Contents
Protection failure in DWP’s fraud and error bill ‘risks further tragic deaths’, MPs warn. 6
New investigation on NEETs will only target young disabled people, DWP document shows. 9
Government must drop ‘economic burden’ narrative and sanctions, MPs are told. 12
Minister refuses once again to reveal truth about cuts to Access to Work. 14
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week. 16
Health and care funding crisis will create pressure to choose assisted suicide, MPs and peers are told
Many terminally-ill people would feel “duress” and “pressure” to choose an assisted suicide if it is legalised, because of the lack of funding for the NHS, palliative care and social care services, a disabled activist has told MPs and peers.
Liz Carr was giving evidence to the joint committee on human rights yesterday (Wednesday) just two days before the House of Lords begins the latest parliamentary stage in examining the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill.
The bill, which applies to England and Wales, has not been introduced by the government – although it is believed to be heavily-supported by the prime minister – but has instead been sponsored as a private members’ bill by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and Labour peer Lord Falconer.
Carr, a disabled actor, writer and activist, told the committee that some terminally-ill people, faced with a lack of support, would feel they had no alternative but to choose an assisted suicide, if it was legalised.
She said they would feel “duress” and “pressure” because they were not able to secure the support package they needed, and because they felt they were a “burden on their loved ones”.
She told the committee there should be more focus on “providing support and a good death for people at the end of their lives rather than focusing on this one option for a small group of people, when there’s a much bigger group of people who are suffering at the end of life now.
“They’re dying in corridors, they’re dying because they don’t get the drugs because NICE is not approving them, they are dying because there is not the right support and funding into palliative care.
“That is suffering.”
Carr, who opposes legalisation, said the need for the evidence session was “testimony to the absence of the disability voice in the progress of the bill so far”.
She said that disabled people and disabled people’s organisations had “struggled to get heard” during the bill’s passage through the House of Commons.
She also told the committee that most disabled people had experienced “devaluation at the hands of the health professionals, and that is terrifying.
“The one safeguard that there currently is that I feel safe with… is that assisted suicide remains a criminal act.
“Once it becomes a medical treatment, then that’s when it terrifies me, because it happens behind closed doors and is based on medical subjectivity.
“And those doctors and whoever are making those decisions have the same biases and the same prejudices and pressures every single day that view disabled people often as better off dead and their lives as having less value.”
Jean Eveleigh, a patron of the pro-legalisation campaign group My Death, My Decision, who has a long-term health condition, said it was parliament’s job to provide the necessary funding to deal with the “very real pressures and very real problems” with the NHS and advocacy programmes, rather than using them as reasons not to introduce the legislation.
She told the committee: “And you not doing anything about it is your fault, not ours.”
Eveleigh said there were some people for whom “no matter how great palliative care is, no matter how loving their family is, no matter how much medication they’re given, they just cannot have what they would decide is a good death and they should be given the choice to decide how they want to die”.
Eveleigh said there were currently no safeguards to protect terminally-ill people who are considering taking their own lives, and no figures on how many of them are being coerced to take their own lives or refuse treatment.
She said: “This law is actually going to be improving things from the zero state we have now.
“Whether it’s a bad law or not is for other people to decide, but having nothing is causing problems.”
She said that data should be collected after assisted dying was legalised to see how the law was being implemented by doctors.
She said: “You’ve got the data, you can then see where the flaws of it are, you can then make improvements.”
The crossbench peer Baroness Hollins, a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who opposes legalisation, spoke about her husband, who died from motor neurone disease earlier this year.
She said he had still been waiting for a wheelchair when he died, because of an NHS waiting list.
She said: “You can imagine that you are there needing something and not getting it, and that is not going to help your mental state, it’s not going to help you to manage your everyday life.”
She said the much higher rate of suicide for disabled people compared with non-disabled people made her worry that some disabled people might choose an assisted death rather than wait for the care and support they needed.
She also spoke to the committee about her daughter, who was treated 20 years ago for a high-level spinal injury, and who is now “scared of what this bill could bring”.
When her daughter was injured, a neurosurgeon “did not want her to be resuscitated because he said the quality of her life would be so poor”.
Baroness Hollins told the committee: “Her life would not be worth living, he said, and he did not want to admit her.
“It’s only because I was there as an advocate, essentially, it’s only because I actually understood what he was talking about, that I said, please, please admit her, and 20 years on she’s got three children and she’s living a wonderful life.
“Yes, her life is different. But do you know what? She’s scared of this bill.”
Dr Henry Marsh, a neurosurgeon and supporter of legalisation, who was diagnosed four years ago with advanced prostate cancer, told the committee: “I see assisted dying as a form of treatment, a treatment for suffering, and it should be subject to the same analysis of cost and benefit on the basis of evidence as you do with any other treatment.”
He confirmed that he believed that if there were some cases of coercion, the greater public good would still be served by legalising assisted suicide.
He said: “In principle, yes. I know I made a very crass comment about sacrificing grannies*. I greatly regret it. I wish I hadn’t said it. It was very stupid of me.
“I didn’t realize it was going to get into the public domain, but the principle is there is always a cost.”
He said the “reality of normal medical practice” was that there was always a risk that a medical procedure “could make things worse”, but that risk was justified because “more people benefit”, even if “it sounds rather inhumane and utilitarian”.
He said later: “There are always risks. Nothing is perfect.
“A lot of people are suffering bad deaths in this country, I’m afraid.”
He said such a bad death could happen to him.
He told the committee: “The state of the NHS is abysmal and palliative care is not properly funded, but I think it’s highly unlikely there’ll be better funding of palliative care in the future.”
*He told The Times eight years ago in an interview that, if assisted suicide was legalised: “Even if a few grannies get bullied into it, isn’t that a price worth paying for all the people who could die with dignity?”
13 November 2025
Parliament has ‘dismissed and sidelined’ disabled people from assisted suicide bill debate, says letter
Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have united in opposition to attempts to legalise assisted suicide, after months of being excluded from parliamentary discussions.
In an open letter, DPOs from across England and Wales have declared opposition to the bill and are protesting at the continued lack of meaningful engagement with DPOs and disabled experts throughout its progress through parliament.
They spoke out as MPs and peers on the joint committee on human rights took evidence yesterday (Wednesday) on the potential impact of the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill on the human rights of disabled people (see separate story).
The bill, which applies to England and Wales, continues its progress through the Lords tomorrow, as peers begin to debate more than 700 proposed amendments.
The bill has not been introduced by the government – although it is believed to be heavily-supported by the prime minister – but has instead been sponsored as a private members’ bill by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and Labour peer Lord Falconer.
The open letter was drawn up by Not Dead Yet UK, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Inclusion London, Disability Rights UK, Bromley and Croydon DPAC, and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, and highlights how disabled people have been excluded from parliamentary discussions on the bill.
They welcome the human rights committee’s decision to examine key aspects of the bill that were “dismissed and sidelined” as it passed through the House of Commons earlier this year.
They say the bill “discriminates against and has not meaningfully engaged with Disabled people”, even though they are “among those most at risk” from the legislation.
And they say it is vital that parliament understands the “human rights and equalities implications” of the bill for disabled people.
Among their concerns, the DPOs say the bill’s already limited safeguards had been “watered down” during its progress through parliament; that funding legalised assisted suicide would remove money from palliative care and “essential health and social care funding”; and that the bill fails to address the risks of disabled people being coerced into an assisted death.
They also raise the risks that the “very dangerous” bill poses to people with learning difficulties; warn that the judicial protection initially proposed by the bill has now been watered down; and say that disabled people’s voices and organisations have been excluded during the bill’s passage.
And they point out that no person with learning difficulties was asked to give evidence to the House of Lords during its select committee evidence sessions, despite the “significant impact” the bill will have on this group of disabled people.
They are now seeking other DPOs to sign the open letter and show their opposition to the bill.
By noon today, nearly 40 DPOs and disabled-led organisations had signed the open letter.
Meanwhile, in written evidence to the select committee set up by the Lords to examine the “safeguards and procedures” in the bill – which published its report this week – the Equality and Human Rights Commission warned that a private members’ bill was “an unsuitable vehicle for legislation of this importance, because of the reduced scrutiny offered”.
The commission said the legislation was “likely to particularly affect disabled people and older people”.
It said: “Peers should be aware that coercion or pressure is not always applied directly by other individuals.
“UN experts highlighted that individuals can feel subtly pressured to end their lives prematurely due to attitudinal barriers and a lack of services and support.”
And it warned that assisted dying could only be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights if “high-quality health and social care, including palliative care” was “available to all, and patients informed about its availability”.
13 November 2025
Protection failure in DWP’s fraud and error bill ‘risks further tragic deaths’, MPs warn
Cross-party MPs have warned that ministers’ refusal to introduce a key protection into their new fraud and error bill could see a repeat of the countless deaths caused by the austerity measures of past governments.
The concern was raised by MPs debating one of the final parliamentary stages of the public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill last week.
They raised fears that future “authoritarian” governments could misuse the powers the Labour government is seeking through the bill.
One of those powers will allow the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to force banks to examine the accounts of claimants of means-tested benefits and then provide details of any accounts where there have been potential breaches of benefit eligibility rules.
Concerned MPs called on ministers to support an amendment introduced by peers that would have ensured an annual assessment of the new powers by an independent reviewer included checks on whether they were causing any harm.
One MP, Liberal Democrat John Milne, highlighted how “past DWP errors” had had “tragic consequences”, and he listed some of the disabled people whose deaths have been closely linked to DWP’s actions.
He particularly highlighted the deaths of Philippa Day and Krissi Hunt, but also mentioned Stephen Carré, David Holmes, David Clapson, Errol Graham, Kevin Gale, Jodey Whiting, Roy Curtis and James Oliver*, who he said were all “wrongly hounded by the DWP”, which contributed to their deaths.
Milne told fellow MPs: “The DWP has a long track record of badly handled mistakes.
“That is a cultural failing, and it is wildly optimistic to assume that everything is suddenly going to be fine going forward.
“Do the government really believe that this bill has enough checks and balances to protect vulnerable claimants?
“One thing is for sure: there will be more DWP mistakes.”
Labour’s John McDonnell told MPs: “For the life of me, I cannot understand why the government are resisting having contained within the annual review the question of whether harm is being done.”
He said this was “the only way we will learn whether the legislation is operating in the way the government wish it to, and then whether any changes in the system are needed”.
He added: “I do not want to exaggerate, but I was in the house throughout our discussions of the introduction of the work capability assessment [in the mid-2000s], and, although the last government refused to accept it, we now know that it resulted in a large number of suicides.
“In this instance, I would not want us to enter into a reform of the processes specified in the bill without a regular review of the harms that could be caused, which would enable us subsequently to adjust the legislation if necessary.”
The SNP’s Kirsty Blackman agreed that the disabled people whose names were read out by Milne were “failed by the system that was meant to support them”.
She said that many disabled people “have had to fight for so much, and the system that is meant to support them should not then be another battleground”.
Blackman made clear that her party did not support the bill, partly because of the “potential future risks”.
She said: “I said to the Conservatives when they were in government, and I will say again now that the Labour party is in government, that you will not be in government for ever.
“At some point, somebody else will be in government, and if it is somebody who shares the authoritarian ideas of some potential future leaders, I am not sure that I want them to have access to everybody’s bank accounts.”
Steve Darling, the disabled MP and Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson, agreed.
He said: “I am not questioning the reasonableness of the current minister, or multiple ministers who preceded him, but I question what we are seeing on the other side of the Atlantic and the person who has the levers of power in the Oval Office.
“What may be seen as ‘reasonable’ in politics in the United Kingdom is sadly a distant memory in the United States of America.
“We must ensure that we guard against that future [in the UK] in the legislation we are putting forward now.”
But work and pensions minister Andrew Western refused to accept the Lords amendment.
He said the work and pensions secretary was already required to provide the independent reviewer with “all reasonably required material, so there is no need for the reviewer to write a statement to that effect in every report”.
But he said that “if they felt the need to, there is nothing to stop them doing so”.
Labour’s Neil Duncan-Jordan told MPs that several witnesses had said during the bill’s committee stage that the new powers “could result in serious harm to benefit recipients”.
He said: “If the algorithms are scanning the bank accounts of 10 million people, an error rate of just one per cent will result in 100,000 cases where innocent people are wrongly investigated.”
He said it was vital that the independent reviewer of the new powers “considers the harm to individuals, so that we can understand whether the powers being exercised are proportionate”.
But Western said the “question of whether actions taken as part of the eligibility verification measure are necessary and proportionate is baked into the bill” and that with “additional safeguards” that the government has now added to the legislation, ministers had “reached a point where the bill will achieve what it needs to while being fair and protecting vulnerable people”.
Despite that refusal, the government has agreed to remove plans to give some DWP staff “morally dubious” powers to use “reasonable force” against benefit claimants when exercising powers under the bill.
The bill was set to give authorised DWP staff the same powers of search, entry and seizure as the police.
Western claimed the government had never intended that DWP investigators should be able to use reasonable force against claimants but only to “allow them to gain access to property, such as locked filing cabinets or cupboards, when on premises to search for and seize critical evidence”, and then to rely on “the likes of the police” in situations “where force against a person might be needed”.
But following concerns raised in the Lords, he said the government had now introduced an amendment to the bill that will allow DWP investigators to use “force against property only, while retaining the police’s power to use reasonable force where necessary against people and property”.
He said: “I have repeatedly assured the house that the DWP policy position is that DWP authorised investigators will not use reasonable force against people, and I believe that the amendments put that beyond doubt.”
When the bill returned to the Lords on Tuesday, peers approved the government’s concession on reasonable force, but declined to push any further for the annual assessment of the new powers to include checks on whether they have caused any harm.
The bill is now awaiting royal assent.
*All of these deaths, apart from that of Krissi Hunt, are investigated in 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’s actions and failings, which is published by Pluto Press
13 November 2025
New investigation on NEETs will only target young disabled people, DWP document shows
A new “independent” investigation into the rising number of young people who are not in jobs, training or education will exclusively target sick and disabled claimants, a government document has revealed.
A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) press release had said the inquiry would “tackle the persistently high numbers of young people out of work, education and training”.
DWP said on Monday that the investigation, to be led by former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn and commissioned by work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden, would have a “particular focus on the impact of mental health conditions and disability”.
But the inquiry’s terms of reference, published the following day, make it clear that this will be its only focus.
They say the investigation will examine the “drivers of the increase in the number of young people who are Not in Education Employment or Training (NEET) and claiming health and disability benefits, including childhood experience”.
The terms of reference say that Milburn and his panel of “experts” – who have yet to be appointed – will “investigate the root causes of this rise in economic inactivity among disabled young people and those with health conditions”.
As part of its initial work, the Independent Report into Young People and Work will aim to identify “underlying factors which may drive these trends”.
DWP said this week that more than a quarter of NEET young people now say long-term sickness or disability is a barrier to their participation, compared to 12 per cent in 2013-14.
There are likely to be concerns among many disabled activists that Milburn is leading the review.
Last year, in a controversial report, which was welcomed by ministers, his Pathways to Work Commission focused strongly on the need to push more people with long-term health conditions into work, and it included a controversial recommendation for DWP to introduce a “duty to engage” with employment support.
Milburn’s report also called on the government to cut benefits for disabled people who are out-of-work – except for those with “severe disabilities” – so they could “close the financial gap between incapacity and unemployment benefits”, a recommendation which was taken up this year by ministers through their Universal Credit Act.
And it completely ignored the serious safeguarding issues within DWP, including those linked to the work capability assessment process and universal credit and associated with efforts to pressure disabled people into work or work-related activity.
There are already concerns over some of the language used by DWP this week in announcing the review, with McFadden describing the growing number of young people who are not in work, training or education as “a disease”, in an interview with the Sunday Times, and claiming that work was an “antidote” to many health conditions.
The terms of reference also say that the review will provide a “diagnosis” on the increase in the number of young ill and disabled people who are NEET.
But there will be hopes that the new investigation could unearth clear evidence linking the increase in young sick and disabled people forced to rely on out-of-work benefits with the impact of the Covid pandemic; the backlogs in mental health treatment; and increases in mental distress and ill-health among younger people.
This could provide ammunition to fend off the growing hostile and disablist attacks on young disabled people from politicians and the right-wing media, and on social media.
DWP promises that Milburn’s investigation will “engage with people with lived experience” as well as employers, and experts in the labour market, welfare and health sectors.
It said the review would “make practical recommendations to help young people with health conditions access work, training or education”.
The final report is due to be published next summer, although the government will see its interim findings in the spring.
McFadden said: “The rising number of young people who are not in education, employment or training is a crisis of opportunity that demands more action to give them the chance to learn or earn.
“We cannot afford to lose a generation of young people to a life on benefits, with no work prospects and not enough hope.”
Milburn said his review would be “uncompromising in exposing failures in employment support, education, skills, health and welfare and will produce far-reaching recommendations for change to enhance opportunities for young people to learn and earn”.
13 November 2025
New project will research and reveal stories behind half a century of the disability arts movement
A new project to research and reveal 50 years of stories behind the rise of the disability arts movement has been awarded nearly £250,000 of National Lottery funding.
Disability Arts Online (DAO) is hoping its project will collect previously untold stories and save them from being lost for ever, through a new accessible digital archive, an interactive timeline, and a series of podcasts.
Over three years, Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage will collect memories from disabled artists, allowing it to capture “previously untold stories and shedding new light on key moments in its history”, thanks to the £249,607 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.
The project’s work will include an appeal for those involved in the movement to share their memories.
The plan is to capture the stories of disabled artists and activists who were involved with disability arts through a series of oral history interviews – to be made available through a podcast in accessible formats – but the project will also seek reflections and memories from allies and audiences who experienced the work.
The timeline will include pictures, videos and materials from the disability arts movement.
DAO will work closely on the project with the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA), which has previously brought together original art works, photographs, film footage and other material.
NDACA’s archive material will feature as part of the Cripping Culture project, with the research helping to tell the stories of the NDACA material and creating a fuller picture of the disability arts movement and its key moments.
The project also hopes to seek out stories, people and key moments that DAO is not yet aware of, including more accounts from outside London and from an intersectional perspective.
In the project’s final year, a hybrid symposium will bring together the disability arts community and celebrate the history of the movement.
DAO has been documenting the growth of disability arts since 2004, by publicising and critiquing work, reporting developments in the movement, and publishing opinion pieces.
The project will be led by DAO’s founder, Colin Hambrook, who will move to a new role as heritage project director of Cripping Culture after more than two decades as DAO’s editor.
Hambrook said: “We are in imminent danger of losing our heritage as activists central to the movement are ageing and many elders have already died.
“Their memories, stories, and interpretation of artworks make a critical contribution to society and disabled people’s culture.
“There’s an urgent need for Cripping Culture to digitally preserve this heritage and present it through the prism of lived experience in accessible and inclusive forms.”
Trish Wheatley, DAO’s chief executive, said: “Cripping Culture is hugely significant for our organisation, alongside being of vital importance to the movement.
“My favourite part of the project is that we’ll be seeking out contributions from across the country to show how widespread this movement has been and still is today.”
Dennis Queen, DAO’s co-chair, said: “The stories and testimonies gathered through Cripping Culture will help to build a more widespread and nuanced understanding of the disabled experience.
“Anyone can become disabled at any time, yet it is very hard to find a sense of community and empowered disabled identity without a rich cultural heritage to refer to.”
To register interest in sharing your story about the disability arts movement, visit www.disabilityarts.online/cripping-culture
13 November 2025
Government must drop ‘economic burden’ narrative and sanctions, MPs are told
The government needs to change its “extremely damaging” narrative that suggests disabled people are an “economic burden”, and move away from threats and sanctions, if it wants to increase disability employment, MPs have been told.
Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) told members of the Commons work and pensions committee yesterday (Wednesday) that the government needed to listen to DPOs on how to reduce the disability employment gap.
One DPO told the MPs that the under-fire Access to Work programme “needs rescuing”, with its lengthy backlogs and a refusal by ministers to accept that support packages are being cut.
Michelle de Oude, co-chair of Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel (GMDPP), told the committee that the government’s frequent use of the term “economic inactivity” to describe disabled people who were not in paid work wrongly implied that they are “not contributing to the economy” and are “an economic burden to the rest of us in society who are working”.
She said this “extremely damaging” narrative failed to recognise that many disabled people volunteer with charities or contribute to their community in other ways, and it failed to recognise the work of unpaid carers.
If these groups suddenly withdrew their labour, she said, it would cause a huge economic cost to the country.
And she said that all disabled people contribute to their local economy by buying services, and most of them spend money online, and are therefore “economically active”.
She awarded the government “two or three out of 10” for its record on disability employment because of its “narrative” that disabled people “are a problem because we are not employed or we’re not employed enough, or we are not doing enough to get employed”, which ministers claim is costing the country money.
She said that GMDPP was trying to challenge this narrative.
De Oude said a key issue the government needed to address was the lack of expertise among work coaches in how to support disabled people to negotiate with an employer on reasonable adjustments.
Currently, she said, disabled people and employers are not given the opportunity to test out what adjustments could work.
She said it was important for disabled people to understand that they have a right to reasonable adjustments in the workplace and are shown how to ask for them.
She said: “If you support them to ask for the right reasonable adjustments in the right way, and you support the employer to understand that ask and to implement it in the right way, then you’ll really start to tackle the employment gap [between disabled and non-disabled people].”
She told the committee that Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) employment support programmes treat disabled people as if they are being put through a “sausage machine”.
De Oude also said the government should ask DPOs how they would spend money to support disabled people to access jobs and persuade employers to remove barriers, rather than endlessly repeating the failed policies of successive governments over the last 30 or 40 years.
She said DPOs would instead focus on disabled people’s expertise and individual knowledge and work with employers to remove barriers and “explore things and try things”.
Geoff Fimister, head of policy for Inclusion Barnet and spokesperson for the Campaign for Disability Justice, highlighted the harm caused by conditions and sanctions imposed on disabled people by DWP.
He said that “as long as the system is backed up by the threat of work-related conditionality and sanctions, I think there’ll be a lack of trust, and getting that trust and engagement from disabled people is crucial.
“Moving away from pressure and towards support is where we need to be going.
“There needs to be a confidence that what is on offer will actually lead to employment, and decent employment, and is not backed up by the threat of loss of income.”
De Oude added: “If conditionality worked, if threatening people worked, then all of the conditionality that had ever been in place would have worked, wouldn’t it, [and] the employment gap would have reduced.
“The fact of the matter is it doesn’t work because what you’re… doing is penalising disabled people for the fact that there are consistent, persistent barriers across the employment market.”
Fimister said good quality employment support was important, but the readiness of employers to employ disabled people was “key”.
But he said that the specialist knowledge of work coaches was “very patchy, very variable”.
He also told the committee that the Access to Work disability employment scheme was “very important” but “needs rescuing”, because of its backlogs and “unofficial cutting back” of support.
He said: “People are finding when they have their packages reassessed, they’re getting much less than they were getting before.
“The DWP denies that this is happening. They say that they’re just trying to stick to the original policy objective, so we’re having some very surreal conversations.
“It’s like looking out the window and saying, ‘It’s raining,’ and the DWP saying, ‘Well, the policy intention is that it’s not raining.’
“That won’t do. Access to Work is in need of rescue.”
Conor D’Arcy, deputy chief executive of Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, told the committee that his organisation had asked its research community of 5,000 people with mental health conditions “whether they had felt like the support that they’d got from DWP had ever got them into a job that had actually understood and was suitable for their mental health, and only nine per cent said yes”.
And Evan John, policy and public affairs adviser for the disability charity Sense, said there was a lack of understanding within jobcentres of the support requirements of disabled people with “complex needs”, which can “leave them feeling discouraged and distrusted”.
13 November 2025
Minister refuses once again to reveal truth about cuts to Access to Work
The disability minister has refused once again to explain what role he played in his department’s secret programme to cut Access to Work (AtW) grants.
It is the latest failure by Sir Stephen Timms to clarify when and how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) took the decision that guidance should be “more consistently applied” and that AtW staff should be more “scrupulous” in applying the guidance.
That decision led to significant cuts to the number of AtW grants being awarded, and to the size of many grants being reduced.
Sir Stephen told Disability News Service (DNS) at Labour’s annual conference in September that he would provide the date on which he approved an order from senior DWP civil servants for AtW staff to be more “scrupulous” in how they applied guidance.
But he has failed to provide that date.
Instead, DWP provided background information which failed to clarify when, or if, Sir Stephen approved a document about the guidance, but which suggested that the changes were put into effect through additional training for AtW case managers.
It suggested – although it refused to clarify this – that he may have seen a document but did not have to approve it.
Now Sir Stephen is claiming that he did not go back on his word by failing to provide the date, even though the information provided by DWP’s press office offered no date or clarity on how and when the new AtW regime was introduced.
He told DNS that he was “disappointed” to see the DNS report “stating, incorrectly, that I had gone back on my word”.
He said: “After we met, I checked what had happened, as I said I would.
“What I established was, as stated in the note you had from the department’s press office, ‘No submission has been sent to the Minister seeking a decision on case manager training as this is standard practice to improve our service.’
“I did ensure that the information I promised reached you.”
But when DNS asked – yet again – for clarity on who made the decision to apply the guidance more scrupulously, when it was shared with AtW staff, in what form it was sent to them, when he saw this information, and whether he approved it or just read it, he refused to provide any further information.
Instead, he wrongly stated in an email to DNS: “I fully delivered – via the press office – on the assurance I gave you.”
He had failed to respond to a further request for clarity by noon today (Thursday).
The first signs of how the new AtW regime has been impacting disabled people seeking support through the disability employment scheme came last month when DWP figures showed the number of people who had had any AtW provision approved fell by more than 10 per cent in the year to March 2025.
It is thought that more up-to-date figures will show a much steeper fall since the new rules began to be applied.
13 November 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Disabled workers will effectively work for free from today until the end of the year, according to fresh analysis of the disability pay gap. Earnings between disabled and non-disabled workers remains a significant £2.24 an hour, which means disabled employees working a 35-hour week have to get by with more than £4,000 less a year on average compared to those who are not disabled, according to the Trades Union Congress: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disability-pay-gap-workers-stop-earning-b2862889.html
Private companies operating care services in just three regions of England have taken more than £250 million in profits in three years, with more than a third going to providers owned by private equity firms or companies based in tax havens. New analysis by Reclaiming Our Regional Economies warned that public money is being rapidly funnelled out of the care system into the hands of private companies, rather than reinvested to improve services: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/12/private-care-providers-in-three-english-regions-make-250m-in-three-years
Schools in England are steering away children with special educational needs (SEN), leading some to have six times as many pupils requiring learning or behaviour support compared with others, according to research. Local authority leaders told the National Foundation for Educational Research they knew of schools that were “happy” to see others take children requiring extra support detailed by education, health and care plans , including headteachers who feared the impact on exam results of enrolling children with SEN: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/13/schools-steer-away-special-needs-pupils-research-finds
Care homes that are graded as inadequate or requiring improvement are often not being reinspected for a year or more, a BBC investigation has found. More than 2,100 care homes in England, as of October this year, were rated as “requires improvement” by the Care Quality Commission, but the BBC found three-quarters of those had not been reinspected within a year or more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14pvyn473ro
Ministers could encourage employers to allow more hybrid and remote working to help get greater numbers of disabled people and carers into the workplace, according to a House of Lords committee. A report by a cross-party committee says the government should set out whether it has considered including remote and hybrid working in back-to-work initiatives to offer more working flexibility to disabled people and those with long-term health conditions: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/13/hybrid-working-disabled-people-lords-committee
The pioneering actor and writer Nabil Shaban, who has died aged 72, co-founded the theatre company Graeae in the 1970s, which is now a firmly established platform for deaf, disabled and neurodivergent performers: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/oct/30/nabil-shaban-obituary
13 November 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
