DWP staff fail in two-fifths of cases to meet new standards aimed at stopping deaths
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) staff are failing in two out of five cases to meet new standards designed to “significantly reduce” the number of deaths of benefit claimants.
A survey by the department found its staff did not meet the standards on hundreds of occasions.
The standards include staff having to identify if a disabled person will need extra support with their benefit claim, making sure they provide reasonable adjustments for a disabled claimant, and following the department’s six-point plan, which tells staff what actions to take when claimants say they intend to self-harm or take their own lives.
Disability News Service (DNS) has previously reported how DWP staff had to be repeatedly reminded what to do when claimants threaten to take their own lives, following secret reviews into as many as six suicides linked to the benefits system.
The survey results – which were revealed in a series of DWP responses to freedom of information requests made by welfare rights expert Owen Stevens, from Child Poverty Action Group – show that frontline staff are still failing to follow rules laid down for them to follow to prevent deaths and other “serious cases”.
The results relate to a new set of 17 customer support standards that DWP introduced last year, which were “designed specifically to improve the experience of customers with complex needs and significantly reduce instances of serious cases by providing the right support at the right time”.
The survey, carried out in April across the range of benefits provided by DWP, examined a sample of nearly 4,000 claims.
Across those cases, 1,309 separate standards should have been met by DWP staff, but the survey found that on only 814 occasions (62 per cent of the time) did they follow the process correctly.
The survey results add to months of mounting concerns about DWP’s continuing failure to protect disabled claimants with significant support needs.
Only last month, DNS reported how a survey by the Commons work and pensions committee found two-thirds of DWP staff still do not have enough time to deal with safeguarding concerns “carefully” and “correctly”, despite years of deaths of benefit claimants linked with DWP’s actions and failings.
Last December, a dossier of evidence submitted by the PCS union to DWP showed the department to be a failing organisation in a “state of crisis” and facing a “near collapse” of its benefits systems, with staff accusing DWP of “deliberate neglect” and revealing that claimants in vulnerable situations were “falling through the gaps” in the system.
Meanwhile, DNS has reported on three suicides of universal credit claimants that have also raised critical concerns about DWP safeguarding.
In May, DWP admitted missing multiple opportunities to record the “vulnerability” of Nazerine Anderson, whose death was later linked by a coroner to failings at the heart of universal credit.
The new customer support standards were referred to by DWP in its response to the prevention of future deaths (PFD) report sent to the department by the coroner.
Last November, another coroner wrote to the department after the death of Kevin Gale, to warn DWP that it needed to act to prevent flaws in the universal credit system leading to further deaths, after Gale took his own life after becoming overwhelmed by the application process.
And in November 2022, DNS reported how a disabled woman left traumatised by the daily demands of universal credit took her own life just four days after being told she would need to attend a face-to-face meeting with a work coach. Her inquest has yet to take place.
Because of the election campaign, DWP has not responded to the survey results with a statement, but it did provide a series of background points that it has previously issued in response to previous concerns.
These stress that the department supports millions of people a year and that in nearly all cases claimants receive a supportive and compassionate service.
It also stresses that the safety of customers who may need additional support remains a top priority and that it has safeguards in place to protect them, including mental health training for all frontline staff.
It also says it is carrying out work in response to the Nazerine Anderson PFD report.
Meanwhile, Peter Schofield, DWP’s permanent secretary and its most senior civil servant, learned last week that he has been made a Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath, in the king’s birthday honours.
A government press release recognised his “relentless commitment to performance and delivery”.
None of the parties fighting next month’s general election have described in their manifestos how they would address the safeguarding concerns relating to DWP.
20 June 2024
Labour manifesto drops key disability rights pledges
Labour has published an election manifesto that has been shorn of key promises the party made on disability rights last autumn.
The manifesto also confirms the party’s continuing refusal to promise an end to ruinous care charges if it wins power.
And there is no explicit promise to co-produce disability-related policy with disabled people and their organisations, likely to be seen by many activists as a betrayal after years of promises that a Labour government would “work in co-production with disabled people in developing policy”.
There will also be alarm that the manifesto has avoided all mention of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Meanwhile, one of the biggest holes in the manifesto is its failure to promise any action on serious and continuing concerns about the safety of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the countless deaths linked to its actions and failings.
Despite mounting concerns in recent months over safeguarding, including more revelations from Disability News Service (DNS) this week (see separate story), there is not a single mention in the manifesto of how a Labour government would address these concerns.
Last year, DNS obtained a copy of the party’s National Policy Forum report, an internal party document that is supposed to form the basis of the manifesto.
In that report, the party promised to “ensure that respect and dignity are once more at the heart of our social security system” and that “every stage of the social security system will be supportive and accessible”.
It also promised to overhaul “the current unfair and punitive Tory system and end punitive Tory sanctions which strip away people’s dignity”.
None of these pledges appear in the manifesto, and there is only a fleeting mention of universal credit, the working-age benefit system that has been at the centre of many of the recent safeguarding concerns.
The manifesto promises only that a Labour government would be committed to “reviewing Universal Credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty” and gives disabled people “the confidence to start working without the fear of an immediate benefit reassessment if it does not work out”.
There are repeated references to employment, while the manifesto also stresses the importance of “rights and responsibilities” for claimants, and “consequences for those who do not fulfil their obligations”.
The closest the manifesto comes to a meaningful pledge on improving the disability benefits system is a statement that the work capability assessment “is not working and needs to be reformed or replaced, alongside a proper plan to support disabled people to work”.
Of 10 mentions of disabled people or disability in the Labour manifesto, six of them relate to employment or pay.
They include the introduction of a “full right to equal pay for disabled people” and disability pay gap reporting for large employers, improved access to reasonable adjustments for disabled employees, and a pledge to “tackle the Access to Work backlog”.
But there is no mention of repeated calls for an inquiry into the countless deaths linked to DWP’s actions over the last 15 years, a pledge that was made at the last general election in 2019 by senior Labour figures.
Only last week, DNS revealed how official documents link two former Conservative work and pensions ministers – including would-be party leader Penny Mordaunt – to a government cover-up of how a disabled man took his own life after being wrongly found fit for work.
Many disabled people are likely to be alarmed by the manifesto’s failure to even mention personal independence payment, when a DWP consultation on controversial Conservative reforms of the disability benefit is currently underway.
There will be no surprise among disabled campaigners that the manifesto includes no pledges on ending care charges, and that Labour has dodged any attempt at describing in detail how it will solve the social care funding crisis, despite acknowledging the need for “deep reform” to the care sector.
Instead, as expected, it promises a “fair pay agreement”, focusing on the needs of care workers rather than the disabled people who use care and support services.
It pledges to “build consensus for the longer term reform needed to create a sustainable National Care Service”, which will be “underpinned by national standards”, and it says a Labour government will “explore” how “to best support working age disabled adults”.
It adds: “Services will be locally delivered, with a principle of ‘home first’ that supports people to live independently for as long as possible.
“Our new standards will ensure high-quality care and ongoing sustainability, and ensure providers behave responsibly.”
Rather than committing to co-production of disability policy, the manifesto promises only that Labour is “committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do”.
Disability News Service (DNS) has been told the party remains committed to working with disabled people through co-production to ensure they have an input in designing the policies which affect them most.
And despite the manifesto’s failure to mention the social model of disability – a key principle for the disabled people’s movement – DNS has been told the party remains committed to the social model.
But many disabled activists are still likely to be alarmed at the failure to mention co-production and the party’s commitment to the social model in the manifesto.
On the UN convention, the party – through shadow disability minister Vicky Foxcroft – had made repeated pledges that a Labour government would implement the treaty into UK law in the year leading up to last year’s annual party conference.
That pledge was weakened in the National Policy Forum (NPF) report to a promise to “honour our commitments to the United Nations’ Convention for the Rights of Disabled People and ensure its principles are reflected across government”.
But the manifesto does not even offer that weakened promise, although DNS has been assured that there has been no change to the party’s commitment to ensuring the convention’s principles are reflected across government.
There are other key commitments that were included in the NPF report but have been dropped for the manifesto.
The manifesto fails even to mention the accessible housing crisis.
The NPF report had said Labour recognised that disabled people “are less likely to own their own home and that disabled people often struggle to find suitable rented accommodation” and was committed “to the principle of co-design and conscious of the lack of minimum standards for new build properties to be either adaptable or wheelchair accessible”.
Labour promised in the NPF report to “work with Disabled People’s Organisations and groups led by disabled people to ensure new builds are accessible and adaptable, building on the ongoing review by government” and to “ensure new requirements are enforceable and empower local leaders to ensure new developments meet designated standards”.
None of that appears in the manifesto.
The manifesto does promise reform of hate crime law, taking on the Law Commission’s long-standing call for new standalone “aggravated offences” that cover disability hate crime (and similar crimes against LGBT+ people), to mirror those that currently only apply to racial and religious hostility.
This would mean that an offender could be charged with an offence – such as assault, harassment or criminal damage – that was aggravated by hostility towards a disabled person.
Disabled campaigners have been calling for more than a decade for such a change.
There is also an emphasis in the manifesto on the need to address the long waiting-lists for mental health support, with new Young Futures hubs to provide “open access mental health services for children and young people in every community”.
Labour promises to modernise mental health legislation that is “woefully out of date” and discriminates against black people, and ensure it provides “greater choice, autonomy, enhanced rights and support” and that “everyone is treated with dignity and respect throughout treatment”.
Although the manifesto says the treatment of autistic people and people with learning difficulties “is a disgrace”, it does not explain how a Labour government would address this.
And there is a pledge to improve “inclusivity and expertise in mainstream schools”, while ensuring that special schools “cater to those with the most complex needs”.
20 June 2024
Conservatives twice ignore regulator’s warning on use of misleading ‘fitness for work’ figures
The Conservative party has continued to use misleading figures about “fitness for work” assessments, despite an independent watchdog finding they were potentially misleading.
The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has been forced to contact the party to draw its attention to its decision, after Disability News Service told the regulator how the Conservatives had twice flouted its findings.
OSR concluded on 7 June that the repeated use of the figures by prime minister Rishi Sunak over the last year “had the potential to mislead”.
The prime minister had first used the work capability assessment (WCA) figures in his main Conservative party conference speech last October, comparing the proportion of those now found not fit for work (65 per cent) after an assessment with the figures in 2011 (21 per cent).
He repeated these figures in March in an interview with the Sunday Times.
And he repeated them again in a major speech on social security at the Centre for Social Justice in April.
Then, in a press release issued on 8 June, more than 24 hours after the OSR ruling, the party used the figures yet again, this time claiming people were “three times more likely to be assessed as not fit for any work than they were a decade ago”.
Three days later, the figures appeared in the Conservative manifesto, in a bid to justify the party’s claim that there had been an “unsustainable rise in benefit claims” by working-age disabled people.
But OSR had concluded that the use of the figures “does not reflect the complexities of the data or take account of any changes to the benefit system or the criteria for allocating to this group”.
When DNS informed the regulator that the party’s manifesto had ignored its ruling, an OSR spokesperson said: “Manifestos fall outside the Office for Statistics Regulation’s remit so while we monitor the content to pre-empt statistics that may be used in public debate, we cannot formally comment on their content.
“We are, however, able to intervene in claims from manifestos when they are referred to in public statements such as interviews or social media posts.”
After being shown the Conservative press release by DNS, he said OSR had “flagged the relevant page on our website” with “Conservative Party HQ”.
The Conservative party had failed to comment by 11am today (Thursday) on why the prime minister and his party had ignored the 7 June OSR decision.
The 2011 figures reflected the particular harshness of the WCA in its early years, before its most serious flaws were exposed.
It took years of research and activism by disabled people and allies to reveal the links between the WCA and hundreds, and probably thousands, of deaths of claimants, and to force DWP ministers to ease the harshness of the assessment process.
There were also five independent reviews of the WCA commissioned by DWP, which led to multiple improvements to the assessment.
These factors eventually made it less arduous to qualify for the employment and support allowance support group and avoid work-related conditions for those found not fit for work, although the assessment process is still deeply-flawed and continues to be linked to serious harm and deaths of claimants.
20 June 2024
Police investigate security guard ‘who tried to push man with electronic implant through metal detector’
Police are investigating claims that a security guard tried to force a disabled man through a metal detector outside a sports stadium, even though he had been told he had an electronic implant and it could cause him serious injury.
Oliver Trowell was on his way to watch the New York Mets play the Philadelphia Phillies at the London Stadium in east London, as part of the Major League Baseball world tour, when the incident took place.
Police are now investigating the alleged assault.
As he approached the Olympic Park stadium, Trowell told a security guard he had an implanted device that provides deep brain stimulation through electrodes, due to a neurological condition, and therefore could not walk through a metal detector.
He showed the guard a card supplied by the implant’s manufacturer, which explained that walking through a metal detector could interfere with the technology or even cause him a neurological injury, so he would need to be searched by hand instead.
But the guard ignored the card, rejected what Trowell was telling him, and insisted that he must walk through the metal detector.
Trowell then told the guard he was going to speak to a more senior guard on the other side of the scanner.
When he attempted to do so, the first guard grabbed him and began pushing him towards the metal detector gate.
Trowell told Disability News Service (DNS): “For him to have succeeded could have potentially led to a serious incident in which my physical health would have been severely impacted.”
They were tussling for about a minute while Trowell tried to prevent himself being forced through the metal detector.
He eventually managed to show the second security guard his card.
The second guard then ordered his colleague to stop pushing Trowell, and he was finally allowed to enter the stadium.
Although he was able to enter the London Stadium and watch the game on 8 June, he said the incident “pretty much ruined the day for me, as I was constantly worried some damage or interference may have occurred to my implant, in addition to the upset caused by being dealt with in such a way”.
He was also publicly embarrassed because there was a queue of about 100 people behind him who could see what was happening.
He said: “I feel very upset about it, which is why I have not let it go.”
Now he wants to raise awareness of the kind of discrimination that people with implants frequently face in similar situations.
His partner joined him at the stadium an hour later and reassured him that they could take a taxi home to collect the device’s remote-control device and go to the hospital if needed, so they decided to stay and watch the game.
But he told DNS he was appalled by the discrimination he had experienced and wanted to push for better training for security guards so similar incidents do not happen to other people with sensitive medical implants.
He said other people with implants are “routinely being challenged even though they are presenting ID”, and he added: “It’s something that happens all the time to people with implants.”
But he is also frustrated that the stadium did not immediately acknowledge what happened and promise to improve the training of its security guards.
He said he has been told by police that the incident is being investigated as an allegation of common assault, with disability as an aggravating factor.
A Met police spokesperson told DNS that they had “received a report of an assault and the investigation remains ongoing”.
Trowell has also lodged a complaint with London Stadium.
London Stadium had not responded to requests to comment by 11am today (Thursday).
20 June 2024
Reform UK manifesto suggests huge cuts, threats to disability rights, and risks to safety of benefit claimants
The right-wing Reform UK party has published a manifesto that repeatedly threatens the rights of disabled people, suggests it will pose significant safeguarding risks to benefit claimants, and warns of massive spending cuts to benefits and public services.
Although the manifesto is short on detailed policies and contains just two explicit mentions of disability, the 28-page document is filled with policy suggestions that are likely to alarm many disabled people.
The document repeatedly issues blunt threats about slashing spending on social security and attacking long-established rights.
One alarming policy for those who rely on public services, many of which are already struggling with delivery after 15 years of austerity, is that Reform claims it can save £50 billion a year by telling every government department to “slash wasteful spending, cut bureaucracy, improve efficiency and negotiate better value procurement”.
Reform’s claim that this could be done “without touching frontline services”, and other tax and spending claims, have been widely discredited.
On social security, the manifesto is again short on detail but suggests that a Reform government would launch a new attempt to push disabled people into employment, suggesting that it would save £15 billion a year by forcing “1 million plus back to work”.
Although it does not explicitly say it would target disabled people, the document says it would “ensure those who can work do work” and adds: “Employment is critical to improving mental health.”
There is another alarming threat for those on out-of-work benefits, with the manifesto stating that “all job seekers and those fit to work” will have to find employment within four months or accept a job after two offers. Otherwise, it says, “benefits are withdrawn”.
The manifesto also suggests that all assessments for personal independence payment and all work capability assessments should take place “face to face”, a policy that would likely have dangerous consequences for many disabled people unable to cope with such situations.
The manifesto also says a Reform government would “require independent medical assessments to prove eligibility for payments”, although it has yet to explain how this would differ from the current system of assessments provided on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions by private sector contractors such as Capita and Maximus.
In one of the two mentions of disability in the manifesto, Reform says that those registered with “severe disabilities or serious long-term illnesses would be exempt from regular checks”, although again there is no further detail.
The party had not explained by 11am today (Thursday) whether any disabled people currently seen as not fit for work would be forced off benefits, and how it would avoid repeating the countless tragedies linked to past welfare reforms if it did so.
It had also failed to clarify if the threat to withdraw benefits from those not finding jobs would apply to any claimants found not fit for work, and whether it would force disabled people not well enough or too distressed to cope with a face-to-face assessment into attending such a meeting.
On dealing with the social care crisis, Reform argues that a “national plan” is “critical”, but then fails to explain what that plan might be.
Instead, it suggests that there should be a royal commission into the social care system, but agrees that “more funding” – although it does not say how much – will be needed.
It says the social care sector needs “flexibility, tax incentives, VAT breaks and less waste”, but provides no further details or evidence of why this is needed.
It also calls for social care to have a “single funding stream, instead of the split between NHS and Local Authorities”, but it has yet to offer any further detail.
Among a series of attacks on rights – many of which would have a significant impact on disabled people – it suggests leaving the European Convention on Human Rights, reforming the Human Rights Act so it “puts the rights of law-abiding people first”, and creating a British bill of rights.
It has failed so far to provide any examples of which rights it would like to remove from the Human Rights Act.
It suggests that such a bill of rights would ensure that the government could never again order a national lockdown, an emergency step taken during the pandemic to stop the spread of the Covid virus and protect millions of disabled people who were particularly vulnerable to serious illness if infected.
The Office for National Statistics repeatedly found during the pandemic that nearly 60 per cent of those who died Covid-related deaths were disabled people, and most academic studies found that lockdowns were successful in reducing the spread of the virus and the number of deaths.
Disabled people’s organisations have publicly supported the use of lockdowns, and they and others have argued that they almost certainly saved tens or even hundreds of thousands of lives.
The manifesto also suggests that a Reform government would replace the Equality Act – which it mistakenly refers to as the Equalities Act – but doesn’t explain why, other than highlighting that the act “requires discrimination in the name of ‘positive action’”.
It has yet to explain what parts of the act would be scrapped.
The party also promises to scrap “Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DE&I) rules that have lowered standards and reduced economic productivity”, but again provides no details on which rules it objects to or any evidence for its claims.
On criminal justice, the manifesto suggests a Reform government would make it even harder for disabled people to persuade police forces to investigate a crime as motivated by disability-related hostility, by changing the definition of a hate crime to ensure that “members of the British public must not be investigated because ‘any’ person ‘perceives’ that a hate crime has been committed”.
The current definition of disability hate crime used by the police and Crown Prosecution Service is that it is any criminal offence “which is perceived by the victim or any other person to be motivated by hostility or prejudice” based on the person’s “disability or perceived disability”.
It is not clear what a Reform government would replace this definition with.
The other explicit mention of disabled people comes in a policy suggestion that a Reform government would scrap all postal voting, except for “the elderly, disabled or those who can’t leave their homes”.
20 June 2024
SNP mentions disabled people just twice in general election manifesto
The SNP has said almost nothing in its manifesto about how it would fight for the rights of disabled people at Westminster if its candidates are elected as MPs next month, five years after its last general election manifesto faced similar criticism.
At the last general election in 2019, there were three mentions of disability or disabled people in the SNP manifesto, and this time there are just two across its 32 pages.
Many policies with a specific impact on disabled people, such as social care, local government, education, parts of the social security system, and many aspects of transport, are devolved to the Scottish government.
But the party still offers little to attract disabled voters across those areas where responsibility has not been devolved.
The manifesto makes pledges to push for improvements to LGBT+ rights, children’s rights, and the rights of asylum-seekers, but makes no such promises on disabled people’s rights.
The key policy it offers is that its MPs would push the UK government to “scrap proposed punitive welfare reforms for sick and disabled people which will take support away from some of the most vulnerable people in our communities”, but it offers no further details.
This is likely to refer to Conservative plans to tighten the work capability assessment (WCA), which will mean 371,000 disabled people losing their entitlement to extra support – and becoming subject to conditionality and sanctions – by 2028-29.
The WCA reforms will increase employment by just 10,000 by 2028-29, the Office for Budget Responsibility has estimated.
The SNP, which already has responsibility for providing some benefits, wants all social security powers to be devolved to the Scottish government.
Other SNP policies that could be of interest to some disabled people are a pledge to push for reforms to statutory sick pay so it is available to lower-paid workers and no longer has a four-day waiting-period, and to work with the UK government to ensure an effective compensation scheme for victims of the infected blood scandal.
The party also promises to push for disabled veterans with a war disablement pension to be exempt from an assessment of their income if they need social care, as already happens in Scotland.
An SNP spokesperson said this morning (Thursday): “Given the devolved nature of much of disability policy, it’s important to note that the SNP is not standing to be the next UK government.
“Our 2021 manifesto [for the Scottish parliament elections], where we were standing for government, included a whole manifesto for people with disabilities.”
Marion Fellows, the SNP candidate for Motherwell, Wishaw and Carluke, had said earlier: “In the face of continued Westminster austerity promised by a future Labour or Tory government, the SNP is committed to advocating for and supporting people with disabilities to ensure they reach their full potential – as our SNP MPs in Westminster have consistently championed.
“As announced in the SNP’s manifesto this week, people with disabilities would be among those eligible to benefit from a statutory social benefit tariff for their energy, broadband and mobile charges – supporting them with the cost of living and easing financial burdens.”
20 June 2024
Plaid Cymru calls for implementation of UN disability convention into UK law
Although Plaid Cymru’s manifesto contains just seven explicit mentions of disability in 72 pages, some of those policies would provide significant new rights for disabled people.
A key pledge in the manifesto is that Plaid Cymru would push to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into UK law.
It promises to do this by working with the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities, disabled people’s organisations, disability charities and disabled people.
Such a policy, it says, would secure dignity, human rights and fundamental freedoms for disabled people, as well as freedom from “poverty, social exclusion, discrimination, and negligence”.
The policy creates a sharp contrast with Labour, which has provoked widespread anger and frustration among disabled people after dropping its previous pledge to implement the UN convention (see separate story).
The Liberal Democrats have also promised to implement the UN convention in their election manifesto.
Plaid Cymru promises to create a National Care Service for Wales, and to “work towards” the goal of an end to care charges.
On social security, it says there should be a “Welsh benefits system”, with a “particularly strong case” for devolving benefits such as those linked to health and housing as they are “most closely aligned to existing devolved policy areas”.
The manifesto also stresses that the party opposes Conservative proposals to tighten the work capability assessment and measures announced last year through the UK government’s Back to Work Plan.
Plaid Cymru says this plan “again appears to blame people for being unwell and unable to work as they would wish to do so” and that it rejects “the discourse of blaming people for the circumstances in which they find themselves”.
On housing, the party points to the huge unmet demand for “bungalows for an ageing population”, although it fails to refer to similar levels of unmet demand for accessible housing for working-age disabled people.
But it says it would address the failure of developers to “build houses that answer community needs” by reforming the planning system “so that it is consistent with local needs and aspirations, rather than reflecting the interests of developers”.
And, it says, it would provide “funding packages to assist local government to robustly enforce planning decisions ensuring that developers stick to agreements”.
On criminal justice, Plaid Cymru says it would provide “better support” for the many people with ADHD in the prison system, and when they leave prison, which includes “training for all prison staff in ADHD awareness and appropriate medication care plans”, as well as ensuring access to safe housing, and local mental health and probation support.
20 June 2024
Disabled election candidates: The SNP’s Kim Marshall
Kim Marshall decided to stand in the general election because she has already spent most of her life speaking up for those who cannot speak up for themselves, and teaching others how to do that.
Although she knows her first duty, if elected, would be to the voters of Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, she also knows that disabled people need MPs who can put their case for them at Westminster.
She watched the 2010 Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition’s “active attack on disabled people” and the “dismal” record of successive Conservative-led governments at Westminster who have made disabled people “scapegoats for austerity”.
But the incident that really politicised her took place, she says, on 26 October 2020, the day before her husband began chemotherapy.
It was, she says, “the day that the police knocked on the door to tell us that they’d found a body at our son’s flat.
“He’d taken his life. He’d had mental health issues, but no one knew they were that bad.
“I couldn’t stand by and let other parents go through what we went through.”
She says that so many of the circumstances around coping with death during the pandemic, with her husband being clinically extremely vulnerable to the virus – they were living in Hertfordshire at the time – had made that time difficult.
But there were two “really pernicious things” that made it worse: a law that allows a landlord to enforce the rent on a property after the tenant has died, and the coroner taking three years to reach a verdict.
She also points to the apparent failure to offer her son – who lived in Cheshire – the treatment he needed before his death.
Asked to choose three policies that she believes would improve the lives of disabled people, Marshall says she would scrap benefit sanctions for all disabled people; stop service-providers “paying lip service” to their legal duties to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people; and incorporate the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities into UK law.
She says the SNP is a better prospect for disabled people than other parties because her party has “walked the walk” in Scotland.
She highlights the Scottish government’s introduction of adult disability payment to replace personal independence payment, where claimants “are treated with dignity and respect rather than being set up to fail”.
She also points to Scotland’s introduction of free personal care; higher pay for care workers; and funding from the Scottish government to mitigate the impact of the “iniquitous” bedroom tax, which “disproportionately affects disabled people”.
And she points to its different approach to mental health than in England.
“The Tories don’t understand that mental health issues can be incredibly debilitating,” she says.
“Their manifesto suggests that forcing people into the workforce is the answer while ignoring that a toxic workplace could have been the problem.
“The Labour manifesto appears to be taking the same approach: work solves everything. It doesn’t.”
Marshall had an unhappy childhood in England, with an abusive, alcoholic father and her parents divorcing when she was seven.
She remembers rarely wearing anything but second-hand clothes, being bullied at school because her mum could not afford to buy her both a blazer and a coat, and having to fight her mum “tooth and claw to be able to go to university, as it wasn’t for people like us”.
After gaining a masters in law, she spent most of her career teaching law in England and Scotland, eventually being made redundant because of her employer’s failure to make reasonable adjustments for her “multiplicity of hidden disabilities”, before working as a policy officer and a manager at the Ministry of Justice in London.
She originally joined the SNP as a member of its London branch “after despairing of the chaos of politics in England and the stupidity of Brexit” and is now studying for a PhD at the University of Glasgow, researching the effectiveness of disability discrimination law.
She says she has “always been a political animal” and for years has been “quietly, subversively teaching law to show that it could change lives”.
As an expert in disability discrimination law, she has seen how the Disability Discrimination Act and the Equality Act failed to really improve the lives of disabled people, and after 2010 “things actually got much worse”.
The last Labour government’s decision to set up the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), which took over the functions of the old Disability Rights Commission in 2007, was also “a retrograde step”.
“Previously we’d had a very distinct voice and a positive strategy to get legal precedents. That just seemed to evaporate with the EHRC,” she says.
“The EHRC itself doesn’t seem to understand that disability is different.”
She had tried before to win selection to stand at a general election – for Labour – but was rejected after being told she failed to maintain enough eye contact, something she finds incredibly difficult because she is neurodivergent.
Marshall says that life for disabled people today, at least in England, is “much worse” than it was in 2010, as they are “demonised, humiliated, blamed for the failing of the economy”.
She says: “I went to the Paralympics in 2012 and it was wonderful. I thought, ‘We get it. Things will change for the better.’
“But they haven’t. And it’s why people like me are standing. To make a difference.”
*This is part of a pre-election series of articles that will give some of the disabled people standing as candidates at the general election a chance to describe why they wanted to stand, how they became politicised, and the kind of barriers they have faced as disabled people. The aim is to raise the profile of some of the disabled people seeking elected office. DNS has analysed party manifesto commitments separately
20 June 2024
Disabled election candidates: Liberal Democrat Richard Whelan
Life for disabled people is hard, and getting harder, and they feel “constantly under attack”, according to Liberal Democrat election candidate Richard Whelan.
One of his priorities, if elected, would be to ensure that the Equality Act 2010 is properly enforced.
Too many employers pay “lip service” to equality laws, he said, and he pointed to his own experiences as evidence.
At the age of 47, he has always struggled to secure permanent employment.
Having initially made “no progress” at a special school, his parents – both doctors – sent him to a mainstream prep school where he “began to thrive academically”.
He eventually attended university, leaving with a good degree (a 2:1) in international relations and politics.
But his degree has not led to a permanent job.
Many employers still see disabled people as “burdens” who are “perceived as not as good” as non-disabled people, he said.
He added: “I know as much because in feedback to failed interviews they admit such sentiments directly to my face.
“There are still far too many instances of disabled people both struggling to find work, and when they do, struggle in the role they’ve been appointed to, because they do not have the adequate support they need to succeed.”
It is these widespread negative attitudes to disabled people that have politicised him as a disabled person, he said.
Whelan is standing in Basingstoke, where one of his opponents will be the Conservative former minister for disabled people, Maria Miller.
He said the current government’s record on disability is “abysmal”.
“You do not threaten to take benefits off disabled people and force them back to work without adequate support provision to ensure they can work in the first place.
“Support provision for disabled people in general leaves a lot to be desired and the Conservatives neither understand, nor can adequately address, the hopes and desires of disabled people in today’s Britain.”
Asked why his party, the Liberal Democrats, have more to offer disabled voters at the general election than other parties, he points to their pledge to provide free personal care to all adults whose needs are seen as eligible for council-funded support.
He said: “This would save a disabled person a considerable amount of money and ensure that their personal care is guaranteed.
“Whilst not sufficient, it is at least a start and a strong platform on which to build in future years.”
Another priority, if elected, is to push for reform of the disability benefits system.
He wants to “actively promote the need for disabled people to have control over their own lives and not have this determined by others”.
Whelan said he wants to see a new system that would enable a disabled person to employ a team of “all-encompassing personal assistants” who would provide support with all aspects of their life, including personal care and administrative support in the workplace, with this integration allowing disabled people to live “an independent life where the home is only one of the settings they need support in”.
He said: “Life for disabled people in today’s Britain, compared to when the Conservatives came to power in 2010, is hard, and getting harder, as benefit changes, such as the introduction of personal independence payment, which replaced the old disability living allowance, is removing support that disabled people once took for granted.”
He points to those with fluctuating conditions often having their benefits removed “because it is assumed they can do an activity that in reality they can only do occasionally”, while those with conditions that will never change face the “constant need for five-yearly reviews”, which causes “unnecessary worry and doubt”, while they have to wait months for a decision.
He said: “There has to be a more compassionate approach to these matters that treats disabled people as the individuals they are and gives them the support they need to live independent lives.
“Because, as things stand, disabled people feel consistently under attack, fearful they will not get the support they need to live, with any support they do have under constant threat of being withdrawn.”
Whelan said he also wants to see an emphasis on improving access, particularly from owners and managers who hide behind a building’s listed building status.
He said he wanted to stand for parliament so he could be “a role model for other disabled people and offer them hope that they can fulfil their dreams if they set their mind to it”.
*This is part of a pre-election series of articles that will give some of the disabled people standing as candidates at the general election a chance to describe why they wanted to stand, how they became politicised, and the kind of barriers they have faced as disabled people. The aim is to raise the profile of some of the disabled people seeking elected office. DNS has analysed party manifesto commitments separately
20 June 2024
Disabled election candidates: The Green Party’s Mags Lewis
The current political system is not designed for disabled people’s inclusion, according to general election candidate Mags Lewis, which is why she is determined to stand and “be seen to stand” at this general election as a visibly disabled woman.
Lewis believes it was a “crime” that a fund introduced to support disabled election candidates, the Access to Elected Office Fund (AEOF), and its replacement, were both scrapped by successive Conservative governments, which have “paid lip service to our involvement”.
But she also points to the continuing failure to allow election candidates from the same party to job share, another measure which would “genuinely help with inclusion and accessibility”.
Having AEOF still open would have allowed her to pay for the extra disability-related costs she will face during the election campaign.
Funding for a support worker to knock on doors for her would be a “game changer” and for disabled people representing other smaller political parties, she said.
“As a disabled person who struggles to walk far, they could leaflet drop for me, or knock on doors and ask if that person would like to meet the candidate.
“This would spare me knocking on ten doors before I get to someone who wants to chat. I could then engage and tell voters about my candidacy.
“It is all about conserving energy for me, so that would be incredible.”
She said such a fund would support democracy and “encourage so many people to be able to stand if they didn’t feel they were going to be a drain on hard-pressed volunteers” or parties that were not well-funded.
Asked for an incident that politicised her as a disabled person, she remembers “almost wetting myself because the local public toilets were shut, and I realised just what a prisoner I was without decent public services”.
It is an issue she has campaigned on locally – as someone who needs to know which toilets are open, because of her MS – ever since she was told the toilets at her local library were closed because “the council had gone with the cheapest quote, but the parts were only available from Germany”.
She said: “It’s not fashionable, but dignity and access to loos is a political issue.”
As well as dedicating much of her time to the Green Party, Lewis describes herself as “a 52-year-old busy mother with MS, and a disabled activist”.
Her professional background was in NHS management, which “gave me an insight into the damage the private market and private profit are doing to our NHS” before she had to take ill-health retirement 10 years ago.
Lewis, who is standing for the party in Leicester East, described the current government’s record on disability as “abysmal”, characterised by “harsh benefit sanctions”, a “lack of curiosity or understanding of the disabled community and what we can actually offer”, and “hostility” towards disabled people.
She said there has been “a consistent and dedicated onslaught on our benefits, on systems and schemes to help us into work”, as well as a “hardening of public opinion, encouraged by government rhetoric”.
The Conservatives, she said, have encouraged a “culture of fear” with their benefit reforms, through sanctions, “stressful and demeaning” assessments – which are “run for profit” – and often-repeated suggestions “that disabled people are workshy”.
She also highlights lengthy NHS waiting-lists, particularly in mental health, cuts to bus services, and failings on accessible housing.
She contrasts that record with the many disability-friendly policies in the Green manifesto, but particularly the five per cent uplift to disability benefits; her party’s call for an end to “intrusive” disability benefit assessments; and the pledge to provide free transport for all 16-18-year-old students with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND).
The free transport policy shows “in a snapshot”, she said, “how changing legislative words for councils from ‘should’ to ‘must’ provide SEND transport can have a massive impact on children with SEND”.
The policy would help “hard-pressed” families “just a bit” and “show we value the education of 16-18 disabled kids”.
She hopes that her party’s “comprehensive plan” on disability, which includes free personal care for adults, as well as its “targeted support for carers and children”, plans to bring essential services back into public ownership, to “save our NHS” and to provide “proper accessible housing”, will put it ahead of other parties when appealing to disabled voters.
The climate crisis will impact “vulnerable” and disabled people “more than anyone”, she said, so “we have to do much more to help disabled people in this country and around the world”.
*This is part of a pre-election series of articles that will give some of the disabled people standing as candidates at the general election a chance to describe why they wanted to stand, how they became politicised, and the kind of barriers they have faced as disabled people. The aim is to raise the profile of some of the disabled people seeking elected office. DNS has analysed party manifesto commitments separately
20 June 2024
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Hundreds of thousands of disabled residents in high-rise buildings are at risk without evacuation plans, firefighters have warned, seven years on from the Grenfell Tower fire. The Fire Brigades Union and Disability Rights UK said the government’s failure to implement evacuation plans for “vulnerable” residents, one of the main recommendations from the first-phase report of the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, meant “disabled people will continue to face unnecessary and avoidable danger and/or death”: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/jun/13/disabled-high-rise-residents-still-at-risk-seven-years-after-grenfell-fire
The number of children and young people in England requiring support for special educational needs and disabilities has increased sharply, according to new data. Local authorities issued 84,400 education, health and care plans last year, according to figures released by the Department for Education, a 26 per cent increase compared with 2022: https://www.theguardian.com/education/article/2024/jun/13/record-number-of-pupils-have-special-needs-support-plan-in-england
A senior staff member at an independent special school has been recorded by BBC Panorama saying he wanted to drown a pupil in a bath “like a kitten”. An undercover reporter spent almost seven weeks at Life Wirral in Wallasey and witnessed staff using offensive language to mock pupils for their neurodiversity or learning difficulties, as well as manhandling them into dangerous headlocks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp6643jd8nwo
A disability rights campaigner has said she is disappointed with a decision to grant Uber a licence to operate private hire cars in York again after a six-year ban. City of York Council’s licensing committee voted last week to approve a new application by the online ride-hailing firm to operate there. But disabled campaigner Flick Williams said Uber had been “quite clear that if they were granted a licence there would be no option to book a wheelchair accessible taxi”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0jj9135zypo
Complaints against three councillors for their views on special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) have been dismissed. An investigation took place into hundreds of complaints over contributions to a Warwickshire County Council scrutiny panel debate in January. Jeff Morgan, Brian Hammersley and Clare Golby have all been cleared of breaching the authority’s code of conduct: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cv220q9r14no
A man who is registered blind is seeking a £112,000 payout after being sacked during his probation period at a bakery. An employment tribunal found that not enough was done by bosses at The Village Bakery in Coedpoeth, Wrexham, to accommodate Ian Stanley and help him adjust to his role: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy662dzz7v0o
20 June 2024
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
