Contents
DWP delays publication of vital PIP evidence until after green paper and spring statement 15
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 24
DWP figures on total cost of disabled people who cannot work are ‘chilling’ echo of ‘useless eaters’ propaganda
The decision of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to publish figures showing the total cost to the economy of disabled people who cannot work has been described as a “chilling” echo of the “useless eaters” propaganda of 1930s Germany.
The figures were included in a report* published by DWP alongside Tuesday’s green paper on disability benefits, as the government sought to justify plans for more than £5 billion in cuts to out-of-work disability benefits and personal independence payment.
Although disabled activists stressed they were not comparing DWP or the Labour government with the most extreme actions of Nazi Germany, they warned that the decision to publish the figures provided “disturbing echoes” of the early stages of oppression in the 1930s that later led to the targeted killing of hundreds of thousands of disabled people in Germany.
It is believed to be the first time DWP has ever published such a report, which it said shows “the cost to the economy and individuals of working age ill-health”.
The short report adds up the costs of lost production because of economic inactivity due to long-term or temporary sickness; lost production due to sickness absence; lost production due to carers who are unable to work; and the extra cost to the NHS when someone’s health condition causes them to move from “economically active to economically inactive”.
It also adds the lost tax and national insurance when health conditions prevent or limit employment; and the cost of benefits linked to health conditions that prevent people working.
It estimates the cost to the UK economy of working age ill-health and disability that prevents work in 2022 as between £240 and £330 billion.
Disabled film-maker and artist Liz Crow, whose work has highlighted both the human cost of austerity and the values in Nazi Germany that led to the killing of as many as 200,000 disabled people through the Aktion T4 euthanasia programme, said the publication of the figures is “chilling”, particularly when parliament is currently debating legalising assisted suicide.
She told Disability News Service (DNS) yesterday (Wednesday): “What they have done is chilling.
“There are really disturbing echoes of the lead-up to Aktion T4 in 1930s Germany in the language and sentiments used.
“The path to Aktion T4 was made up of stages that escalated and we should always take action when there is any movement in that direction.
“This report implies that disabled people are responsible for the social and political conditions that make it hard to find employment, that make some of us too ill to work, or that underfund social care.”
She also stressed that this week’s events could not be treated “in isolation”, as they followed the “onslaught” on disabled people of 15 years of austerity.
When DNS highlighted the publication of the figures on Twitter/X, there was a horrified reaction from disabled people.
One said: “They think they can vilify and demonise us to suggest we are a burden?! Despicable!”
Several drew a comparison with the propaganda put out by the Nazi government in Germany in the 1930s in which they described disabled people as “useless eaters”.
They particularly compared the DWP publication to a notorious Nazi poster which highlighted the cost of supporting disabled people with significant impairments.
That poster said: “60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People’s community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too.”
Many of those commenting on the DWP publication pointed to the parallels of a Labour government that is supporting parliamentary moves to legalise assisted suicide, while at the same time highlighting the cost of supporting disabled people who cannot work.
The grassroots, user-led mental health group Recovery in the Bin (RITB) told DNS: “Reducing human life to a simplistic calculation of budgetary cost to justify hostile state policy is historically associated with fascist genocidal regimes.
“The UK has two successive highly critical UN reports and chooses to further intensify those abuses.
“While the scale of immediate violence is not comparable, the sentiments are terrifyingly similar to that of historic regimes that engaged in mass killing of disabled people.
“The point of heeding the warnings from history is not to deny these echoes, but to recognise them and act to halt further descent into the abyss.”
Gwen, a wheelchair-user and disabled campaigner, was among others alarmed by the publication of the figures.
She told DNS: “I know I might sound doom and gloom but for me it’s a strange coincidence that they are trying to push quickly the assisted dying bill and are making all those reforms.
“Cynical people like me will see that it’s a new way to reduce the welfare bill, it reduces the number of disabled people.”
*The Cost of Working Age Ill-Health and Disability that Prevents Work
**The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
20 March 2025
PIP cuts will cause further deaths, say disabled relatives of claimants who died due to previous DWP reforms
Three disabled people who lost relatives as a result of past reforms to disability benefits have spoken of their horror at the Labour government’s plans to cut billions of pounds from the system.
Tuesday’s Pathways to Work green paper announced cuts of more than £5 billion from disabled people’s support, with most of that apparently coming from changes that will make it even harder to claim personal independence payment (PIP)*.
The trio of campaigners, who have each fought for justice and for a better social security system since the deaths of their family members**, all told Disability News Service (DNS) of their shock at the government’s proposed cuts.
Dave Smith’s brother James Oliver was desperately ill with chronic liver disease caused by alcohol dependency, as well as other health conditions including scoliosis, hypertension and depression, but he was twice denied PIP following assessments.
Shortly before he died in hospital, in April 2019, he told his brother: “I can’t believe it. I am dying, I am going to be dead, and I’m still not sick enough to get PIP.”
Smith receives PIP himself, and told DNS the proposed changes would make it even harder for disabled people to claim than it was for his brother.
He said: “From what I’ve seen it’s going to be virtually impossible to claim PIP at all unless you are more or less paraplegic and incontinent.”
He said he fears he would not be able to survive if his PIP was removed because of the eligibility changes, and that he could lose £3,500 a year.
He said: “My own health really doesn’t have the energy to deal with such a loss.
“I don’t think I could cope financially without it. And this is without any more draconian plans they have for other welfare cuts.
“Any Labour MP who supports this should hang their head in shame. This will cost lives because many will believe suicide is the only way out to protect their families.”
He said disabled people had been “made to feel like a worthless drain on society” and the government “seem intent on screwing all those with invisible conditions in particular”.
Imogen Day, whose sister Philippa’s death was caused by widespread flaws and failings in the Conservative PIP assessment system, said she believed her sister would have died months earlier if the new PIP proposals had been in place at the time because she “would have felt even more hopeless and demeaned”.
She told DNS she was “absolutely appalled” by the government’s announcements, and said it was clear there had been a lack of co-production with disabled people and their organisations.
She said she believed it was now a “defining moment in our generation about how we treat disabled people”.
And she said it was crucial for the government to acknowledge the impact of the increase in long-term health conditions brought on by the Covid pandemic on disability benefits spending.
Alison Burton, who also spoke at a parliamentary meeting on Monday (see separate story), is the daughter-in-law of Errol Graham, who starved to death in 2018 after his out-of-work disability benefits were removed.
She receives PIP herself, as does her daughter, while her son receives disability living allowance.
She told DNS that she “absolutely” does not trust DWP to implement the cuts safely, and that she had “no doubt” that more disabled people would now die as a result.
She said Labour had decided to strip money from the system and leave “people like Errol as collateral damage”.
Her autistic daughter developed severe anxiety after the death of her grandfather, and it was only through support funded by PIP that she was able to leave the house and attend university.
She told Monday’s meeting: “You take that away, you take the existence of my child away. That’s the reality of it. And that’s what they did to Errol.”
Disabled people and disabled people’s organisations also spoke of their shock and anger this week at the government’s announcements.
The proposals, announced by work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall, include plans to scrap the work capability assessment (WCA), rely on the PIP assessment to determine eligibility for the health top-up within universal credit, and cut the rate of that health element for new claimants from £97 per week in 2024-25 to £50 per week in 2026-27, while freezing it for existing claimants until 2029-30.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said disabled people were already much more likely to be living in poverty and had been “pushed to the brink by 15 years of cuts”, and that “slashing support” from disabled people was “a political choice”.
She said it was “shocking and infuriating that these reforms are coming from the same Labour government that promised to end austerity.
“The government have specifically excluded the changes to the PIP and WCA assessments, which are the elements of the green paper that will cause hundreds of thousands of disabled people to lose financial support, from the consultation.
“This is unacceptable: consulting without involving us in the main financial decisions is not consultation.”
She added: “Cutting benefits won’t create growth or help people into work — it will only increase poverty, ill health, and exclusion.
“We know that real change comes through investment — in health, housing, care, inclusive employment support, and accessible workplaces.”
Mikey Erhardt, policy officer at Disability Rights UK, described the cuts as “brutal and reckless” and accused the government of creating “a rhetorical smokescreen around the depth of cuts it’s going to make”.
He said: “The government intends to bar young disabled people from receiving the universal credit health component until they are 22.
“That is alongside their promise to significantly increase assessments at scale without making the assessment process safer for those going through the system right now.
“These measures mark dangerous cuts for all disabled people. Furthermore, altering the PIP award criteria will make it harder for those who need support to qualify.
“Rising claims for PIP reflect not a problem with disabled people but rather reflect successive governments’ failure to do even the bare minimum to create a more equitable society.”
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) said it had been “inundated” with membership requests since Kendall’s announcements, with “terrified and anxious” people wanting to join its Facebook group, and as many as 20 volunteers willing to take legal action against the government over what DPAC’s co-founder Linda Burnip described as the “absolutely appalling” and “despicable” actions of the Labour government.
On Wednesday (26 May), the day of the spring statement from chancellor Rachel Reeves, when further details of the cuts will be announced, DPAC is holding a national day of action in protest at the “pernicious” green paper.
Along with actions in other parts of the country, there will be a protest outside 10 Downing Street, followed by a lobby of MPs and a joint protest with other organisations outside parliament.
Disability Wales said the government’s benefits “crackdown” would “leave many disabled people in Wales considerably worse off without fundamentally tackling the systemic barriers to employment and independent living” and added: “Once again disabled people have been cruelly let down.”
Inclusion Scotland said the cuts would drive disabled people “further into poverty” and “mark a new era of cruel political choices which directly and negatively impact disabled people”.
Heather Fisken, Inclusion Scotland’s chief executive, said: “These cuts are an ideological and political choice that will cause grave harm for Scotland’s disabled people.
“We are opposed to the UK government’s choice to slash the welfare budget by pushing disabled people further into poverty.”
Caroline Collier, speaking for the Campaign for Disability Justice, said: “Disabled people need genuine, accessible opportunities when we’re able to work, and a decent safety net when we’re not.
“Apart from a welcome provision to allow people to try work without penalty, this is a largely destructive and misconceived set of proposals.
“It is not benefits that are keeping people out of the workforce, but inaccessible jobs and barriers from employers.
“The green paper is therefore tackling the wrong problem, and is going to drive worse outcomes by undermining what little safety net we have.
“Also, employment support needs to be delivered by disabled people themselves, not for-profit companies. As a country, we can do better than this, and we must.”
*See separate story for full details of the cuts and reforms described in the green paper
**All three feature in The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, which is published by Pluto Press
*** The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
20 March 2025
Fightback begins over £5 billion disability benefits cuts, as key questions remain over Labour plans
Disabled people are fighting back against government plans that will see more than £5 billion cut from spending on disability benefits, and which are set to push hundreds of thousands further into poverty.
The Pathways to Work green paper, published on Tuesday, left many key questions unanswered, including exactly how much the Labour government plans to cut and how many disabled people it expects to lose out.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, repeatedly refused to release these figures until next week’s spring statement, although she told MPs the cuts would top £5 billion.
There is likely to be anger at the comments of Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, who claimed (watch from 11.34) – after being asked by a Liberal Democrat MP what harm the cuts would cause – that the changes would “ensure that personal independence payment is financially sustainable in the long term… and that will reassure a very large number of people for whom PIP is vitally important”.
Kendall, Sir Stephen, and other ministers also ignored the concerns of many disabled activists about the risk of harm to those affected (see separate story), with many of those activists having fought for years to highlight the devastating consequences of similar cuts and reforms in the post-2010 austerity years.
The green paper changes will only apply to England, Scotland and Wales, while key measures on personal independence payment (PIP) will not apply to Scotland, which has responsibility for its own adult disability payment – although it will be affected by the spending cuts – and some measures on employment support will not apply to Wales.
Most of the cuts to spending appear to come from PIP, where it will be made much more difficult to receive the daily living element, with these changes to be introduced from 2026 through new legislation.
DWP claimed the cuts were necessary because of the “spiralling health and disability benefits bill”.
But the lack of any justification for the PIP cuts – at a time when NHS waiting-lists have risen sharply, social care is in crisis, the retirement age has been rising, and the pandemic has had a significant impact on long-term health – was repeatedly shown by the actions of the prime minister, Kendall and other ministers when they failed to attempt to justify the PIP cuts but turned constantly to defending cuts to out-of-work benefits instead, which they described as a “moral issue”.
There was anger and fear among disabled people who contacted Disability News Service (DNS) this week, both on social media and by email and phone.
David*, a disabled person who currently receives PIP, said: “This is an existential threat. The government is coming for us, for me, for people like me. And if we lose this fight, which it seems we will, many will die.
“Without PIP, without the benefits that keep me sustained, how am I supposed to pay the bills? How the hell am I supposed to buy food?
“How is starving us supposed to help us work, when the systems we are forced to navigate are fundamentally hostile to our participation?”
He said it was “not a policy designed to lift people up. It’s a policy designed to crush us down, to break us, to starve us, to remove us from the balance sheet.
“It is impossible to see this as anything other than eugenics by economics. If it isn’t deliberate malice, then it’s utter economic ignorance.”
Ministers also plan to scrap the work capability assessment (WCA) from 2028, and to rely instead on the PIP assessment to determine eligibility for the health element top-up within universal credit.
For new claimants, the rate of that health element will be cut from £97 per week in 2024-25 to £50 per week in 2026-27, while the health element will be frozen for existing claimants until 2029-30.
The standard allowance of universal credit will be increased, but it is not yet clear by how much this will rise above inflation.
The green paper does promise that those disabled people with “the most severe, life-long health conditions, who have no prospect of improvement and will never be able to work” will no longer be reassessed and will receive an additional premium, but there was no clue as to how much this will be and how many will receive it.
But Kendall also announced that young disabled people would not be eligible to claim the health element until they were 22, from 2027.
The government is also consulting on whether to raise the age at which young people transition from disability living allowance to PIP from 16 to 18, a move which will again cut spending.
There is also a pledge that an extra £1 billion will be spent on employment support under the Pathways to Work banner to ensure “tailored, one-to-one help alongside access to appropriate employment, health and skills support”, which will begin with an employment-focused “support conversation”.
The green paper also states that nearly every disabled person receiving the health element of universal credit will need to engage regularly with DWP “about their aspirations to work and to hear about the support available to them”, which will begin on a voluntary test basis this year.
It says this “increased level of engagement with almost everyone [will be] a key feature of the reformed system”, with “the ultimate backstop of sanctions”.
From 2028, ministers also plan to end the indefinite entitlement to contributory employment and support allowance for those with a recent work record who have been assessed as having limited capability for work-related activity.
They are consulting on how long entitlement for a new replacement benefit – unemployment insurance – should last.
Peter*, who currently receives contributory ESA and is autistic and has been unable to work for the last 16 years, said scrapping this support was “immoral”, and that the news had caused a significant deterioration in his mental health.
He said it was not yet clear how the measure would affect him but he believes that it could leave him more than £600 a month worse off.
He said: “I worked for 18 years before becoming unwell and these proposals put forward by the UK government today are not only cruel, immoral and unjustifiable, these measures need to be opposed by any means.”
The green paper also says there will be more face-to-face PIP assessments, all assessments will potentially be recorded (although there is likely to be an opt-out for those being assessed), and DWP will try to improve the quality of medical evidence provided by claimants, while the department will at some stage restart WCA reassessments.
There will also be a review of the PIP assessment.
The green paper is also consulting on the future of the Access to Work programme, although it is far from clear how each of the three “potential future approaches” would impact disabled people, although they suggest the department is considering forcing employers to take more responsibility for making workplaces accessible.
The green paper suggests – although it is not at all clear – that ministers want to cut future spending on Access to Work, which is set to increase from £142 million in 2019-20 to £385 million in 2025-26.
DWP is also consulting on “a new safeguarding approach”, but the green paper provides few details on how that might improve the department’s current approach, which has been closely linked to countless deaths of claimants over the last 15 years.
There are already serious questions being asked about the legality of the green paper – which doubles as a consultation document – with one respected advice website describing it as “entirely bogus” because it asks leading questions that assume the cuts will go ahead, and omits key information about how many disabled people will be affected.
That lack of critical information has also left many disabled people hunting for clarity online as to how the changes will affect them, with many contacting DNS and other websites and social media in significant distress.
There is also anger that some of the key proposals are not part of the consultation, and will instead be implemented by the government without consulting the public, including the plans to scrap the WCA; tighten eligibility for PIP; and cut the universal credit health element.
And there was also frustration about the delay in publishing accessible versions of the green paper.
DWP said the 12-week deadline for responding to the consultation would not be triggered until the accessible versions had been published.
The anger, fear and frustration at the cuts was highlighted by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), which said it had been “inundated” with membership requests since Kendall’s announcements, with “terrified and anxious” people wanting to join its Facebook group, and as many as 20 volunteers willing to take legal action against the government over what DPAC’s co-founder Linda Burnip described as the “absolutely appalling” and “despicable” actions of the Labour government.
On Wednesday (26 March), the day of the spring statement from chancellor Rachel Reeves, when further details of the cuts will be announced, DPAC is holding a national day of action in protest at the “pernicious” green paper.
Along with actions in other parts of the country, there will be a protest outside 10 Downing Street, followed by a lobby of MPs and a joint protest with other organisations outside parliament.
Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, urged “all disabled people and allies to join us on the streets and online” under the #WelfareNotWarfare banner.
*Not their real names
**The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
20 March 2025
Loss of key protection is ‘nightmarish’ demonstration of green paper’s bureaucratic violence, say activists
A tiny detail in the disability benefits green paper that suggests the government will scrap a key protection for claimants at extreme risk of harm is a “nightmarish” demonstration of the bureaucratic violence being inflicted on disabled people, say activists.
The grassroots, user-led mental health group Recovery in the Bin (RITB) said the move was an example of “structural bureaucratic slow violence” and “the very definition of the banality of evil”.
They spoke out after work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall said she would scrap the work capability assessment (WCA) and rely on the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment process to decide if out-of-work disabled people are entitled to extra support on top of their basic universal credit allowance.
But scrapping the WCA, which is not likely to happen until 2028, would also mean the end of the “substantial risk” regulations that have protected countless disabled people at risk of suicide and other harm if found fit for work or work-related activity.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) – and the Department of Social Security before it – has been trying to get rid of the regulations for nearly 30 years, but has twice been defeated by the courts.
But it did manage to weaken the regulations in December 2015, a move which led to far fewer people with mental distress being able to rely on their protection.
Now Kendall’s green paper – and more than £5 billion in cuts – looks set to provide a route for DWP to finally scrap the protection offered by the regulations.
It says: “We are considering how any change of this kind could affect individuals who currently meet limited capability for work and work-related activity (LCWRA) criteria due to non-functional special circumstances; for example, those affected by cancer treatment, people with short term conditions that get better, women with a high-risk pregnancy and those currently classed as having substantial risk.
“Individuals in these categories may not be eligible for PIP, and therefore the UC health element, in the reformed system.”
The question-mark over substantial risk adds to many other safeguarding concerns about the green paper, including its suggestion that nearly all disabled people will now be forced to have regular contact with a work coach, even if they are never going to be able to work.
The green paper says: “Our starting point is that most people in receipt of the health element in UC should be expected in the reformed system to, as a minimum, engage in conversations from time to time about their aspirations to work and to hear about the support available to them.”
RITB, which spotted the reference to the “substantial risk” protections, said the move to scrap them along with the WCA was “emblematic of the entire approach to this apocalyptic demolition of our social security safety net”.
An RITB spokesperson said: “People who fail the redesigned harder-to-pass PIP assessment, will now instead face conditionality and much lower income on universal credit.
“They will be harassed to find jobs, but employers will not be keen to take on very distressed people.
“The DWP know this is a cohort of people at extreme risk of harm up to and including suicide and yet they are proceeding with removing what little protection there was.
“This structural bureaucratic slow violence is the very definition of the banality of evil.
“This feels like a nightmare there is no waking up from.”
*The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
20 March 2025
MPs call for urgent action on transport discrimination, and tell industry: ‘Accessibility is a human rights issue’
Disabled campaigners have welcomed a “fabulous” and “validating” report by MPs that calls on the government and industry to “urgently” recognise that the “regularity and severity” of public transport access failures is a human rights issue.
The long-awaited report by the Commons transport committee says that access failures are “commonplace” when they should be “vanishingly rare”.
The committee says there is a “very substantial gap” between the “rights and obligations that exist in theory”, and the daily experiences of disabled people who rely on pavements, buses, taxis, trains and planes.
It concludes: “A change of mindset throughout the transport system is urgently needed, recognising that accessibility is both a non-negotiable matter of human rights and discrimination, and a health and safety issue.”
The committee’s report, published this morning (Thursday), says “meaningful involvement” by disabled people which is adequately funded and planned is “central” to addressing the problems across the transport sector.
It says the current system places far too great a burden on individual disabled people to hold individual transport operators to account for their access failures due to “opaque and ineffective” complaints processes, and the frequent need to take “costly, stressful and uncertain” legal action.
Among its recommendations is for the Department for Transport (DfT) to work with disabled people’s organisations to set up a single service that would receive all accessibility complaints and ensure they reach the right operator, authority or regulator, “and follow them up if not resolved”.
The committee also says the collection of laws and regulations around accessible transport, and the organisations that are supposed to enforce them, is too “complicated and fragmented”.
And it criticises regulators for failing to take enough formal action to reflect the “regularity and severity of access failures experienced by disabled travellers on a daily basis”, which results in “operators getting away with repeated poor practice”.
It says that accessibility “urgently needs to be recognised as an issue of human rights and protection from discrimination, not as an optional customer service matter”.
The cross-party MPs call in the report for the government to take steps to ensure that transport operators know that “every instance of not meeting accessibility obligations constitutes a serious failure, for which they will be held accountable”.
They say DfT must set out a new inclusive transport strategy within 12 months, which must be backed by a “costed, practical plan that will close the gap between rights and reality” and “concrete timescales for achieving independent accessibility across the rail network”.
But they also say that the government’s starting point “must be that accessibility has to be delivered, not that it will only be delivered if other factors do not get in the way”.
They also call for a review of transport accessibility laws, with involvement from disabled people, to see how it can be “streamlined, clarified and updated”, and for a review of regulators to assess whether a single enforcement body would be “more effective at asserting disabled people’s rights”.
The committee’s inquiry was launched more than two years ago, but its completion was delayed by the general election.
Among those disabled campaigners quoted frequently in the report is Alan Benson, who died 15 months ago.
He had told the committee in his evidence: “Journeys for me are journeys that will go wrong. I expect something to go wrong. It is just how badly it goes wrong. Does it mean I am delayed 10 minutes? Does it mean I am delayed three hours?”
Another disabled campaigner quoted often by the committee is Christiane Link, a consultant and adviser on accessibility, who welcomed the report, which she said showed that “accessibility and equality need actions beyond party politics and that it’s possible if decision makers are passionate about it”.
She told Disability News Service (DNS) yesterday (Wednesday): “Now it’s time for the current government to use the recommendations in this report to drive action.
“This report should be just the beginning of improving accessibility, especially in railway and public transport.
“Those in charge – in politics but also operations and governmental departments – should be judged by the improvements they will deliver for disabled people and everyone who relies on accessibility.
“It’s overdue. The priorities were not right for far too long.”
Emily Sullivan (née Yates), a disabled researcher in equality and human rights and co-founder of the Association of British Commuters, played a significant part in persuading the committee to launch the inquiry with campaigning through 2022 and into 2023 on key human rights issues around accessible transport.
She said: “Rail accessibility has finally been recognised as a fundamental human right, and the DfT, Office of Rail and Road, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission shamed for their years of inaction on systemic discrimination.
“The publication of the report at this time is a bold move and of immense political significance.
“For the committee to be this critical of the DfT and regulators while the Great British Railways consultation is underway presents an unmistakeable message: turn back now from the obsession with deregulation and build a proper equality and human rights framework for the railway.”
Doug Paulley, a high-profile accessible transport campaigner whose evidence was key to the report, said the publication was “fabulous”.
He said: “It is great to have an official publication that is so comprehensive, accurate and validating.
“It can be used to challenge the individualisation, gaslighting and victimisation that we disabled people experience on a daily basis when we dare to challenge discrimination on public transport.
“I’m so glad that they published it, especially after we thought the general election meant that they wouldn’t.
“The timing is really interesting too, in the middle of the Great British Railways consultation which they have openly criticised as having insufficient focus on accessibility and reneging on previous commitments.
“In the face of wholesale government assaults on disabled people’s rights to exist and basic human dignity, this report is really positive.
“There needs to be a cultural change in government such that accessibility is treated as an essential ‘must have’ throughout public transport.
“I hope that this report goes some way towards that.”
Labour’s Ruth Cadbury, who chairs the transport committee, said: “It should be a source of national embarrassment that our country’s transport services effectively treat disabled people as second-class citizens, denying them access to jobs, leisure, support networks and essential services – denying them their rights.
“This inquiry worked on the premise that people are disabled by barriers in society, not by their condition or difference, and that services should be designed to enable disabled people to travel independently, not reliant on others.”
She said that disabled people seeking redress or compensation for access failures “face a spaghetti junction of complaints processes that either fob them off or lead them on a road to nowhere.
“Even when complaints are resolved, lessons aren’t learnt, changes aren’t put in place, and it’s tempting to think that the small and occasional penalties for failure are accepted by providers as a mere cost of doing business.”
Local transport minister Simon Lightwood said in response to the report: “It’s clear that accessibility has been an afterthought in developing transport services and there is more to do to ensure everyone can travel easily and with dignity.
“That’s why we have clear ambitions for a transport network that works for all and have already worked quickly to put accessibility at the heart of our bus and rail reforms, as well as continuing work to make hundreds of train stations step-free and launched an accessible aviation expert group.
“We continue to work closely with a range of people, including disabled people, to help us develop our policies, and we will consider these recommendations carefully and respond as soon as possible.”
20 March 2025
DWP delays publication of vital PIP evidence until after green paper and spring statement
Work and pensions ministers have delayed the publication of evidence that would have explained why spending on disability benefits has been rising, just as they are announcing £5 billion in cuts to that support.
On Tuesday, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall announced a package of reforms that will cut spending on disabled people’s support by more than £5 billion a year by 2029-30, most if it apparently through cuts to personal independence payment (PIP).
She said the PIP cuts were needed so the government could “focus support on those with the greatest needs” and claimed the increase in new PIP claimants was “not sustainable long-term” (see separate stories).
But successive governments have now been hiding research for three years that provides clear explanations for the increase in PIP claimants.
And now the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has admitted that it will wait to publish the research – and a larger follow-up study – until after this week’s announcements and next week’s spring statement.
The spring statement on Wednesday is likely to reveal exactly how much the PIP cuts will save the government.
Although examining only a small sample of claimants, the DWP research showed the “main triggers” for applying for the extra costs benefit were health deterioration, financial hardship and employment concerns, with some claims triggered by a “recent decay in circumstances”.
Disability News Service (DNS) reported last month how it had obtained a copy of the report through a freedom of information request.
Three years after its completion, successive secretaries of state – Conservatives Chloe Smith and Mel Stride and Labour’s Liz Kendall – have all failed to release the report.
DWP’s decision to delay publication until after the spring statement was discovered by disabled activist Dylan Murphy, a member of the Unite Community union and Disabled People Against Cuts.
He had submitted a freedom of information request to DWP asking for a copy of the unpublished report.
But DWP told him it could not release the report, Triggers to Claiming Personal Independence Payment, because it would shortly be published.
The department told Murphy that after completing the research it had commissioned a “larger, more expansive piece of research on the same topic”, which includes a larger sample of PIP claimants and “also explores the perspectives of advisors and disabled people who have not claimed PIP”.
But it said that both Triggers to Claiming Personal Independence Payment and the follow-up report would not be published until “early April”.
When asked about the delay, DWP refused to even acknowledge the email from DNS.
It refused to explain why it was not publishing the research until after the green paper and spring statement, and refused to say whether it agreed that the decision could be seen as dishonest and lacking in transparency.
20 March 2025
MPs hear from disabled people about life-threatening risks posed by ‘very, very dangerous’ cuts to benefits
Four disabled people told MPs of the life-threatening risks that would be caused by proposed cuts to disability benefits, just a day before the government confirmed the “very, very dangerous” reforms.
About 10 MPs from Labour, the SNP, the SDLP and the Liberal Democrats attended the meeting in parliament of the Coalition Against Benefit Cuts on Monday.
They heard testimony from Alison Burton, the disabled daughter-in-law of Errol Graham, who starved to death in 2018 after his out-of-work disability benefits were removed; and from three disabled people who had each attempted to take their own lives as a result of the flawed and hostile social security system.
Burton said the government was now planning to make the system worse rather than focusing on how to stop other disabled people like Errol dying.
She said Labour had decided to strip money from the system and leave “people like Errol as collateral damage”.
And she said that, because of the failing mental health system, it was only DWP and its out-of-work disability benefits that had been keeping Errol alive.
Burton then told the meeting how her autistic daughter had developed severe anxiety after the death of her grandfather, and it was only through the support funded by personal independence payment (PIP) that she was able to leave the house and attend university.
She said: “You take that away, you take the existence of my child away. That’s the reality of it. And that’s what they did to Errol.”
Her son, who is also autistic and has ADHD, has been accepted on a business course because of the support his school was able to offer him.
She said this was “what support does”, but the government wants instead “to talk about disabled people like we are a burden on society, or we are just sucking the system dry”.
David Rollins, who tried to take his own life in his local jobcentre two years ago because of the imminent reassessment of both of his disability benefits, told the meeting that he would attempt to take his own life again if the government’s proposals looked as though they would leave him in debt.
He has multiple impairments and advocates for many other disabled people on benefits, and has had multiple phone calls and messages about Labour’s planned cuts, and “had to try to reassure people, when I personally don’t feel reassured, which is difficult”.
Two of those people told him they would take their own lives if the cuts were implemented, he said.
He added: “If this goes the way that it looks like it’s going to go, and they don’t U-turn, then potentially I could be forced into that situation.”
Osmond James described how he had tried to end his own life because of financial problems after being repeatedly turned down for PIP, which left him having to decide between paying his bills or buying some food.
He was only able to receive PIP for the first time because it was “facilitated” by the consultants in intensive care after his suicide attempt.
He said the government’s planned cuts were “draconian” and seemed like “Tory-lite” policies, so it was now necessary to “play on the consciences of the powers that be” and show that “a big contribution can made by people on benefits”.
Andy Mitchell told the meeting how he attempted to take his own life after his benefits were unfairly sanctioned and he ran out of money over Christmas and had a breakdown, and how he subsequently developed long-term health conditions he still lives with today.
He said the government’s proposals (see separate stories) would put more disabled benefit claimants at the mercy of the DWP sanctions and conditionality regime.
He said the government’s proposals “show no respect to disabled people and are completely undignified, especially from a party that claims to care about equality and fairness”, and they had left disabled people “so frightened they’re talking about suicide”.
A message was also read out from Gill Thompson, whose brother David Clapson, who had type one diabetes, died in July 2013 from diabetic ketoacidosis after being left destitute when his benefits were sanctioned, despite repeatedly trying to find work.
She said in her statement: “His money had been stopped just two weeks before he died for failing to attend an appointment.
“He was not aware of this until going to the bank to draw money out, and by the 8th of July he had just £3.44 in his bank.
“There was no food in the flat, his electric key had run out, and he could not chill his insulin.
“The temperature at that time was in the 30s.”
She added: “David missed one or two appointments, and for that he was sanctioned and died.
“If he’d been a criminal, he would have had a trial, a judge and a jury and a proper defence. He had none.”
Ellen Clifford, coordinator of the coalition of disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) monitoring the implementation of the UN disability convention in the UK, told the meeting that work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall was wrong when she kept saying that disabled people who have been found “unfit for work” are then prevented from working.
She was in that group herself and tried to work whenever she could around the severe and enduring mental distress and suicidal ideation she lives with.
She said: “What I find holds me back are constant reassessments and systems that the DWP have, which are not set up to be consistent with someone trying to work.”
When her monthly income reaches a certain level her council tax support stops, which means she is “constantly reapplying every few months, which is sometimes just too much for me to be able to do as well as trying to work, so I end up out of money”.
She said: “I just wonder why they can’t sort out those systems to begin with, before taking these very, very dangerous steps.
“And I do believe that we can fight against this, because I know what we can achieve when we come together.”
Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) will be holding a national day of action to protest against the cuts on Wednesday (26 March), the day of the spring statement, with a London event starting outside Downing Street, followed by a lobby of MPs and a joint protest with other organisations outside parliament.
In addition to several DPAC representatives at Monday’s meeting, there were representatives from other DPOs, including Inclusion London, Disability Rights UK, WinVisible and The Alliance for Inclusive Education.
There were also members of the user-led Commission on Social Security, which will be releasing its proposals for replacing PIP at the end of April, and a representative of the London Unemployed Strategies (LUS) project, which was set up by trade unions and unemployed people.
Among the MPs who attended, some briefly to show support and some for most or all of the meeting, were Labour MPs Steve Witherden, Rachael Maskell, Andy McDonald, Mary Kelly Foy and Imran Hussain, and Labour peer Baroness Lister, the SNP’s Kirsty Blackman, former Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron, the SDLP’s Claire Hanna, and suspended Labour MP John McDonnell, who hosted the meeting.
Others who sent staff to attend the meeting included disabled parliamentarians Steve Darling, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson, and Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson.
Two Northern Ireland MPs, the Alliance’s Sorcha Eastwood and Ulster Unionist Robin Swann, are arranging meetings with DPAC Northern Ireland, while Labour’s Richard Burgon, who has been supportive of the disabled people’s anti-cuts movement, sent his apologies for not being able to attend.
Blackman said the government’s proposals were “horrific” and there were “a significant number of us that will stand with you and do everything that we can to try and ensure that this doesn’t happen”.
She told the meeting that she had previously said she “would rather that there were people that did not deserve to get social security and got it then there was one person who deserves it that didn’t get it”.
Witherden said he had found the personal testimonies “very moving and very upsetting”.
Foy, whose late daughter was disabled, and who also has a disabled son who receives universal credit that allows him to be “in and out of work”, said she had written to chancellor Rachel Reeves to express her concerns about the government’s proposals.
She said: “It doesn’t have to be an economical contribution to society to mean that you have a place in this society.”
McDonnell said they needed to give people “hope” and to show that “we can win on this, that we can turn it around, that no matter how challenging it is tomorrow, we’re going to mobilize, and it doesn’t matter what government there is, we’re going to turn it round, and they won’t be able to sustain their position if we mobilize effectively enough”.
Paula Peters, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, who chaired the meeting, said: “What they’re planning is indefensible and it’s unfair, but this is a message to Keir Starmer: disabled people have the balls to take you on.
“And we will… so let us mobilise, let us resist, and let’s take this government on and fight them back. Come on, we can do it!”
There was also a significant presence of senior union figures, showing solidarity with disabled people as part of the broad Coalition Against Benefit Cuts, including the National Union of Journalists’ president, Natasha Hirst, herself a disabled activist; Ian Hodson, president of the bakers’ union BFAWU; Ian Pope, DWP group vice-president of the PCS union; and a representative of Unite.
Hirst said disabled people “should be able to access the social security system that they’re entitled to when they need that support without being overwhelmed with bureaucracy, hostility, and in fear of punishment every time they come into contact with the state and with DWP”.
She said she had experienced herself the “difficulties, the humiliation and the fear of having to apply for benefits, to go through assessments… and having no warning that they were being pulled, and then having to scrabble and go through all of that stress that so many other disabled people have also gone through.”
Hodson said the proposed cuts were not “an issue for disabled people to fight alone” and it was the “duty of the trade union and labour movement” to support them and to “fight back against a Labour Party, a Labour Party, that’s using the language, the toxic language, of our enemies”.
He said the government’s proposals would be “stealing another five to six billion from the working class to balance the budget on the back of the poorest in our society”.
Pope said the government was “trying to pit worker against benefit claimant”.
He said PCS had been “at the forefront for as far as long as I can remember of fighting back against attacks on benefits and benefit claimants” and would “work with anybody to get where we want, for benefit claimants to be rightfully treated with dignity, respect, and fairness, and not as skivers and shirkers and demonised”.
*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, including those of Errol Graham and David Clapson, is published by Pluto Press
**The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article: Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide
20 March 2025
Activists will protest over government’s refusal to engage with ‘deep-rooted’ mental health bill concerns
Disabled activists are to hold a day of action in Westminster – and online – next month in protest at the government’s refusal to engage with the “deep-rooted concerns” of autistic people and people with learning difficulties about the mental health bill.
They plan to march on the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) to hand in a letter asking for a meeting with a minister to discuss the bill’s flaws.
They say the mental health bill – which is currently approaching the end of its passage through the House of Lords, before moving to the Commons – will not prevent autistic people and people with learning difficulties from being locked up in mental health hospitals just because they are disabled.
The day of action on 29 April is being organised by the Bring People Home from Hospital campaign, supported by Inclusion London.
Among the disabled people’s groups and organisations that are part of the campaign are Free Our People Now – backed by Inclusion London – All Wales People First; People First (Scotland); My Life My Choice; First Do No Harm; the National Autistic Taskforce; and People First (Self-Advocacy).
Free Our People Now (FOPN) was among the user-led campaign groups that gave evidence about the bill last week at a roundtable session organised by the parliamentary joint committee on human rights, which is carrying out scrutiny of the bill to “assess its compatibility with international and domestic human rights standards”.
FOPN says there has been a “lack of engagement” with people with learning difficulties and autistic people from the government, including those working on the mental health bill within DHSC.
Simone Aspis, founder of FOPN, which is led by people with learning difficulties and autistic people, said there was “no evidence whatsoever” of government engagement.
Without that engagement, she said, the bill would not “move people out of hospitals and into their own homes”, and it would not guarantee people “decent lives”.
It would also fail to address concerns about the bill’s failure to protect people from being abused in the psychiatric system, she said.
Concerns about the bill were also raised by FOPN in written evidence to the committee.
A key concern is that the bill does not stop autistic people and people with learning difficulties from being locked up because of non-criminal behaviour, which FOPN says is a breach of article 12 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
FOPN’s written evidence to the committee also raises concerns that the bill will fail to protect autistic people and people with learning difficulties from discrimination if they are also people of colour, women, from LGBT+ communities, or from other marginalised communities.
And it says the bill will not stop them being locked up without doing anything wrong, without a court case and without their agreement.
FOPN told the committee that one autistic person had said: “I was detained under the mental health act for almost three-and-a-half years.
“I spent time in various psychiatric hospitals and an assessment and treatment unit.
“The reason I was there was because I am autistic and other people, who were not experts in autism, decided I should not be allowed to leave.”
FOPN says the government has ignored criticisms of the UK made by the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities in 2017 on these and other concerns, including the use of force on people in detention, and policies to stop abuse and other inhumane and degrading treatment.
FOPN says in its written evidence that everyone “should have the same right to freedom”, and the bill will not guarantee this.
The bill’s report stage in the Lords is due to begin on 31 March, with the bill set to be debated in the Commons soon after the Easter break.
But Aspis said: “As far as I am concerned, it is never too late for the government to realise if they really want to improve the mental health bill, they need to engage with our communities.
“That should have been done from the beginning.”
The Department of Health and Social Care had not responded by noon today (Thursday) to the concerns about its lack of engagement on the bill.
20 March 2025
DWP issues second dodgy press release in attempt to trick media into supporting cuts to disability benefits
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has issued a second misleading press release in consecutive weeks as it tries to trick the mainstream media into supporting its controversial cuts to disability benefits.
This time, work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall included at least four misleading statements in her short press release, which was headed “Almost two million people on Universal Credit not supported to look for work”.
The press release was published five days before Kendall launched her reforms of the disability benefits system (see separate stories).
DWP stated that the number of disabled people on universal credit who were “too sick to look for work” had risen by 383 per cent since the start of the pandemic, from 363,000 to 1.8 million.
But it only managed to reach that striking calculation by ignoring those who had been found not fit for work and were still receiving employment and support allowance (ESA) in 2019-20 (of which there were nearly two million).
The only reference to ESA was in a “further information” note at the bottom of the press release, which admitted that an increase “was anticipated for reasons including people moving from legacy benefits [which include ESA] onto Universal Credit”.
The press release also claimed there were only two choices in the current “dysfunctional” system: “fit for work” or “not fit for work”.
This is not true. There is a third group for those said to have limited capability for work, who have to take part in work-related activity because they are expected to be capable of work in the future.
A third misleading statement in the press release was that disabled people found not fit for work on universal credit “get locked out of help and support”.
Again, this is not true, as they can ask DWP to provide support, including through the Access to Work scheme.
The department’s fourth misleading statement came as it claimed – again in a footnote – that 70 per cent of the increase in the number of disabled people receiving the health element of universal credit and ESA in the past five years “was not expected by the Department”.
But it failed to mention the impact of the pandemic, with research by the respected Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) – published the previous day – finding that “mental health has worsened since the pandemic”, which was “consistent with rising disability benefit claims for mental health”.
The IFS report found that “deaths of despair” – those attributed to alcohol, drugs and suicide – rose by 24 per cent in England and Wales in 2023, compared with the 2015-19 pre-pandemic average.
DWP refused to answer questions about the press release this week, including why Kendall believed she needed to send out misleading press releases to defend her case for the cuts, and whether she would apologise for the misleading statements and untruths.
DWP had also refused to comment last week when it was criticised for an earlier misleading release.
DWP claimed in that press release that there had been a “staggering 319 per cent increase” in the number of working-age people on the health and disability element of universal credit or receiving employment and support allowance.
The department said this showed the “alarming rate at which young and working aged people are increasingly falling out of work and claiming incapacity benefits”.
But although there had been an increase – most likely caused by the impact of growing NHS waiting-lists and the Covid pandemic, among other factors – it was likely to be about 30 to 35 per cent, if comparing 2019-20 with 2023-24.
The 319 per cent figure was quietly removed from the press release last week after DNS questioned its accuracy, but DWP failed to add a note to the website to show that the press release had been corrected, and it refused three times to respond to requests to comment on its use of the exaggerated figure.
20 March 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
A furious row has broken out after a Labour MP serving on the assisted dying bill committee was forced to leave because her hearing aid batteries had run flat. Bradford West MP Naz Shah posted on X (formerly Twitter) last night to express her frustration because the committee session had been extended, despite her warning that her hearing aids would need recharging: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/assisted-dying-bill-hearing-aid-naz-shah-b2717728.html
Scores of Labour MPs have voiced significant doubts about the government’s social security changes in a tense meeting with the work and pensions secretary. About 100 MPs attended a private meeting in parliament with Liz Kendall and the social security and disability minister, Sir Stephen Timms. MPs said there were grave concerns in the room about the huge hit to incomes that the changes would mean: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/19/scores-of-labour-mps-raise-concerns-over-welfare-changes
Parents will need to “think very differently” about government funding for children with special educational needs, the education secretary has said, as school leaders say the current system is on the brink of collapse. Speaking to the Association of School and College Leaders annual conference, Bridget Phillipson said the 2014 Children and Families Act needed to be changed to reform the current system in England that was driving local authorities towards insolvency: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/mar/14/different-thinking-needed-send-funding-bridget-phillipson-says
The amount of time lifts on the London Underground have been closed due to lack of staff has almost doubled in the last year, new figures reveal. Lifts were out of action for 6,197 hours in 2024 compared with 3,301 hours in 2023 and 2,480 in 2022, a freedom of information request by the Liberal Democrats shows: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cpdep9ld5qpo
20 March 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
