are on the side that will inevitably come for them too.
“They don’t seem to see that oppression is intersectional.”
She remembers being shot at in the summer of 2005, outside a pub in Peckham in a homophobic hate crime, because she was holding a woman’s hand.
She said: “Then I was terrified and felt powerless and hid away.
“Now I am terrified, but I won’t hide anymore. I will stand up to it. I just hope people will stand with me.”
Rebecca*, who was in central London on Saturday, said she believed the protest could be “a real turning point and we might be in a new phase where we need to really stop, sit down and reconsider how we deal with this threat.”
She said it was obvious the far right was “very well organised and funded” to the point where they can “quickly and efficiently” organise more than 100,000 people to “descend on our homes” and “terrorise us and frighten us, throw slurs at us, physically attack us, and declare it a victory.
“They’re doing it through force and violence and that is obviously extremely worrying for every group that the far right has designs for.
“I was watching these people walking down the street on Saturday, and they’re holding their flags in the same way that you would hold a ceremonial rifle, with the butts in the palm of your hand, resting the barrel on your shoulder and wearing camouflage, and walking down the streets expecting everybody to part for them.
“It was like they were an army that was taking over for the day.”
Eleanor Lisney, a founding member of Sisters of Frida and of Disabled People Against Cuts, and another London resident, said: “As a disabled person of colour, I find what happened over the weekend scary.
“As an immigrant, and a person of colour, I am very aware of what we face as a community.
“I recently did a podcast with a Filipino friend, and we talked about the attacks on Filipino nurses who work in the NHS.
“As an East and South East Asian, we are still targeted. And as disabled people, we are seen as scroungers. This government’s rhetoric does not help.
“I am scared.”
Disabled people of colour who spoke to DNS this week have called for solidarity among all the communities who are facing rising waves of hate towards them, and say they are convinced it is time to speak out and fight back to counter the current waves of violence and hate-filled rhetoric.
Zeenat Jeewa, chief executive of Asian People’s Disability Alliance, said the weekend’s events had left her “really scared” and “not quite sure how this is going to turn out”.
She said she had found the protest “very unsettling” as someone who came to the UK 47 years ago as a four-year-old, and that she had not felt this scared since she was targeted by racist children 45 years ago when living in south London.
She said: “I think I was six, having to run down the street with my older sisters because there were some racist children calling us Pakis.
“And since then, I haven’t really had any kind of incident which has caused me to be that scared.”
She said those behind Saturday’s protest were trying to create division, to justify their “very aggressive, anti-everything” behaviours, which came from the “very ignorant perspective of people who don’t know the history, don’t know the imperialism, the colonialism”, while those in power were “preying on the ignorance to create the division and hatred”.
She said: “This is what makes me very angry. You are not born racist. You are taught to be racist, and you are groomed.”
She said the protest had left many of her organisation’s service-users thinking about the support they receive, because as disabled people “you are always having to justify any cost of support, it’s all measured by how much it costs the local authority.
“It’s intersectional because you’ve got the disability and then the [attacks around] immigration, so you’ve got the negativity on both sides.
“People were already struggling to try and justify their existence, and now it has just made that conversation more hostile.”
She said she believed the only way to fight back was for different oppressed groups to work together.
She said: “I think that collective voice is the only way to show those who are trying to create this division that it’s not going to work.”
Yewande Akintelu-Omoniyi, co-lead of the Alliance for Inclusive Education’s (ALLFIE) Our Voice project and founding member of ALLFIE’s Disabled Black Lives Matter campaign, said the weekend’s protest was “the direct consequence of successive governments failing to dismantle the structural and systemic oppressions that continue to fuel hate towards marginalised groups of people”.
She said that people labelled as immigrants and migrants, and Muslims, are blamed for the housing crisis and rising crime, while disabled children are blamed for local authorities’ budget crises.
Akintelu-Omoniyi, who lives in south London, said: “Until oppression and inequality are addressed at their roots, these demonstrations will continue to haunt this country.”
And she said activists will need – as they have before – “to build global networks of resistance that push back and defend hard-won rights”, but she warned that many social movements remain inaccessible to disabled people, which makes it harder to build solidarity.
The mass protest came just two days after Disability News Service (DNS) reported how campaign posts on social media by Inclusion London that called for government action on disability hate crime had led to a string of racist and disablist responses, some from disabled people.
Dr Clenton Farquharson, a consultant and board member of both Disability Rights UK and the Race Equality Foundation, said: “What we saw in London was horrific, and the abuse directed at Inclusion London’s hate crime campaign was a wake-up call.
“The future we want is clear: a society where disabled people in all our diversity can live free from hate, safe in our communities, and treated with dignity.
“The fear is this: hate doesn’t stop neatly at one identity; it spills into racism, disablism, Islamophobia, transphobia and more.
“And when some of that abuse comes from within our own movement, it risks dividing us and weakening the fight for justice. Silence only makes that fear grow.”
He said the solutions included calling out racism “inside as well as outside our movement”; demanding a national hate crime strategy that protects all disabled people; and “standing shoulder-to-shoulder with every community facing hate”.
He added: “Hope lies in being honest about what happened and building something stronger: a movement that knows staying silent is complicity, and that speaking out is how we protect each other.
“We either face this together, or we let division win. I believe together is the only way forward.”
*Not her real name
18 September 2025
‘DWP were pushing, pushing, pushing my wife to kill herself, but nothing has been done’
A grieving widower has accused the disability minister of trying to erase the role of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in his wife’s suicide.
An ombudsman concluded earlier this year that DWP failings were a “significant contributing factor” in her death.
Tracie, from south London, “spiralled into a deep depression” after DWP removed the daily living part of her personal independence payment (PIP) following a review of her eligibility in July 2019.
The Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman (PHSO) later concluded that DWP – which eventually admitted that its decision on her claim had been wrong – failed to consider the relevant evidence properly.
Now the minister for social security and disability, Sir Stephen Timms, has written to the family’s MP, Ellie Reeves – chair of the Labour party and sister of the chancellor, Rachel Reeves – who took up the case on behalf of Tracie’s widower.
But despite the ombudsman’s criticism, there is no apology in Sir Stephen’s letter, and he makes no mention of the finding that DWP’s failures were a significant factor in Tracie’s suicide in March 2020.
Instead, he expresses his “sincere condolences” and praises her widower’s “courage in continuing to raise these concerns, as well as for bringing his late wife’s case to my attention”.
Instead of discussing DWP’s role in her death, Sir Stephen mentions that the department’s own secret internal process review (IPR) highlighted “concerns about the quality of the Health Assessment provider”, Atos, which was then discussed at the department’s serious case panel.
But DWP is refusing to provide the family with a copy of the IPR, or to say if the department itself was criticised in the secret review.
It rarely even considers providing IPRs to the families of deceased claimants, because it says they are intended for DWP learning.
Mohammed*, who has fought for justice for his wife in the five years since her death, told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that he was furious that DWP had not discussed its own role in Tracie’s death in the letter.
He said: “The letter shows that nothing has changed.
“They killed my wife with their decision on her PIP, but they don’t mention any of the damage they have done.
“It is not right. It’s like nothing happened and they are just saying: ‘Oh, she died.’”
He believes criminal action should be taken against DWP civil servants responsible for his wife’s death.
He told DNS: “If I parked my car wrong, I would get a ticket, but they were pushing, pushing, pushing my wife to kill herself, and nothing has been done.”
DWP is carrying out a review of the PIP assessment process, led by Sir Stephen, which will report in autumn 2026.
But the department declined to say this week why Sir Stephen had not mentioned the strong criticism of DWP in the ombudsman’s report, or to say if the IPR included any criticisms of the department.
But a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “Our thoughts and condolences remain with Tracie’s loved ones.
“Protecting the millions of people we support every year is a priority, which is why we are creating a new safeguarding approach – based on the consultation held earlier this year – that will improve the experiences and lives of those who rely on our services.
“We are yet to receive any DWP-specific recommendations from the ombudsman on this tragic case.
“If we do receive any, we will consider them in full.”
The ombudsman has previously told DNS that it is now looking at whether DWP needs to make “wider changes to its service and the way it considers benefit claims”, as part of a broader piece of work which includes an investigation into Tracie’s suicide and the death of another disabled claimant.
Ellie Reeves declined to comment on the IPR, or on whether she was concerned that there was no mention by Sir Stephen in his letter of the ombudsman’s criticism of DWP.
But she said in a statement: “My casework team and I have been supporting [Mohammed] since 2020, including referring his case to the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.
“I was pleased to meet him and his son at a recent constituency surgery, where we discussed the findings of the ombudsman’s report, and I subsequently wrote to Sir Stephen Timms on his behalf.
“As I understand it, the PHSO has contacted [Mohammed] directly regarding compensation, and I would encourage him to seek further specialist advice.”
At last year’s Labour conference, Sir Stephen pledged to “open up what is going on in the Department for Work and Pensions to public scrutiny” and told DNS that “public scrutiny is a good thing, and it puts pressure on ministers and on civil servants to have the consequences of what they are doing known about publicly”.
*Not his real name
** 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 issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
18 September 2025
Government report casts doubt on political rhetoric over ‘spiralling’ inactivity among disabled people
The proportion of working-age disabled people in England who are “economically inactive” is not “spiralling” and may even have fallen over the last nine years, new official government statistics suggest.
Although it is impossible to draw firm conclusions from the figures, because of other factors that affect inactivity statistics, they still provide a stark contrast to years of rhetoric from the right-wing media, and politicians, who have repeatedly insisted that the rising number of disabled people who are not in work is wrecking the economy.
Liz Kendall, at the time Labour’s work and pensions secretary, but sacked earlier this month, said last September: “Spiralling inactivity* is the greatest employment challenge for a generation, with a near record 2.8 million people out of work due to long-term sickness.”
Her subsequent Get Britain Working white paper stated: “Reversing the increase in economic inactivity caused by ill health is a national priority.”
Last year, the Conservative party used misleading figures about disabled people found not fit for work to claim in its general election manifesto (PDF) that there had been an “unsustainable rise in benefit claims” by working-age disabled people.
And last week, Reform UK’s Nigel Farage told his party conference that it was “morally wrong” and “outrageous” that so many people were claiming out-of-work disability benefits, and that it was not “good for the economy”.
But the new government figures show instead that economic inactivity among working-age disabled people in England has – apart from two of the pandemic years – been falling since 2015.
In April 2015, 45.9 per cent of disabled people were economically inactive, falling to 44.5 per cent in 2016, and to 41.0 per cent by 2019, then 41.5 per cent in 2020, 40.0 per cent in 2021, 41.4 per cent in 2022, 40.5 per cent in 2023, and another drop to 39.9 per cent last year.
Nearly three-fifths of disabled people who were economically inactive in 2023-24 said the main reason was long-term sickness, while nearly all of those who said they were inactive because of long-term sickness as their main reason (96.4 per cent) said they were disabled.
A complicating factor is that some of the falls in inactivity may be due to an increasing proportion of working-age people identifying as disabled, but the figures still provide a striking contrast to years of disablist rhetoric that has attacked disabled people on out-of-work benefits and accused them of “welfare dependency”.
And with a government white paper expected this autumn, the new government figures could still provide useful ammunition for disabled activists fighting back against any further government measures aimed at forcing more disabled people who cannot work off out-of-work disability benefits.
The figures were published two weeks ago by the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (OHID) – part of the Department of Health and Social Care – and are based on OHID data and figures from the Office for National Statistics.
But the data has so far received no media attention.
Dr Rosa Morris, a project worker on the independent Commission on Social Security, which this week launched a proposal for a replacement for personal independence payment (see separate story), was critical of governments’ repeated refusal to accept statistics that contradict their arguments.
Dr Morris, speaking in a personal capacity, said: “What does seem clear is that the government will always try to ignore stats which contradict the arguments they want to make and that, since the mid-90s, all governments keep arguing that the numbers claiming out of work sickness/disability benefits are out of control and then they try to tighten the eligibility.”
But she said the official figures were instead “reasonably consistent with just some relatively small increases and decreases over that time”.
Dr Morris, who also has personal experience of the work capability assessment and has completed a PhD examining the assessment process and disability benefits, added: “If only they’d accept that there will always be some people who cannot work and that maybe they’d get more success in reducing claimant numbers if they focused on addressing workplace, transport, and access to health care barriers, rather than keeping trying to make assessments harsher.”
Professor Ben Baumberg Geiger, co-lead on the work, welfare reform and mental health programme for the ESRC** Centre for Society and Mental Health at King’s College London, published a blog this week which showed that DWP’s “raw statistics” on all out-of-work benefits – not just relating to disabled people – were “wildly misleading”.
He wrote: “They’re just not counting things in the same way over time, so you can’t tell how much of the trend comes from real changes, and how much comes from changes in how things are counted.”
His work suggests that the current level of out-of-work claims “is NOT any kind of record; it’s similar to 2014/15 levels, and noticeably lower than 2013”.
Asked to comment on the new government figures, DWP refused to engage with the OHID report, and instead provided a series of different statistics, including its own statistics on economic inactivity.
The department also refused to say if ministers now accepted that the proportion of working-age disabled people in England who are “economically inactive” was not “spiralling” after all.
Instead, it released the following statement: “There are 4.1 million economically inactive disabled people in the UK – a rise of 700,000 since 2017-18.
“We’re fixing the broken welfare system we inherited by supporting people into good, secure jobs and growing the economy as part of our Plan for Change, backed by a record £3.8 billion of employment support.”
*Economically inactive people are those aged 16 to 64 without a job who have not looked for work in the last month or are not available to start a job in the next fortnight. This can be because they are long-term sick or disabled, carers, students, or have taken early retirement
**The Economic and Social Research Council
18 September 2025
Praise for ‘incredible’ new plan to replace ‘deeply-flawed’ PIP
An “exciting” and “incredible” new proposal to scrap the “deeply-flawed” personal independence payment (PIP) and replace it with a new supportive system that meets all of a person’s extra disability-related costs has been welcomed by MPs, disabled people and unions.
The additional costs disability payment (ACDP), developed by those with lived experience of the social security system, would aim to cover disabled people’s “real” additional costs of disability rather than just contributing to them, as PIP does.
The ACDP proposal comes from the independent Commission on Social Security (CSS), which three years ago called for a “transformational” reboot of the social security system to replace the current “inadequate, demeaning, inefficient” structure that “deliberately scapegoats” unemployed and disabled people.
The commission said in 2022 that there was a need for a more effective benefit to replace PIP, which would recognise the additional costs disabled people face.
In January, three years on, the commission put out a draft policy proposal for this PIP replacement for consultation, and more than 5,000 people – 90 per cent of them disabled – responded.
Their response was “overwhelmingly positive”.
On Monday, the commission launched its final proposal for the new ACDP at the House of Commons.
The disabled people who worked on the proposal believe it offers a “constructive, workable alternative” to PIP, which the commission says is “plagued by inaccurate decisions and a culture of mistrust” and “actively undermines” disabled people’s participation in society.
ACDP eligibility would not be tied to a medical diagnosis, and the system would not be points-based, as the PIP assessment system is.
Instead, decisions would be made alongside disabled claimants instead of being imposed upon them, and it would be based on the impact of their health condition or impairment on the extra costs they faced, while all age groups would be able to apply.
A launch meeting in parliament heard that the project to find a replacement for PIP – funded by Trust for London – was “a collaborative piece of work at every stage”.
Every one of the CSS commissioners has been or is on benefits, and most of those involved with the new proposal are disabled people.
The launch meeting heard that ACDP would be set up within a new Department of Social Security, while claimants would be able to provide whatever evidence they chose to support their claim.
An independent national advocacy service, mostly run by disabled people’s organisations, would offer support with claims, and there would be an independent complaints process.
There would also be a national body to research the additional costs of disability, an independent organisation to monitor safety and harm in the social security system, and a co-produced standards charter.
If the department wanted to reject a claim, it would have to set out the reasons “quite clearly”, the launch event heard, and there would be “no more cutting people off and forcing them through long, harmful appeal processes”, although claimants could still appeal a decision to a tribunal.
Ellen Morrison-Smith, one of two ACDP project workers, alongside Dr Rosa Morris, said the commission was not “tinkering with some changes” to PIP, but suggesting an “entirely new approach” which had been “years in the making”.
Although the scheme has not been costed, it will inevitably be more expensive than PIP, but Morrison told the launch meeting: “It’s our view that wealth is available, it just needs to be distributed better.”
Mikey Erhardt, policy lead for Disability Rights UK, said the proposal was “an incredible bit of work” and looks “significantly better than anything I have ever seen the government propose on this” and was “one of the most exciting things I have seen in this space”.
He said he hoped it could bring the disability movement together “around something that is positive and exciting and important”.
Martin Cavanagh, president of the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), which represents thousands of DWP frontline workers, said: “This isn’t just about the DWP being a failed organization.
“This is about successive governments deliberately underfunding a government department to make the benefit system as hostile as it possibly can be, and to reduce the benefit bill.
“That has to be the start of our narrative; it has to be the start of our understanding about why we need to fix the benefit system.”
There was a strong turnout of MPs, with the event hosted by suspended Labour MP John McDonnell, and attended by disabled MP Steve Darling, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson; benefit cuts rebel Neil Duncan-Jordan, and Labour’s Euan Stainbank and Steve Witherden; while disabled Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft, a former shadow disability minister and government whip, and Labour MP Richard Burgon, both sent their apologies.
McDonnell said the proposal was an “excellent piece of work” and that it was now a good time to try to influence the government by using the report “at every opportunity” in parliament, and to have a “dialogue” with MPs about it, as there was now much more of a “willingness and desire” to look at alternatives to the government’s previous plans for PIP cuts.
He said: “The prime minister said there would be a reset, and we have to take him at face value and say maybe in the last year some lessons have been learned. I certainly hope so.”
Duncan-Jordan, currently suspended by Labour after he rebelled over proposed cuts to disability benefits this summer, told the meeting that the ACDP proposal “gives us a way forward” and “takes us a step closer” towards “redesigning the benefits system to make it truly supportive” where “no-one falls through any of the gaps”.
He said he believed the Timms Review of PIP had “massive limitations” and that it was rumoured that DWP ministers would be “coming back for more” when it comes to cuts “for the things they were not able to get through the first time”.
Darling said that, since he was elected as an MP for the first time last year, he has become more aware and more worried about the harm caused by DWP, and he had concluded that the department was “clearly not fit for purpose” and that the benefits system needed a more person-centred approach.
He said he was looking forward to discussing the report with fellow Liberal Democrat MPs.
La Toyah Grant, a Deaf activist and member of the commission’s steering group, said the five principles behind ACDP were that “everyone has enough money to live on”; that people should be treated with dignity and respect; that the service should have “rights and entitlements”; that ACDP should be user-friendly and accessible; and that there must be free advice and support for claimants.
Osmond James, another member of the commission’s steering group, spoke of his own distressing experience with his PIP application, which left him in a mental health crisis and admitted to an intensive care unit in 2023.
He told the event: “When I came out, I received a letter saying I had been awarded PIP, this time without an assessment.
“It felt like to be seen as deserving of getting PIP, I had to be at such a crisis point and in such distress and lost in the maze.
“Although I felt an initial sense of relief at getting PIP, fear and insecurity soon returned as you remain worried that you will have to go through the whole process all over again, and that even if nothing has changed, or even if things have got worse, you could lose your PIP.
“Our proposals attempt to give people choice and autonomy in the process, and the process from beginning to end aims to treat people with kindness and dignity.
“What’s especially important is the security our proposals offer, so people like me don’t have to live with the fear that is always in the background about what’s around the corner.”
Dorothy Gould, founder of the user-led, rights-based organisation Liberation, which is run by people with mental health diagnoses, and a member of the working group that developed the ACDP proposal, said the current PIP assessment system does not address the “sheer impact that mental distress has on people’s lives nor the huge amount of additional distress the system causes those of us who go through it”.
Rick Burgess, another member of the ACDP working group and co-chair of DPO Forum England, said ACDP would be a system “that people can begin to trust and not be afraid of” and would understand “how disabled people live their lives”.
It would, he said, rebalance power “back towards the citizen and away from an overwhelming state department”.
He said it had been designed by disabled people who have had to “deal with a very abusive system, a very harmful system”.
He said: “What we need to move from is a punitive, policing system to a supporting system that wants to and does invest in people’s wellbeing because, long term, that will actually be a greater boon to society, to the wider economy, and to our overall societal wellbeing.”
Andy Mitchell, a member of the union Unite and also a member of the ACDP working group, said: “Designing policies with disabled people from the very start is crucial.
“That’s why this proposal offers some hope.
“We’ve got some answers about what could make things better, but now it’s up to the government and the MPs who represent us to make sure we’re allowed to be part of taking them forward.”
18 September 2025
Government ditches much-criticised accessible transport adviser
The chair of the committee that advises the government on accessible transport has been told he will be replaced when his term is completed, after just three years in post.
A low-key recruitment campaign to replace Matthew Campbell-Hill as the new chair of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC) began last month but has received little publicity.
The deadline for applicants to replace him as DPTAC chair is now just four days away, on Monday (22 September).
Campbell-Hill’s appointment had initially been welcomed by accessible transport campaigners, with the hope that it could lead to a new era of transparency at DPTAC.
But in an interview with Disability News Service (DNS) in March 2023, shortly after his appointment, he questioned whether it was right to release research that exposed the discrimination faced by disabled passengers.
There were also concerns when he admitted making most of his journeys by car, rather than by public transport.
Campbell-Hill, a technology and media consultant and retired international wheelchair fencer, was later criticised for saying little publicly about accessible transport in the months after his appointment.
This was particularly noted during the high-profile campaign against plans to close nearly 1,000 ticket offices across England, which led to months of anger and activism from disabled people before the Conservative government eventually reversed its support for the closures.
There was also frustration at DPTAC’s decision to produce only a 543-word response to a call for evidence from the Commons transport committee on the last government’s draft rail reform bill.
Campbell-Hill argued at the time that DPTAC’s advisory role “often involves confidential discussions with the department, allowing us to provide candid advice that supports effective decision-making”, that this confidentiality was “essential to our work but can sometimes result in fewer public communications” and that DPTAC had taken “significant steps to increase transparency”.
Now the government has decided to hold an open recruitment process to find his successor, with his term due to run out early next year.
He had been appointed for an initial period of three years, with the possibility of extending that term.
The Department for Transport (DfT) said this week that, after his appointment was reviewed, ministers decided to open the role to competition.
Although DfT said there were no barriers to Campbell-Hill reapplying for the post, DNS has been told he informed fellow committee members earlier this year that he was being replaced.
DfT declined to comment on whether Campbell-Hill had been told he was being replaced and would not be reappointed.
Tony Jennings, co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding, said he had seen the post advertised last month but he agreed it had not been widely publicised.
And he said that DPTAC “should have been more vocal representing disabled people during the train station ticket office closure plans”.
Doug Paulley, another accessible transport campaigner, said he was glad that DfT was replacing Campbell-Hill.
He said he hoped the next chair would be someone with “significant experience of using public transport as a wheelchair-user and who believes in empowerment and transparency”.
He said: “I would love it if a feisty, knowledgeable disabled woman was appointed.
“The role of chair of DPTAC isn’t to be an establishment yes-person on a career ladder, but to provide honest and direct feedback to the government on the lived experience of disabled people and the impact of current and future policy.”
He said Campbell-Hill “just didn’t get that”.
He added: “I want some of the excellent disabled people on DPTAC who do have actual experience of travelling on public transport, who have their ear on the ground to other disabled people’s experiences, and who are actually useful, to have more of a voice.
“I hope the new chair does that, is more transparent, and works in partnership with other disabled people.”
A DfT spokesperson said: “The role of the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee’s chair is vital for delivering joined up transport policy that works for disabled people.
“As the current chair’s term is set to expire in January 2026, we have started the process to appoint a successor, and are working with a top recruitment company to ensure we attract strong candidates.”
DfT said its efforts included advertising on the social media website LinkedIn and the public appointments website.
The successful candidate will be paid £450 a day for eight days’ work a month.
Campbell-Hill continues to hold two other DfT positions, as a non-executive director with the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency, and as a member of the expert advisory panel for the Centre for Connected and Autonomous Vehicles.
18 September 2025
MPs’ report calling for ‘root and branch’ SEND transformation ‘should have been bolder’
A cross-party report by MPs has called for “root and branch transformation” of how disabled children and young people are treated within mainstream schools and colleges, but inclusive education campaigners say its conclusions should have been even bolder.
The Commons education committee said special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) support must become an “intrinsic” part of the mainstream education system, rather than just an “addition”.
And it called on the government to publish a clear definition of “inclusive education”, which would include examples of good practice.
The committee called on the Department for Education (DfE) to work “urgently” with the Treasury and the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government to secure the funding needed to “realise the vision of an inclusive mainstream education system”.
But the Alliance for Inclusive Education (ALLFIE) said this morning (Thursday): “While ALLFIE recognises that some of our concerns have been reflected in the committee’s findings, we remain disappointed that the recommendations do not go far enough to phase out segregated provisions.
“Nor do they adequately hold the government accountable or improve enforcement mechanisms to move towards inclusive education as a universal right.”
The committee’s report, Solving the SEND Crisis, says that disabled children “are not consistently receiving the high-quality support to which they are entitled” and that the current system “is not designed with inclusion in mind”.
In its 176-page report, the committee calls for inclusivity to be embedded in all education settings, from early years to post-16.
It says: “Delivering an inclusive mainstream education system is essential both for the quality of provision for individual children and the long-term financial sustainability of the system.”
The committee called on the government to develop national standards for the support that disabled children can expect in school, so it can establish “clear, enforceable expectations”.
The committee said today (Thursday) that making the whole school responsible for SEND would create a “cultural shift” that would “calm the rising need for complex, costly education health and care (EHC) plans in the long-term” and help put finances on a “sustainable footing”.
The report says: “We have seen evidence that the delivery of genuinely inclusive education with well resourced, thoughtfully designed whole-school approaches to SEN support and ordinarily available provision significantly reduces the need for EHC plans.”
The report also calls for more state-run special schools, so more disabled children can be educated closer to their homes and local councils can cut spending on expensive independent school places.
Since the 2014 Children and Families Act, the number of children and young people identified with SEND has risen from 1.3 million to 1.7 million.
Last year, more than 1.2 million children and young people were receiving SEN support at school, and nearly half a million had an EHC plan, with the committee describing rising demand as “unsustainable”.
Helen Hayes, the committee’s Labour chair, said: “Our report presents a vision for how the government can realise its laudable aim of making mainstream education inclusive to the vast majority of children and young people with SEND, who are present in every classroom.
“Making sure every child in the country with SEND can attend a local school that meets their needs will require a root and branch transformation.”
But Dr Edmore Masendeke, ALLFIE’s policy and research lead, said the committee had “missed a crucial opportunity to propose the bold, systemic changes needed to realise the rights and justice for all pupils”.
Among ALLFIE’s concerns is that budgets would retain “a bias towards segregated schools and segregated settings within mainstream schools, rather than promoting inclusive education for all”, if the recommendations were accepted.
ALLFIE backed the call for a single government definition of inclusive education, but it said the committee should have “explicitly stated that this definition must be based on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities rather than a new or modified version created by the government”.
Dr Masendeke said ALLFIE agreed that there must be increased investment in inclusive education within mainstream schools, but “strongly disagreed” with the committee’s call for an expansion of SEN units and “resource provisions” within mainstream schools, which it said should help reduce spending on EHC plans.
He said: “Our position is that schools must be properly resourced, accessible, and held to account for delivering inclusive education.
“ALLFIE opposes the expansion of SEN units and resource provisions as a means to achieve inclusion in schools.
“We want to see provisions that support disabled children and young people to be in mainstream classrooms, not placed in separate settings within mainstream schools.
“These segregated provisions must be phased out, not expanded.”
Amerdeep Somal, the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, welcomed the report and its recommendation to extend her powers so she can investigate complaints about the delivery of SEN support in schools, which she said was “something we have championed for many years”.
Responding to the report, education secretary Bridget Phillipson said: “This report highlights the deep-rooted issues which have plagued the SEND system for too long.
“I am continuing to listen closely to families, teachers and experts, as we put together plans to transform outcomes for every child with SEND, building on the work we have already started.
“The report rightly highlights the need for actions we’re already taking, to make sure that evidence-based support is available as routine, without a fight, for every child who needs it – from significant investment in places for children with SEND, to improved teacher training, to our Best Start Family Hubs in every local area.”
DfE said it would set out its plans for the SEND system in further detail in a schools white paper later this year.
It said measures it had taken already included the launch of a curriculum and assessment review; setting up an expert advisory group on inclusion; improving SEND training; and spending £1 billion more on SEND this year and £740 million to deliver more specialist places, with local authorities encouraged to create more of these places in mainstream schools.
18 September 2025
Opponents of assisted dying outnumber supporters as bill starts Lords journey
Peers opposed to the assisted dying bill strongly outnumbered those who were in favour, during the first of two days of debate that will be spread over consecutive Fridays.
Of about 90 peers who spoke last Friday (12 September), nearly two-thirds were opposed to the bill being passed in its current form, with most of them opposed to the principle of legalisation.
Conservative peers were the most likely of those representing UK-wide parties to express opposition to the bill – which is strongly opposed by the disabled people’s movement – with 29 of 37 who spoke in the debate opposing the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill*.
Labour peers were more evenly split, with nine in favour of the bill and seven against, while crossbenchers were also evenly split, with 11 expressing opposition and 10 suggesting they were in favour of the bill as it stands, which would apply to England and Wales.
Of Liberal Democrats, four supported the bill, and one peer said they were opposed.
Many more peers will contribute to the debate tomorrow (Friday), before voting on whether to grant the bill a second reading, which would allow it to be scrutinised clause-by-clause in the Lords.
On the day of the debate, the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released the advice it has sent peers.
It warned that a private members’ bill was “an unsuitable vehicle for such significant legislation, because it is not subject to the same pre-legislative scrutiny that a government-sponsored draft bill would have undergone, with expert evidence considered earlier in the process”.
It also called on the government to provide more detailed information on the potential impacts of the bill on those with characteristics protected under the Equality Act, “particularly age, pregnancy and maternity, religion or belief, race and disability”.
And it called on peers to work on “a clear and unambiguous definition of terminal illness” in the bill.
EHRC also warned that because of “continued constraints” on its resources, it might be limited in its ability to scrutinise vital regulations, if the bill became law.
Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson was one of the few disabled peers to speak in Friday’s debate.
The crossbench peer raised concerns about the drugs that would be used if assisted dying was legalised.
She said: “Over 27 years, half the patients in Oregon [where assisted suicide has been legalised] took between 53 minutes and 137 hours to die.
“If the bill is to bring compassion and calm at the end of life, how can this be ensured when we do not know what lethal drugs will be given?”
She also said the failure to include a requirement for a coroner’s report “could lead to a lack of proper oversight” over such deaths.
Two peers who have been diagnosed with cancer spoke of their concerns about the bill.
The Conservative peer Baroness Prentis, who has been diagnosed with aggressive cancer and is about to start treatment, said: “My prognosis is excellent. I have every advantage.
“I have a strong faith, a loving family, an interesting workplace, good colleagues, a supportive community, enough money, underlying good health – and indeed excellent treatment, I should say.
“But there have been some very low moments in the past few weeks, when I have realised the burden I am to my family, who are currently arguing about who should take next week off to look after me.
“I also have concerns about watching them watch me suffer, as well of course as my own fear, frankly, of pain and loss of control.
“I watched that final debate in the Commons, and what struck me was that woman after woman and ethnic minority after ethnic minority, and disabled people, stood up and said, ‘This bill is not good enough for my vulnerable community.’”
She asked her fellow peers not to write her supportive letters and messages but instead to “think hard about me, with all my advantages, feeling like a burden – just briefly, not all the time.
“Do not worry; I will be back this time next year, bouncing around.
“But I ask noble Lords, instead of messaging me, to think about the vulnerable and how easy it is for them to feel that their lives are not worth living.”
Another who spoke of her cancer treatment was EHRC chair Baroness Falkner, a crossbench peer, who stressed she was speaking in a personal capacity.
She is receiving treatment for advanced stage three ovarian cancer, and she told fellow peers that she had “glimpsed the Grim Reaper through my hospital window, in a morphine-induced haze”.
She said she would have expected the government to have taken over the bill – which was introduced in the Commons as a private members’ bill by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater – and ensured it received pre-legislative scrutiny through a joint committee.
She also criticised the definitions in the bill.
She said: “How do we define ‘terminal illness’, measure the six months to live or calculate monetary equations that measure our lifespans more poorly than they do bats in HS2 railway tunnels, as in this impact assessment?
“What do we make of the impact of these measures, the lack of compassion for those genuinely concerned about the impact on disabled people or the questions of mental capacity, or for religious individuals and, of course, the elderly, who feel unwanted enough as it is?”
She added: “There is much to discuss in the scrutiny of this flawed bill – and I say that as someone who previously supported assisted dying.
“I wish we did not have to deal with this flawed bill, but we will do so in good faith.”
Labour peer Lord Falconer, who is a long-term supporter of legalisation and is sponsoring the bill in the Lords, told fellow peers: “The current law is confused, causes terrible suffering, and lacks compassion and safeguards.
“The government’s own estimate is that, if the law was changed to introduce assisted dying, less than one per cent of deaths would be assisted after 10 years.
“However, it is right that we allow assisted dying as an option for those who, despite the best palliative care, still want an assisted death.”
He said that safeguards were “layered throughout the process” that would be introduced under the bill.
But Conservative former prime minister Baroness [Theresa] May, who herself has a long-term health condition, said she did not believe the bill’s safeguards would prevent people “being pressurised to end their lives, sometimes for the benefit of others”.
She added: “I worry that, as we have seen in countries where there is such a law, people will feel that they must end their lives simply because they feel that they are a burden on others.
“I worry about the impact that it will have on people with disabilities, with chronic illness and with mental health problems, because there is a risk that legalising assisted dying reinforces the dangerous notion that some lives are less worth living than others.”
*These figures were calculated by Disability News Service and so are unofficial estimates
18 September 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
The “offensive” language used in disabled children’s social care law needs to be changed, a report has urged, while the level of support for disabled children has become a postcode lottery. The Law Commission set out dozens of points for the government to consider in a review aimed at modernising and simplifying the law on disabled children’s social care in England: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/disabled-children-law-government-care-wording-b2827104.html
Parents fearful about the government’s plans to overhaul special educational needs in England took their fight to parliament on Monday. Up to 700 parents took part in the Westminster day of protest, which was triggered by growing concern that Labour’s changes will restrict or abolish education, health and care plans: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/sep/15/parents-protest-england-send-reform-education
The Scottish government has no plan to fill a £770 million funding gap in disability benefits, according to a report from Audit Scotland. The funding gap for devolved social security spending is predicted to reach £2 billion by 2029-30. About £770 million of that gap is from the adult disability payment, which replaces personal independence payment in Scotland: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd63g2xxep5o
A victim of one of the longest miscarriages of justice is set to sue the police for “bullying” him into falsely confessing to murder. Appeal court judges ruled last year that the 1991 murder conviction of Oliver Campbell, who has learning difficulties, was unsafe. The 55-year-old had been jailed for life for the fatal shooting of a shopkeeper during a botched robbery in Hackney, east London. He spent 11 years in prison and a further two decades on licence but has had no compensation: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/vulnerable-man-wrongly-convicted-murder-35897962
18 September 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
