Requiring authorities to set out the proportion of new housing that should be delivered to M4(2) and M4(3) standards of the Building Regulations, to ensure plans adequately provide for the accessibility needs of an ageing population and the needs of disabled people. Authorities would be required to meet or exceed their locally assessed need for M4(2) housing.

The government is proposing a national minimum that ensures at least 40% of new housing over the course of the plan period is delivered to M4(2) standards, formalising best practice and increasing provision in areas without clear requirements. This doesn’t mean that they need to meet wheelchair accessible standards and is not enough. We would be asking for at least 10% of any new buil homes meet accessible wheelchair standards.

As many of you will already know there is a threat to remove freedom passes from older and disabled Londoners. We are asking people who use a freedom pass to write to London council’s chair Claire Holland (who incidentally was awarded an OBE in the New Year Honours list) to tell her why this pass is essential to you and your well being.

She’s also leader of Lambeth Council

The London councils’ executive is made up of 32 boroughs and the Corporation of London each councillor leader sits on this committee.

If people want to email

the email address info@freedompass.org

or you can write to -: London councils

Address is 4th floor 12 Arthur Street London EC4R 9AB

Address this to the chair

There is also a petition to sign  https://www.change.org/p/stop-restricting-freedom-pass-travel-in-london?utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=mobileNativeShare&utm_campaign=share_petition&recruited_by_id=4d4831f0-ed7c-11f0-8153-2502a43c5134

Contents

DWP refuses to say who will lose out in £2 billion cuts to disability benefits, six weeks after budget. 1

Support from across UK for CEO who turned down MBE over government ‘demonisation’ of disabled people  2

New Mental Health Act ‘offers no solution’ to abuse, exclusion and racism in mental health system.. 4

Consultation on electric wheelchairs, scooters and powered attachments could see end to legal confusion   7

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week. 9

DWP refuses to say who will lose out in £2 billion cuts to disability benefits, six weeks after budget

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is refusing to explain which disabled people it expects to lose out from nearly £2 billion in new cuts to disability benefits, six weeks after the “savings” were quietly revealed in budget documents.

Despite requests for clarity from both Disability News Service (DNS) and the Liberal Democrats, ministers have rejected repeated opportunities to say exactly where the £1.95 billion cuts will fall.

Treasury documents, published on the day of the budget, showed that ministers will cut £85 million in 2026-27, £310 million in 2027-28, £520 million in 2028-29, £580 million in 2029-30 and £455 million in 2030-31, from spending on disability benefits.

The documents show the changes, to be introduced from April, are linked to plans to increase DWP’s “capacity” to reassess claimants of out-of-work disability benefits through the work capability assessment (WCA), increase the number of face-to-face benefit assessments, and extend personal independence payment (PIP) “award reviews periods”.

Although DWP has now apologised for its initial incorrect response to questions from DNS about the cuts, it still refuses to say which disabled people will lose out, how many will be affected, and by how much.

It originally claimed the cuts would be delivered through measures such as “tightening eligibility for overseas pension accrual” and “reforming Motability”, as well as “reducing duplication in benefit administration”.

But it has now admitted that it “made a mistake” and has apologised to DNS – apparently for mistakenly referring to pensions and the Motability cuts, which were separate budget measures not included in the £1.95 billion.

Despite the apology, DWP is still refusing to explain exactly where the cuts will come, and how they will be split between those receiving PIP and recipients of out-of-work disability benefits.

Instead, a DWP press release issued last month provides some further detail of the reassessment, face-to-face assessment and award review measures, while failing to provide any figures to show how many disabled people will lose out, which benefit groups they belong to, and how much they will lose.

DWP said in the press release that the proportion of face-to-face assessments for PIP would increase from six per cent in 2024 to 30 per cent of all assessments, while face-to-face WCAs would increase from 13 per cent of assessments in 2024 to 30 per cent, which DWP says will produce “savings”.

Delaying award reviews for PIP could also lead to further savings, DWP has told DNS, as will increasing repeat WCAs.

As a result of the changes, most PIP claimants aged 25 and over will not have their award reviewed for at least three years after a new claim, and then for a further five years at their next review if they “remain entitled”.

PIP claimants will still be able to request a review themselves if they tell DWP about a change in their circumstances, while DWP could trigger an earlier review if it receives information suggesting there has been a relevant change.

6 January 2026

Support from across UK for CEO who turned down MBE over government ‘demonisation’ of disabled people

Disabled people across the country have backed the chief executive of a disability organisation after she turned down an MBE because of how successive governments have “demonised, dehumanised and scapegoated” disabled people.

Tressa Burke, founding chief executive of the disabled people’s organisation Glasgow Disability Alliance (GDA), received a letter from the UK government on the day of the budget, 26 November, telling her she would be awarded an MBE in the new year honours for services to disabled people.

But in her response to that letter – released on social media on 30 December – she said she could not accept such a “personal honour” at a time when disabled people were being “so dishonoured”.

Burke told Disability News Service (DNS) this week that she had been left in tears and “blown away” by the reaction to her decision to turn down the MBE from disabled people across the UK, both in emails and on social media.

She said this response had shown her that rejecting her MBE had left other disabled people – and disabled people’s organisations – “feeling heard”.

In her letter to the government, Burke highlighted “unfair, inadequate and inaccessible work”, “barriers to securing work”, inadequate benefit levels, and rising disability-related costs.

She said the “political choices” made in November’s budget had “supercharged the inequalities and unfairness disabled people face” while the budget was “another missed opportunity to make real changes which would have improved disabled people’s lives”.

Burke pointed to the “horrendous impacts” of 15 years of austerity, the Covid pandemic, and the cost-of-living crisis.

And she said GDA had lost hundreds of its members since the start of the pandemic, some of them by suicide, with some of these deaths caused by policy failures in poverty, housing, and social care.

Among the UK government’s planned changes to social security, she highlighted increased face-to-face assessments for personal independence payment, the halving and freezing of the health element of universal credit for most new claimants from April, and “unfair and unjust” changes to Motability, including tax changes that will add hundreds of pounds to upfront payments to cars leased through the scheme.

Burke said in her letter that the budget lacked commitments on social care, accessible housing and transport, education and wheelchair services, omissions which would “deepen existing inequalities and leave disabled people facing exclusion, isolation, homelessness and unsafe care levels”.

She said she had been forced to decline the MBE because of the lack of progress in addressing injustice and inequality and the impact of the budget which had left disabled people feeling “criticised, condemned and brutalised”.

In response to the letter, there was a flood of support praising her “profound act of leadership” and “courage and grit”.

Burke told DNS that she had been “completely taken aback” by the support from disabled people and allies across the country.

One disabled person told her that rejecting the MBE was “absolutely the right thing to do” at such a “terrible time” when there was a “government that has done so much not just to dishonour disabled people but to whip up anger against us and remove essential support on which so many depend”.

Another said it was “no time for medals and honours while disabled people are experiencing one of the worst attack on their existence and quality of life that I’ve seen in my lifetime”, while another said: “I’m writing to congratulate Tressa on her refusal to accept an honour from the UK government which continues to do all it can to make the lives of those with long term health issues and disabilities as difficult and miserable as possible.”

Another disabled person said: “I wanted to express my deep gratitude and respect.

“I’m a disabled person and it’s so nice to see someone being honest about the situation, bringing more awareness about the reality of our lives, and sticking up for what is right.

“It gives me hope.”

Others praised her “moral stance” and “rare and inspiring” integrity, and for sending “a strong message to Westminster and also to all people experiencing the impact of the punitive measures”.

Another said: “Disabled people face a maelstrom of negative media coverage, discrimination and downright hate and you and GDA members have been at the forefront of telling disabled people’s truth to those in power.

“So sincere respect Tressa and solidarity with your statement.”

And an autistic campaigner told Burke through the social media network LinkedIn: “The national narratives on so called over diagnosis, cuts to PIP, changes to Access To Work are chilling.

“I find it triggering and am in the 30 per cent who are… lucky enough to have paid work.

“Unless you live this I don’t think anyone gets how incredibly challenging 2025 was for us.”

6 January 2026

New Mental Health Act ‘offers no solution’ to abuse, exclusion and racism in mental health system

Controversial government legislation that has now become law provides no solution to the culture of abuse, neglect and exclusion within the mental health system, or its continued structural racism, say disabled campaigners.

The mental health bill received royal assent on 18 December and has now become the Mental Health Act 2025, despite continuing “crucial” concerns over its failure to ensure full human rights for disabled people.

It reforms the Mental Health Act 1983, which provided the legal framework to detain and treat people in a mental health crisis who are at risk of harm to themselves or others.

Despite being welcomed by ministers and others associated with its lengthy passage through parliament, parts of the legislation have been repeatedly criticised by disabled campaigners.

There have particularly been concerns that the legislation will not stop many disabled people being subjected to forcible detention and degrading treatment.

There have also been protests by autistic people and people with learning difficulties, who believe it will not do enough to keep them out of mental health hospitals, or protect them from badly-run hospital services that have led to cruelty, abuse, and even deaths.

Among those raising concerns was the user-led, rights-based organisation Liberation, which is run by people with mental health diagnoses.

It has highlighted concerns that the legislation has ignored, dismissed and misrepresented calls for “full human rights” for people experiencing acute mental distress or trauma, and autistic people and those with learning difficulties.

In July, following Liberation’s intervention, the UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities wrote to the UK government to express its concerns that the legislation would breach the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

The committee feared the bill would continue to allow disabled people to be detained in hospital on the basis of their mental health impairment; raised concerns about the provision of mental health services and whether they are based on “free and informed consent”; and questioned whether disabled people and their organisations had been “closely consulted and actively involved” in drafting the legislation.

Although the act will eventually halt the practice of autistic people or those with a learning difficulty being detained for treatment under the act without any associated mental ill-health, concerns were raised by disabled Labour MP Jen Craft last October that this measure will only be implemented when there is sufficient support available in the community.

Campaigners also pointed out this week that the act will still allow many people with learning difficulties and autistic people who are caught in the criminal justice system to be detained in the mental health system, both for assessment and for treatment.

The act is based on draft legislation drawn up by the last Conservative government, and it passed almost unnoticed by the mainstream media through the Lords and the Commons, despite significant concerns raised by disabled campaigners and allies.

Amy Wells, head of communications and membership for National Survivor User Network, told Disability News Service (DNS) this week: “The process of reforming the Mental Health Act did not involve meaningful opportunities for challenge and change by people with lived experience and their organisations, which may have helped push it further towards truly rights-based care.

“While some of the reforms – such as improving access to advocacy and the processes around advance choice documents and the nominated person model – may improve some aspects of the experience of detention, they all rely on significant funding and implementation plans that are not yet in place.

“We share concerns that taking autistic people and people with learning difficulties out of the scope of the act will not necessarily decrease the number of detentions or improve the conditions of detention – instead, it may mean that disabled people are subject to detention under the Mental Capacity Act, or in assessment and treatment units, with fewer safeguards.

“Overall, we do not believe that the reforms offer a solution to the cultures of abuse, neglect, and exclusion, or the structural racism in the mental health system as a whole.

“We are left with a crucial concern around the absence of choice and agency for people experiencing distress, including a lack of alternative forms of crisis care that do not require detention under the act.”

Announcing that the bill had become law, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting said: “The new Mental Health Act will transform lives by putting patients back in control of their care, tackling the unacceptable disparities that have seen black people detained at disproportionately high rates, and giving NHS staff the tools to deliver care that truly helps people recover.

“This delivers on our manifesto commitment to finally bring mental health care into the 21st century.

“After years of neglect, we are rebuilding a mental health system to treat people with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

The government says the act will provide “stronger rights and greater control” for “patients” over their treatment through new statutory care and treatment plans; more involvement for carers in decisions around treatment; and address racial disparities in treatment through clearer guidance for mental health professionals.

It says the act will also strengthen the rights of children and young people to “make their wishes and feelings more central to decision making”; and ensure courts can no longer detain someone in prison as a place of safety while they wait for a hospital bed for treatment or assessment under the Mental Health Act.

But Dorothy Gould, founder of Liberation, told DNS: “Wes Streeting’s justification of the Mental Health Act 2025 is full of holes.

“He misleadingly states that the act will put ‘patients back in control of their care’ whilst also speaking of ‘patients’ having ‘stronger rights and greater control’. The two are not the same.

“The reality is that children and young people, adults and older people made subject to the act will continue to have fewer human rights than other citizens and that even its alleged ‘improvements’ have concerning flaws.

“The act completely fails to address the serious human rights concerns raised by the UNCRPD committee.

“So, far from bringing ‘mental health care into the 21st century’, the act flies in the teeth of these concerns and does so despite Liberation supplying the government with clear evidence (PDF) that there is not even an adequate research basis for maintaining involuntary hospitalisation and forced treatment.

“Equally shamefully, the act itself does nothing to address major racial disparities, let alone other forms of intersectional discrimination, but instead relegates these to forthcoming ‘clearer guidance’.”

6 January 2026

Consultation on electric wheelchairs, scooters and powered attachments could see end to legal confusion

A new consultation on outdated laws covering the use of powered mobility devices on public roads and pavements could lead to greater independence for disabled people across Britain and an end to legal confusion, say campaigners.

The consultation, launched by the government this morning (Tuesday), suggests options for updating legislation on the use of devices such as powered wheelchairs and mobility scooters that dates as far back as the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970.

The consultation, which applies to England, Scotland and Wales, follows a “rapid review” that has been taking place over the last few months and has involved disability groups and the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee (DPTAC).

The Department for Transport (DfT) says that powered mobility devices “are often a lifeline for people, offering freedom and independence”, but that some aspects of the law are now out of date, and “do not reflect the devices disabled people, and people with reduced mobility, need or want to use”.

DfT says that any reforms should allow people who need a mobility device to use it legally; lead to greater choice of devices; and enable people to feel and be safe when using roads and pavements.

Among the changes proposed is to scrap the use of the term “invalid carriage” in legislation and replace it with “mobility device”.

The consultation also seeks views on which types of mobility device should be able to use cycle lanes on roads and off-road cycle tracks; if weight, speed and minimum age limits for different classes of powered mobility devices should be altered; and whether disabled people should be allowed to carry passengers on their devices in certain circumstances.

But it will also examine whether wheelchairs with devices such as power, hand cycle or hand e-cycle attachments should be recognised as powered mobility devices under the legislation for use on roads and pavements.

And it will look at whether pedal cycles, e-scooters and e-cycles should be recognised as mobility devices and treated differently when used on pavements and in public spaces by a disabled person.

The Department for Transport announced last summer that it would review the law on powered mobility devices.

Simon Lightwood, the minister for roads and buses, said the consultation was “the first step to delivering on that commitment as we seek views on the potential changes to legislation” and that it was “clear the legislation in its current form does not account for the modern mobility devices people need or want to use”.

The consultation follows years of lobbying and campaigning by the disabled people’s organisation Wheels for Wellbeing (WfW), including “intense work” after the confiscation of Israel Vidal’s wheelchair by the Metropolitan police last May.

He was left without his wheelchair for 19 days because police officers objected to him using a “not in class” powered wheelchair attachment at walking-speed, and impounded both his manual wheelchair and the clip-on powered attachment, treating them as an uninsured motor vehicle.

The law currently says such attachments can only be used legally on roads if they have an MOT certificate, insurance and licence plate, and the user has the appropriate driving licence.

Isabelle Clement, director of WfW, said: “We are delighted to see the Department for Transport consulting on modernising laws on ‘powered mobility devices’.

“Over 10 million people in the UK have mobility-related impairments and existing laws create confusion, restrict market innovation and limit disabled people’s freedom to travel.

“New high-quality regulations that meet disabled people’s needs will enable millions more disabled people to legally use a growing range of existing and innovative safe, convenient, cost-effective, low-carbon mobility devices to move around our communities.”

She said reform “has the potential to improve the independence, physical and mental health, employment, educational and social options of disabled individuals and our families” across Britain.

Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, said: “We are determined to break down barriers to opportunity for disabled people and improving access to assistive technology, as well as making sure that the laws around its use are up to date, is essential to this.

“I encourage disabled people to respond to the Department for Transport’s consultation so their views and voices are used to shape this policy.”

Nick Goldup, chief executive of the Wheelchair Alliance, whose board members include wheelchair-users – including its president, Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson – and representatives of charities and service-providers, said: “The Wheelchair Alliance wholeheartedly welcomes this government review of powered wheelchair legislation.

“For too long, wheelchair-users have been sidelined by outdated legislation and offensive terminology.

“Many individuals using wheelchairs over 150 kg have been left feeling anxious and worried about breaking the law.

“Having worked closely with Simon Lightwood MP for over a year, we are beyond proud that our campaigning has secured this commitment to change.

“We will continue to amplify the voices of our community to ensure this review delivers a fairer, more inclusive future for all.”

The consultation will run for 12 weeks and closes on 31 March.

6 January 2026

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

People are dying in unsafe accommodation and communities are being irreversibly damaged, due to delays to a new law to clamp down on unregulated supported housing in England. It has been more than two years since the Supported Housing Act, a private member’s bill brought by the Conservative MP Bob Blackman that applies to England and Wales, was given royal assent but it has yet to be implemented due to delays in creating the regulations: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/dec/28/vulnerable-people-still-living-in-unsafe-supported-housing-in-england-two-years-after-law-was-passed

A council in west London has apologised after failing to provide adequate support for a Deaf man receiving social care who required British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters. Hammersmith and Fulham also agreed to pay the man’s granddaughter £450 and “review its processes” on BSL interpreters. The Local Government Ombudsman found several faults with the service provided by the council, including that staff at a care home were not trained in BSL, contrary to the man’s care requirements: http://bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2ez7zn78eo

6 January 2026

Contents

Budget’s Motability taxes ‘are devastating, punitive and baffling’ and will add hundreds to upfront payments  1

Tory government failed to protect disabled people in early months of pandemic, inquiry concludes. 4

DWP failure to provide up-to-date figures on Access to Work cuts is ‘major warning sign’, say campaigners  7

Inquiry report shows ‘horrific’ Covid death toll among disabled people was not inevitable, say DPOs. 9

Disabled peers call on Lords to increase protection from coercion in assisted suicide bill 11

UK government failed on accessible information in early months of pandemic, says Covid inquiry. 15

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week. 17

Budget’s Motability taxes ‘are devastating, punitive and baffling’ and will add hundreds to upfront payments

“Devastating” and “punitive” tax changes to the Motability scheme that will add hundreds of pounds to upfront payments to lease cars are “baffling” and “unjust” and threaten to “lock disabled people out of daily life”, say campaigners.

They spoke out after chancellor Rachel Reeves yesterday (Wednesday) announced in the budget that she was imposing VAT at 20 per cent on most advance payments for cars leased through the scheme, and removing the current 12 per cent insurance premium tax exemption.

Only vehicles with substantial adaptations for wheelchair- and stretcher-users will be exempt from the new taxes, which will be imposed on new leases from next July.

The taxes on disabled people are expected to bring in £355 million a year by 2030-31, with the budget document saying the previous “generous tax breaks” had been “subsidising provision beyond the scheme’s core objectives, such as the lease of luxury cars”.

Only 41 models are currently available without an advance payment, a tiny proportion of the 847 cars the scheme offers.

Motability Operations, the company that runs the scheme, said the tax changes would mean the scheme “will become more expensive for disabled people” and that the average advance payment was likely to increase by about £400.

The models that will remain available to lease through the scheme without an advance payment are unlikely to come with the extras that ensure the vehicles are accessible to many disabled people, disabled campaigners warned yesterday.

Motability will also remove overseas breakdown cover from the scheme and lower the mileage limit on its leases, and it said it was creating a new “special investigations unit”, even though the rate of “misuse” had remained stable, following a “growth in customer numbers”.

The Treasury’s budget costings document admits that the new taxes will mean that some disabled people “may reduce their expenditure on a vehicle lease or withdraw from the scheme entirely”.

Reeves attempted to justify the policy by claiming the scheme was set up “to protect the most vulnerable”, even though – according to Motability figures – one in five disabled people on the scheme say their vehicle improved their job opportunities, allowing them to work two more days a week on average.

The scheme allows disabled people to access work, healthcare, education and training, says Motability Operations.

The chancellor’s announcement came only 24 hours after the government pressured the company to announce that it was removing all its “premium” brands” – such as BMW, Jaguar and Mercedes – from the scheme.

The changes have already caused real anger among disabled people’s organisations and other disabled people.

Disability Rights UK said the “punitive” changes to the scheme were “baffling” and “unjust”.

It said: “They are yet more government actions that place the burden and blame on disabled people instead of taking responsibility for inaccessible public transport and workplaces that they have the power to change.

“And why go after Motability now? Is it a fiscal decision, or are they simply taking their ideas from the right-wing press, who have concocted a scandal out of thin air?”

Transport for All said it would fight the changes Reeves has announced.

It pointed out that disabled people faced significant barriers to accessing public transport, which meant many of them needed to lease a car, and the new taxes threatened “to lock disabled people out of daily life, by preventing us from having a vehicle”.

Emma Vogelmann, co-chief executive of Transport for All, said: “Today’s budget is a cost-cutting exercise at the expense of disabled people, who are already facing sharp cost-of-living increases.

“Our community will continue to resist, until every disabled person can access a vehicle that best meets their requirements, and disabled people can travel easily and confidently.”

Caroline Collier, from Inclusion Barnet’s Campaign for Disability Justice, said: “The fact that the chancellor has not returned for any more social security benefit cuts (beyond the cuts to universal credit already legislated for next April) is a testament to the success of the campaign by the disabled people’s movement and allies to block the projected cuts to personal independence payment.

“This makes it all the more dismaying and unacceptable that the government in this budget has decided to go after Motability.

“Given that these are measures that will clearly reduce mobility for many disabled people, it seems that this is all about appeasement of a hostile press campaign rather than responsible policy-making.”

Motability Operations also announced this week that it planned to ensure that, by 2035, half of all vehicles leased through the scheme have been built in the UK, compared with seven per cent currently.

This would mean an increase from 22,000 to 150,000 vehicles a year, which will include vehicles built abroad but converted into wheelchair-accessible vehicles in the UK.

Meanwhile, Treasury documents show that, from next April, the government will increase the “capacity” of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to carry out reassessments of disabled people’s capacity for work through the work capability assessment (WCA).

DWP will also carry out more face-to-face assessments, which have been drastically cut back since the early weeks of the pandemic, both through WCAs and assessments of eligibility for personal independence payment (PIP).

And the Treasury’s budget costings document says DWP will be “changing the frequency” of reviews of PIP awards, allowing the department to “complete award reviews on time, reducing the number of people who are called to a PIP assessment when their function has not changed, and allowing providers to redirect resource to WCA re-assessments”.

The budget document describes this measure as “extending Personal Independence Payment award reviews periods”.

The budget costings document says these changes will “ensure people receive the right health or disability benefit and the system is sustainable”.

The changes will save the government £85 million next year, and as much as £580 million a year by 2029-30.

Neither the Treasury nor DWP had clarified these details by noon today – or explained how these changes would cut spending so sharply – although the Treasury said they were “existing plans”.

Rick Burgess, a spokesperson for Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, said in response to the chancellor’s speech: “Yet another budget of austerity for disabled people.

“Spiteful changes to Motability and more abusive DWP assessments were the main actions, frozen tax rates will hit disabled people on poverty wages the most, while social care remained abandoned to permacrisis.

“The cumulative hostility towards us remains unchanged from the last government.”

*Motability Foundation, the charity that oversees the scheme, is a Disability News Service subscriber

27 November 2025

Tory government failed to protect disabled people in early months of pandemic, inquiry concludes

The Conservative government repeatedly failed to take action to protect disabled people in the early months of the pandemic, even though their risk of dying was twice as high as non-disabled people, according to a key Covid inquiry report.

The report highlights the failure to include the disability minister in key ministerial meetings, and the decision to sideline the Disability Unit from work on the UK government’s initial strategy in the early months of the pandemic.

It also says that Boris Johnson’s government failed to address gaps in data and analysis relating to the impact of the virus on disabled people.

The second report of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which focuses on “core decision-making and political governance”, says the “fact that disabled people would be exposed to a range of different and higher risks should have been obvious”.

In England and Wales, the risk of death involving COVID-19 in March to July 2020 was twice as high for men who reported being limited a lot by their disability than men who reported no disability, while for women, the risk was 2.4 times higher.

In Scotland, from March 2020 to January 2021, the risk was three times higher for men, and 3.2 times higher for women.

For people with learning difficulties, the risks were even higher – in the early months of 2020, a person with learning difficulties aged between 18 and 34 was 30 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than the general population in England.

The inquiry report repeatedly highlights how the impact on disabled people was ignored in the early months of the pandemic.

It says that neither the Disability Unit nor the disability minister had played “any part in the discussions about whether to implement a lockdown, how that decision might be mitigated or the policy on the discharge of hospital patients into care homes”.

An inter-ministerial group set up on 16 March to consider the impact of the pandemic on public services did not even consider the position of disabled people until 21 May, while the disability minister was never a permanent member of the group.

A report on “different outcomes from Covid-19”, commissioned from Public Health England, and published on 2 June 2020, included no analysis of the risks to disabled people.

And it was not until 12 November 2020 that Public Health England published a report that considered the disproportionate number of people with learning difficulties who were dying from COVID-19.

The inquiry report concludes: “The gaps in data meant that there was insufficient information to inform Covid-19 policy-making for disabled people, and communications to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on disabled people were being hampered.”

On the same day, 12 November, the government’s Disability Unit told the work and pensions secretary that data and analysis on the disproportionate impacts of COVID-19 on disabled people had “significant gaps”.

There were also failures in the devolved nations, with the inquiry revealing that there was no data on the number of disabled people who died due to COVID-19 in Scotland until 24 March 2021 and in Northern Ireland until late 2021.

The report also reveals that, in June 2020, having Down’s syndrome was identified as high risk in relation to COVID-19, but people with Down’s syndrome were not added to the shielded patient list for those who were clinically extremely vulnerable until September 2020.

Even then, it took more than a month for shielding letters to be sent out to people with Down’s syndrome.

And the result of a request in October 2020 for UK government departments to improve the collection of information about disabled people “did not identify sufficient steps to fill those data gaps about disabled people”, with several departments failing to respond to the request.

By 30 March 2021, the Disability Unit remained concerned about the lack of disability data.

The report concludes: “These gaps in knowledge (together with any advice to decision-makers that rely on such knowledge), about the direct and indirect impacts that the pandemic was having on disabled people, were replicated across the UK.

“This incomplete knowledge contributed to the failure of the UK government to act sufficiently speedily to mitigate some risks to disabled people.”

In one of the report’s key recommendations, the inquiry calls on each of the four governments to draw up a framework to identify those who would be most at risk of becoming infected by, and dying from, a disease “and those who are most likely to be negatively impacted by any steps taken to respond to a future pandemic”.

These frameworks, which should include equality impact assessments, “should set out the specific steps that could be taken to mitigate the risks to these people”.

And they should be “embedded into emergency decision-making”, the report says.

The report also calls for each government to include a minister with responsibility for representing the interests of “vulnerable groups” in the decision-making groups that will manage future pandemics.

And it highlights the “devastating” impact of the virus on those living in care homes.

In England and Wales, there were 35,206 deaths of care home residents involving COVID-19 between 13 March 2020 and 25 February 2022, about a fifth of all deaths involving the virus.

In Northern Ireland, the proportion was even higher: between 18 March 2020 and 25 March 2022, 1,250 deaths of care home residents involved Covid-19, which was 28.2 per cent of all COVID-19-related deaths.

The report also points out that, while the identification of people who were clinically extremely vulnerable and needed to shield was likely to have saved lives, it also caused considerable mental distress among those affected, which appears to have “persisted over the course of the pandemic”.

It says: “Many lived in fear of becoming infected by Covid-19, lost support networks available to them, and felt forgotten.”

The second report of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, delivered by its chair, Baroness Hallett, concludes that all four governments failed to “appreciate the scale of the threat” posed by the pandemic in early 2020 or the “urgency of response it demanded”.

It highlights misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care that the UK was well prepared to deal with a pandemic, while health and social care secretary Matt Hancock “gained a reputation among senior officials and advisers at 10 Downing Street for overpromising and underdelivering”.

The report from the inquiry’s second module focuses on “core decision-making and political governance” and concludes that although the various lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 saved lives, they only became “inevitable” because of the “acts and omissions” of the UK and devolved governments.

Without the lockdown on 23 March 2020, the growth in transmission of the virus would have led to an unacceptable loss of life, the inquiry found, but it says that governments’ failure to act promptly and effectively had put them in this position.

Had the lockdown been imposed a week earlier, it concludes, about 23,000 fewer people would have died in England up until 1 July 2020.

The inquiry’s public hearings will end by March 2026, with the final report scheduled to be published no later than summer 2027.

27 November 2025

DWP failure to provide up-to-date figures on Access to Work cuts is ‘major warning sign’, say campaigners

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has claimed that “an issue” with data is preventing it releasing figures that would show just how many disabled people have been affected by cuts to the Access to Work disability employment programme.

Campaigners and advocates, including those working with disabled people who rely on Access to Work (AtW) support to stay in their jobs, warned again this week that support packages are being slashed by the Labour government.

They said the failure to provide accurate, up-to-date data was “a major warning sign” and “deepens the concern that something is being hidden”.

The most recent official figures only showed the number of people who had AtW provision in the year to March 2025, with no monthly figures.

It is believed that up-to-date monthly data would show just how steep the cuts have been in recent months.

Disability News Service put in a freedom of information request on 22 October to ask DWP to provide these up-to-date monthly figures for AtW approvals.

But when the department replied, it claimed it would be too expensive to provide the data.

It said this was because “we are investigating an issue with the Access to Work approvals data” and so it could not provide any figures “until the issue with the Access to Work approvals data has been resolved”.

Last month, the latest figures showed that the number of people who had any AtW provision approved fell by more than 10 per cent in the year to March 2025.

The figures showed that the number of disabled people who had AtW requests for aids and equipment approved plunged by 16 per cent on the previous year, while approvals for support for travel to work fell by 14 per cent.

And, at a time when ministers and opposition politicians are repeatedly suggesting that not enough people with mental distress or ill-health are in work, the number of approvals for mental health support from the government scheme dropped by seven per cent.

One disabled campaigner who works with AtW claimants has said that the figures from the last six months would eventually show how cuts to essential funding were “far more severe” than those shown in last month’s published figures.

The disabled people’s organisation Action on Disability has previously shown that the average AtW support hours of disabled people it had been working with plunged from 22.5 a week to just four in the last two-and-a-half years.

Disabled consultant, broadcaster and campaigner Shani Dhanda, co-founder of the Access to Work Collective, said this week: “The sudden loss of monthly approval data is a major warning sign and is in a long line of other confusing outcomes from the DWP.

“It’s happened at the exact moment support is continuing to be cut.

“People are losing support overnight. Awards are being slashed or removed completely.

“Many are stuck in backlogs that run for a year or more while being told to work without the adjustments they need.

“The consequences are severe: people losing jobs, falling into rent arrears, forced onto benefits and, in some cases, pushed into homelessness.

“This is not a small issue. It’s a growing crisis.

“If there’s genuinely a problem with the figures, DWP needs to explain it and fix it quickly.

“Right now the public is left in the dark while disabled people pay the price.

“Access to Work should be preventing poverty, not driving people into it. Missing data only hides the scale of the damage.”

Catherine Eadie, a social enterprise founder and Access to Work claimant, and a member of the Access to Work Collective, said: “The idea that there is suddenly an ‘issue’ with Access to Work approvals data, right at the moment when support is being cut, is difficult to take at face value.

“Disabled people are experiencing drastic reductions now, not in 12 months’ time when the next annual release appears.

“Blocking access to the more detailed figures that would show the scale of these cuts removes the only meaningful transparency we have.

“Across the collective we’ve seen a clear pattern: inconsistent application of the guidelines, shifting justifications from case managers, and decisions that don’t match the published rules.

“When a system already feels opaque, being told that the approvals data is temporarily unusable only deepens the concern that something is being hidden.

“Withholding them while disabled workers lose essential support creates the impression that the government is managing public perception rather than addressing the crisis.”

27 November 2025

Inquiry report shows ‘horrific’ Covid death toll among disabled people was not inevitable, say DPOs

A report by the Covid inquiry into political decision-making during the pandemic proves that the “horrific” and disproportionate death toll among disabled people was not inevitable but the result of treating them as an “afterthought”, say campaigners.

Four national disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) were responding to the second report of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, led by Baroness Hallett, which focuses on “core decision-making and political governance”.

One DPO said this week that the report had delivered a “laser focus on the shocking missed opportunities, lack of timely planning and insufficient diversity among our political leaders”.

Another said the inquiry had shown that disabled people were an “afterthought” for the UK and devolved governments.

And a third said the report had made it clear that the harm caused to disabled people, including the disproportionate deaths, “was not inevitable”.

The four DPOs were each awarded the status of core participants during the inquiry’s second module.

Individuals or organisations with a “significant role or interest” in the inquiry’s work were able to apply for core participant status (PDF) for a particular module, which has allowed them to access evidence, make opening and closing statements at inquiry hearings, and suggest lines of questioning to the inquiry’s barristers.

The report from the inquiry’s second module found that the Conservative UK government repeatedly failed to take action to protect disabled people in the early months of the pandemic, even though their risk of dying was twice as high as non-disabled people (see separate story).

Nuala Toman, head of accessibility at the Northern Ireland DPO Disability Action, said: “The Covid-19 Inquiry lays bare a truth that cannot be ignored: the horrific disproportionate death toll among disabled people was not inevitable, but the result of political inaction, delays and a failure to treat disabled people as a priority.

“The [Northern Ireland Executive] should now move quickly to implement the recommendations.

“Any failure to act would be an eyes-wide-open decision to repeat the same injustice in the next pandemic.”

Heather Fisken, Inclusion Scotland’s chief executive, said the evidence laid out in the report was “stark”.

She said: “Too many people died needlessly and a disproportionate number of them were disabled people.

“As is often the case, disabled people were an afterthought.

“If there was ever any emergency planning before Covid, disabled people were unaware and not involved.

“As a consequence, when the pandemic struck, disabled people lost vital support, often overnight, and were put at increased risk of contracting Covid.

“Decisions to remedy this were slow to materialise, patchy and clearly insufficient.

“Governments need to take this learning forward and work with disabled people’s organisations.”

Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability Rights UK, said there was much in the report that disabled people and their representative organisations could use to influence government policy across the UK.

He said this included the recommendations that “disabled people should inform expert opinion that concerns our lives, and that the socio-economic duty in the Equality Act should be enacted”.

He said: “We are pleased to see it also says that frameworks should be developed to identify people who would be worst affected by disease and those who would be negatively impacted by pandemic measures, and that ministers representing people such as disabled people should be involved in decision-making.

“The inquiry was particularly emphatic that there should be plans to make all communications accessible, which we welcome as emphatically.

“DPOs need to use these recommendations to campaign for improved pandemic planning for disabled citizens, or we will see history repeat itself in the next public emergency.”

Rhian Davies, chief executive of Disability Wales, said the report had brought a “laser focus” to the “shocking missed opportunities, lack of timely planning and insufficient diversity among our political leaders and the role these played in the devastating and ongoing impact of the pandemic on disabled people, which ‘turned back the clock’ regarding our human rights.

“Baroness Hallett cited the comparatively more inclusive approach taken by Welsh government and the groundbreaking Locked Out report it commissioned into the impact of Covid-19 on disabled people.

“Nevertheless, Wales still had the highest number of deaths proportionately among disabled people from the virus.

“Welsh government’s imminent and long-awaited Disabled People’s Rights Plan provides ministers with the ideal opportunity to demonstrate that lessons have been learned and to outline what action will be taken to address the underlying causes regarding why the lives of disabled people appeared so expendable and to ensure that never again do we face ‘the mass death and real suffering’ experienced by so many.”

The inquiry’s second report concludes that all four governments failed to “appreciate the scale of the threat” posed by the pandemic in early 2020 or the “urgency of response it demanded”.

The inquiry report highlights misleading assurances from the UK government’s Department of Health and Social Care that the UK was well prepared to deal with a pandemic, while health and social care secretary Matt Hancock “gained a reputation among senior officials and advisers at 10 Downing Street for overpromising and underdelivering”.

The report from the inquiry’s second module concludes that although the various lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 saved lives, they only became “inevitable” because of the “acts and omissions” of the UK and devolved governments.

Without the lockdown on 23 March 2020, the growth in transmission of the virus would have led to an unacceptable loss of life, the inquiry found, but it says that governments’ failure to act promptly and effectively had put them in this position.

Had the lockdown been imposed a week earlier, it concludes, about 23,000 fewer people would have died in England up until 1 July 2020.

The inquiry’s public hearings will end by March 2026, with the final report scheduled to be published no later than summer 2027.

27 November 2025

Disabled peers call on Lords to increase protection from coercion in assisted suicide bill

Three disabled peers have called on the House of Lords to make it harder for disabled people to be “coerced” or subjected to “undue influence” before requesting an assisted suicide, through measures in a controversial bill.

The trio were among a series of peers who suggested amendments to the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill – which applies to England and Wales – over concerns that it currently fails to provide the necessary protection for disabled people if assisted suicide is legalised.

Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson, a crossbench disabled peer, proposed three amendments that sought to “explore coercion and ensure that people are free from undue influence, including social, economic and care-related pressures, not only active coercion, which is very difficult to prove.”

She told the House of Lords last Friday: “We should ensure that the law does not default to death as a substitute for deficient services, which is an ethical red line repeatedly emphasised by disability advocates and UN experts reviewing permissive regimes [that have legalised assisted dying].”

She warned: “What is presented as a voluntary choice may in fact be a choice made under hidden pressure.”

In the year between April 2022 and April 2023, she said, there were 242 deaths related to domestic abuse.

She pointed out that disabled women were twice as likely to experience abuse than non-disabled women, and that disabled people are more likely to experience abuse from an adult family member compared to non-disabled people.

And, she said, one in 10 domestic violence abuse cases are “perpetrated by someone with a caring responsibility”.

She and other peers were debating a series of amendments that were focused on improving protection in the bill from the risk of a disabled person being persuaded, coerced or encouraged to opt for an assisted suicide.

They included amendments around coercion, financial abuse, encouragement to choose an assisted suicide, and the need for “clear, objective safeguards to remove the possibility of improper motives influencing the process”.

Other peers proposed ways to offer protection from “more subtle, insidious influences that could affect a person’s decisions”, or from “systemic and institutional forms of coercion” such as those caused by the health and social care systems.

The Lords also heard how a disabled person might choose an assisted suicide because they felt they were a “burden” to relatives.

And protections were suggested from those who might seek to “induce, encourage, advise or influence” someone to take their own life through an assisted death.

The disabled Conservative peer Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin said his own experience of pain highlighted how “the sense of being a burden, or the burden of pain” can be “the most powerful and damaging form of coercion and perhaps the one from which we most need protection”.

He said it was crucial to highlight how “the subtlety of pressure, particularly as it relates to disability, can definitely stem from cultural attitudes”.

He said: “I give one example. I was laughed at in the street outside my home as recently as last weekend because of how I look as a result of my disability.”

He added: “How can being subject to such prejudice not affect a person’s mental well-being or their sense of self-worth?

“How could such a structural disadvantage, in terms of the cumulative effect of being constantly exposed to such negative and discriminatory attitudes, not affect a person in a vulnerable situation who is considering assisted dying?

“The fact that the sponsor of the bill does not appear to have factored it in does not mean that the rest of us should fail to do so.”

Another disabled peer, Lord Blencathra – former Conservative Home Office minister David Maclean – also pushed for amendments around coercion, and particularly supported one of the amendments proposed by Baroness Grey-Thompson.

He said: “When a person facing terminal illness is subject to circumstances such as chronic poverty, social isolation or a systemic lack of quality healthcare, their options are severely limited.

“In such scenarios, the choice to pursue end-of-life options may not be a true expression of free will but rather the result of enduring disadvantage and unmet needs.”

He added: “When terminally-ill individuals lack access to palliative care, social support or financial resources, they may feel compelled to consider end-of-life options not out of genuine preference but because their suffering is exacerbated by these systemic failures…

“End-of-life legislation to protect the autonomy and dignity of the terminally-ill must acknowledge that coercion and pressure are not limited to overt acts by individuals.”

He said that proposed amendments that expanded the protection around coercion would “significantly enhance the safeguards in the bill”.

He said: “These changes would help ensure that decisions to end life are made with the highest standards of voluntariness and autonomy, free from all forms of undue influence, pressure or encouragement, whether from individuals, organisations or internalised feelings.”

But Labour peer Lord Falconer, who is sponsoring the private members’ bill in the Lords – it is sponsored by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater in the Commons – dismissed nearly every one of the amendments proposed.

He said that no-one debating the bill in the Lords disputed that there had to be “appropriate and sufficient safeguards to ensure that there is no coercion”.

He outlined the bill’s existing safeguards, which include that a doctor – and then a second doctor – must be satisfied that the person seeking an assisted death is not being coerced.

A panel must then assess that the person is not being coerced, before the first doctor – after the patient has signed a second declaration – “has to be satisfied again that the person is not being coerced”.

The doctor providing the assisted death must also, at the last moment, be satisfied that the person is not being coerced.

Lord Falconer also pointed to new criminal offences, including a sentence of up to life in prison for inducing someone to take their own life through an assisted death by dishonesty, coercion or pressure.

He argued that there was no need to add “encouraged” or “influenced” to measures on coercion or pressure in the bill.

He said: “With regard to ‘influenced’, the multidisciplinary team or the person’s loved ones may well – with the best motives – influence somebody to go ahead with it.

“I do not criticise them for that if that is what the person wants and if it helps.”

He told fellow peers: “I am saying no to quite a lot of the amendments because, in my opinion, I do not think they are necessary and there is adequate protection.”

Baroness Grey-Thompson suggested that – following an earlier statement by a minister in the Commons – the doctors investigating possible coercive control would only have to be “51 per cent certain that there is no coercion for the panel to carry on and for an assisted death to be granted”.

Lord Falconer did not deny that these decisions would be made on the balance of probabilities, and he said the professionals involved would “have to do what is required”.

Two amendments he did not rule out were that there should be codes of practice for those assessing an assisted death request on whether the person had been coerced or placed under pressure.

Lord Falconer said the amendment on a “coercion” code of practice seemed “perfectly sensible” and he would “take it away and think about it”, along with a similar request around “pressure”.

The debate had been opened by Baroness Finlay, a crossbench peer and consultant in palliative medicine, a prominent opponent of legalisation, who had suggested that a decision to choose an assisted death should be “devoid of encouragement to end their life from any other person”.

Following Lord Falconer’s dismissal of almost all the amendments debated on Friday, she said she was “disappointed” that the debate had not ended with peers “saying that we will all sit down together” and discuss a way forward.

She said that she and other peers who drafted proposed changes around the coercion issues would now discuss how to bring back further amendments at the next stage of the bill “to manage the situation that we highlighted today, which is a very profound concern over coercion, abuse and all the other factors that go along with that.”

The government claims it remains “neutral on the principle of assisted dying” and on the passage of the bill, and that whether the law should change “is absolutely and rightly a matter for parliament”.

But last week, the Department of Health and Social Care refused to say if it was secretly working on how to implement the legislation, despite repeatedly claiming it has taken this “neutral” stance.

It was the second of four Fridays originally allocated to the committee stage of the bill in the House of Lords.

Although about 20 amendments were debated last Friday, peers have only managed to deal with a tiny proportion of the 1,100 amendments that have so far been proposed and will need to be debated during the committee stage.

In an attempt to secure a way through these amendments, the government’s chief whip in the Lords, Lord [Roy] Kennedy, said another eight Fridays in the new year would be allocated to the bill’s committee stage, between January and April.

27 November 2025

UK government failed on accessible information in early months of pandemic, says Covid inquiry

The Conservative government failed to ensure that vital information was provided to Deaf and disabled people in an accessible format in the early stages of the pandemic, the Covid inquiry has concluded.

The second report of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which focuses on “core decision-making and political governance”, highlights key failures around accessible versions of information and the provision of British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters for government announcements.

The report says it was clear from the early stages of the pandemic that many disabled people – who were at greater risk of dying from the virus (see separate story) – were more likely to require help in accessing information about the risks and restrictions imposed by the crisis, including many who faced digital exclusion.

Digital exclusion was “a significant disadvantage” during the crisis, as many of the communications about the pandemic and the support available were delivered online.

The report also highlights the letters sent by the UK government to clinically extremely vulnerable people in March 2020, advising them to shield, which were only sent in standard print.

Any problems with accessing the vital information published by the UK and devolved governments were likely to cause “significant harm”, the report says.

The report particularly highlights the barriers faced by the 80,000 Deaf people in the UK whose first language was BSL.

The UK government’s “critical” press conference on 16 March 2020, which introduced household quarantining and social distancing, failed to provide any translation into BSL.

Although an on-screen interpreter was provided for press conferences from 26 March onwards, it was only available via the BBC News channel and BBC iPlayer, rather than the main BBC One broadcasts.

The UK government had claimed that it was unable to include a BSL interpreter in the room at press conferences because that would have required “additional cameras and operators”, an explanation the inquiry dismissed.

In Northern Ireland, during the first few weeks of the pandemic, there were no sign language interpreters for the daily public media briefings.

The report says: “The system worked in Scotland and Wales, both of which provided an in-person British Sign Language interpreter at all press briefings.

“The UK government and the Northern Ireland Executive should have planned their press conferences in a manner that both adhered to safety measures and met the needs of deaf people from the outset.

“Accessibility measures should not be treated as secondary to public communications – they are a fundamental component of effective public communications.”

The inquiry report particularly highlights the steps the Scottish government took to ensure accessible information.

And it says: “The devolved administrations each took certain steps to improve the accessibility of key information about the management of the pandemic.

“Such steps should be implemented by all four governments in the future.

“While the Welsh Government took positive steps to address accessibility, in the event of a future pandemic it should ensure that regard is had to such considerations from the outset.”

Among its recommendations, the inquiry calls for the UK and devolved governments to develop their own action plans for how their communications will be made more accessible during a pandemic.

As a minimum, the inquiry says, they should include providing translation of government press conferences into BSL (and Irish Sign Language in Northern Ireland) and the translation of key announcements into the most frequently spoken languages in the UK.

The second report of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, delivered by its chair, Baroness Hallett, concludes that all four governments failed to “appreciate the scale of the threat” posed by the pandemic in early 2020 or the “urgency of response it demanded”.

It highlights misleading assurances from the Department of Health and Social Care that the UK was well prepared to deal with a pandemic, while health and social care secretary Matt Hancock “gained a reputation among senior officials and advisers at 10 Downing Street for overpromising and underdelivering”.

The report from the inquiry’s second module focuses on “core decision-making and political governance” and concludes that although the various lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 saved lives, they only became “inevitable” because of the “acts and omissions” of the UK and devolved governments.

Without the lockdown on 23 March 2020, the growth in transmission of the virus would have led to an unacceptable loss of life, the inquiry found, but it says that governments’ failure to act promptly and effectively had put them in this position.

Had the lockdown been imposed a week earlier, it concludes, about 23,000 fewer people would have died in England up until 1 July 2020.

The inquiry’s public hearings will end by March 2026, with the final report scheduled to be published no later than summer 2027.

27 November 2025

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

Ministers are facing calls to apologise and pay compensation to hundreds of thousands of unpaid carers after a damning review of the benefit system revealed some considered suicide to escape their debts. A report ordered by the government on the longstanding failures within carer’s allowance found the Department for Work and Pensions inflicted avoidable hardship and distress on carers and led to hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money being misused: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/25/failures-tory-ministers-welfare-officials-carers-allowance-crisis-review-finds

Thousands of unpaid carers will have their cases reassessed after an official review found they had been left with huge debts caused by systemic failures. Former charity boss Liz Sayce found confusing guidance on carer’s allowance had left thousands with fines and surprise bills, sometimes running into thousands of pounds. The Guardian uncovered hundreds of carers claiming carer’s allowance had been convicted of benefit fraud, while others claimed they were harassed for money by officials: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx2dndnn54go

A report says social care charges are “unfair and damaging” and should be scrapped. The report, Time to End Social Care Charging in Scotland, was conducted by the Scottish Women’s Budget Group for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and says disabled people are being denied help with their basic needs. The Scottish government promised to end non-residential social care charges, but the report says no real progress has been made: https://news.stv.tv/scotland/unfair-social-care-charges-must-be-scrapped-report

The grieving parents of a young woman who died in supported accommodation are calling for providers to be inspected and given ratings by the Care Quality Commission. Karl and Emma Lloyd-Buckingham’s 24-year-old daughter Chanté, who was autistic and had mental health issues, was found dead in her supported accommodation in August. The couple, from Eastbourne, have launched a parliamentary petition which has so far attracted more than 7,800 signatures: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgmrr2ej23o

27 November 2025

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com

Contents

Health and care funding crisis will create pressure to choose assisted suicide, MPs and peers are told. 1

Parliament has ‘dismissed and sidelined’ disabled people from assisted suicide bill debate, says letter. 4

Protection failure in DWP’s fraud and error bill ‘risks further tragic deaths’, MPs warn. 6

New investigation on NEETs will only target young disabled people, DWP document shows. 9

New project will research and reveal stories behind half a century of the disability arts movement. 10

Government must drop ‘economic burden’ narrative and sanctions, MPs are told. 12

Minister refuses once again to reveal truth about cuts to Access to Work. 14

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week. 16

Health and care funding crisis will create pressure to choose assisted suicide, MPs and peers are told

Many terminally-ill people would feel “duress” and “pressure” to choose an assisted suicide if it is legalised, because of the lack of funding for the NHS, palliative care and social care services, a disabled activist has told MPs and peers.

Liz Carr was giving evidence to the joint committee on human rights yesterday (Wednesday) just two days before the House of Lords begins the latest parliamentary stage in examining the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill.

The bill, which applies to England and Wales, has not been introduced by the government – although it is believed to be heavily-supported by the prime minister – but has instead been sponsored as a private members’ bill by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and Labour peer Lord Falconer.

Carr, a disabled actor, writer and activist, told the committee that some terminally-ill people, faced with a lack of support, would feel they had no alternative but to choose an assisted suicide, if it was legalised.

She said they would feel “duress” and “pressure” because they were not able to secure the support package they needed, and because they felt they were a “burden on their loved ones”.

She told the committee there should be more focus on “providing support and a good death for people at the end of their lives rather than focusing on this one option for a small group of people, when there’s a much bigger group of people who are suffering at the end of life now.

“They’re dying in corridors, they’re dying because they don’t get the drugs because NICE is not approving them, they are dying because there is not the right support and funding into palliative care.

“That is suffering.”

Carr, who opposes legalisation, said the need for the evidence session was “testimony to the absence of the disability voice in the progress of the bill so far”.

She said that disabled people and disabled people’s organisations had “struggled to get heard” during the bill’s passage through the House of Commons.

She also told the committee that most disabled people had experienced “devaluation at the hands of the health professionals, and that is terrifying.

“The one safeguard that there currently is that I feel safe with… is that assisted suicide remains a criminal act.

“Once it becomes a medical treatment, then that’s when it terrifies me, because it happens behind closed doors and is based on medical subjectivity.

“And those doctors and whoever are making those decisions have the same biases and the same prejudices and pressures every single day that view disabled people often as better off dead and their lives as having less value.”

Jean Eveleigh, a patron of the pro-legalisation campaign group My Death, My Decision, who has a long-term health condition, said it was parliament’s job to provide the necessary funding to deal with the “very real pressures and very real problems” with the NHS and advocacy programmes, rather than using them as reasons not to introduce the legislation.

She told the committee: “And you not doing anything about it is your fault, not ours.”

Eveleigh said there were some people for whom “no matter how great palliative care is, no matter how loving their family is, no matter how much medication they’re given, they just cannot have what they would decide is a good death and they should be given the choice to decide how they want to die”.

Eveleigh said there were currently no safeguards to protect terminally-ill people who are considering taking their own lives, and no figures on how many of them are being coerced to take their own lives or refuse treatment.

She said: “This law is actually going to be improving things from the zero state we have now.

“Whether it’s a bad law or not is for other people to decide, but having nothing is causing problems.”

She said that data should be collected after assisted dying was legalised to see how the law was being implemented by doctors.

She said: “You’ve got the data, you can then see where the flaws of it are, you can then make improvements.”

The crossbench peer Baroness Hollins, a former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, who opposes legalisation, spoke about her husband, who died from motor neurone disease earlier this year.

She said he had still been waiting for a wheelchair when he died, because of an NHS waiting list.

She said: “You can imagine that you are there needing something and not getting it, and that is not going to help your mental state, it’s not going to help you to manage your everyday life.”

She said the much higher rate of suicide for disabled people compared with non-disabled people made her worry that some disabled people might choose an assisted death rather than wait for the care and support they needed.

She also spoke to the committee about her daughter, who was treated 20 years ago for a high-level spinal injury, and who is now “scared of what this bill could bring”.

When her daughter was injured, a neurosurgeon “did not want her to be resuscitated because he said the quality of her life would be so poor”.

Baroness Hollins told the committee: “Her life would not be worth living, he said, and he did not want to admit her.

“It’s only because I was there as an advocate, essentially, it’s only because I actually understood what he was talking about, that I said, please, please admit her, and 20 years on she’s got three children and she’s living a wonderful life.

“Yes, her life is different. But do you know what? She’s scared of this bill.”

Dr Henry Marsh, a neurosurgeon and supporter of legalisation, who was diagnosed four years ago with advanced prostate cancer, told the committee: “I see assisted dying as a form of treatment, a treatment for suffering, and it should be subject to the same analysis of cost and benefit on the basis of evidence as you do with any other treatment.”

He confirmed that he believed that if there were some cases of coercion, the greater public good would still be served by legalising assisted suicide.

He said: “In principle, yes. I know I made a very crass comment about sacrificing grannies*. I greatly regret it. I wish I hadn’t said it. It was very stupid of me.

“I didn’t realize it was going to get into the public domain, but the principle is there is always a cost.”

He said the “reality of normal medical practice” was that there was always a risk that a medical procedure “could make things worse”, but that risk was justified because “more people benefit”, even if “it sounds rather inhumane and utilitarian”.

He said later: “There are always risks. Nothing is perfect.

“A lot of people are suffering bad deaths in this country, I’m afraid.”

He said such a bad death could happen to him.

He told the committee: “The state of the NHS is abysmal and palliative care is not properly funded, but I think it’s highly unlikely there’ll be better funding of palliative care in the future.”

*He told The Times eight years ago in an interview that, if assisted suicide was legalised: “Even if a few grannies get bullied into it, isn’t that a price worth paying for all the people who could die with dignity?”

13 November 2025

Parliament has ‘dismissed and sidelined’ disabled people from assisted suicide bill debate, says letter

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have united in opposition to attempts to legalise assisted suicide, after months of being excluded from parliamentary discussions.

In an open letter, DPOs from across England and Wales have declared opposition to the bill and are protesting at the continued lack of meaningful engagement with DPOs and disabled experts throughout its progress through parliament.

They spoke out as MPs and peers on the joint committee on human rights took evidence yesterday (Wednesday) on the potential impact of the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill on the human rights of disabled people (see separate story).

The bill, which applies to England and Wales, continues its progress through the Lords tomorrow, as peers begin to debate more than 700 proposed amendments.

The bill has not been introduced by the government – although it is believed to be heavily-supported by the prime minister – but has instead been sponsored as a private members’ bill by Labour MP Kim Leadbeater and Labour peer Lord Falconer.

The open letter was drawn up by Not Dead Yet UK, Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), Inclusion London, Disability Rights UK, Bromley and Croydon DPAC, and Greater Manchester Coalition of Disabled People, and highlights how disabled people have been excluded from parliamentary discussions on the bill.

They welcome the human rights committee’s decision to examine key aspects of the bill that were “dismissed and sidelined” as it passed through the House of Commons earlier this year.

They say the bill “discriminates against and has not meaningfully engaged with Disabled people”, even though they are “among those most at risk” from the legislation.

And they say it is vital that parliament understands the “human rights and equalities implications” of the bill for disabled people.

Among their concerns, the DPOs say the bill’s already limited safeguards had been “watered down” during its progress through parliament; that funding legalised assisted suicide would remove money from palliative care and “essential health and social care funding”; and that the bill fails to address the risks of disabled people being coerced into an assisted death.

They also raise the risks that the “very dangerous” bill poses to people with learning difficulties; warn that the judicial protection initially proposed by the bill has now been watered down; and say that disabled people’s voices and organisations have been excluded during the bill’s passage.

And they point out that no person with learning difficulties was asked to give evidence to the House of Lords during its select committee evidence sessions, despite the “significant impact” the bill will have on this group of disabled people.

They are now seeking other DPOs to sign the open letter and show their opposition to the bill.

By noon today, nearly 40 DPOs and disabled-led organisations had signed the open letter.

Meanwhile, in written evidence to the select committee set up by the Lords to examine the “safeguards and procedures” in the bill – which published its report this week – the Equality and Human Rights Commission warned that a private members’ bill was “an unsuitable vehicle for legislation of this importance, because of the reduced scrutiny offered”.

The commission said the legislation was “likely to particularly affect disabled people and older people”.

It said: “Peers should be aware that coercion or pressure is not always applied directly by other individuals.

“UN experts highlighted that individuals can feel subtly pressured to end their lives prematurely due to attitudinal barriers and a lack of services and support.”

And it warned that assisted dying could only be compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights if “high-quality health and social care, including palliative care” was “available to all, and patients informed about its availability”.

13 November 2025

Protection failure in DWP’s fraud and error bill ‘risks further tragic deaths’, MPs warn

Cross-party MPs have warned that ministers’ refusal to introduce a key protection into their new fraud and error bill could see a repeat of the countless deaths caused by the austerity measures of past governments.

The concern was raised by MPs debating one of the final parliamentary stages of the public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill last week.

They raised fears that future “authoritarian” governments could misuse the powers the Labour government is seeking through the bill.

One of those powers will allow the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to force banks to examine the accounts of claimants of means-tested benefits and then provide details of any accounts where there have been potential breaches of benefit eligibility rules.

Concerned MPs called on ministers to support an amendment introduced by peers that would have ensured an annual assessment of the new powers by an independent reviewer included checks on whether they were causing any harm.

One MP, Liberal Democrat John Milne, highlighted how “past DWP errors” had had “tragic consequences”, and he listed some of the disabled people whose deaths have been closely linked to DWP’s actions.

He particularly highlighted the deaths of Philippa Day and Krissi Hunt, but also mentioned Stephen Carré, David Holmes, David Clapson, Errol Graham, Kevin Gale, Jodey Whiting, Roy Curtis and James Oliver*, who he said were all “wrongly hounded by the DWP”, which contributed to their deaths.

Milne told fellow MPs: “The DWP has a long track record of badly handled mistakes.

“That is a cultural failing, and it is wildly optimistic to assume that everything is suddenly going to be fine going forward.

“Do the government really believe that this bill has enough checks and balances to protect vulnerable claimants?

“One thing is for sure: there will be more DWP mistakes.”

Labour’s John McDonnell told MPs: “For the life of me, I cannot understand why the government are resisting having contained within the annual review the question of whether harm is being done.”

He said this was “the only way we will learn whether the legislation is operating in the way the government wish it to, and then whether any changes in the system are needed”.

He added: “I do not want to exaggerate, but I was in the house throughout our discussions of the introduction of the work capability assessment [in the mid-2000s], and, although the last government refused to accept it, we now know that it resulted in a large number of suicides.

“In this instance, I would not want us to enter into a reform of the processes specified in the bill without a regular review of the harms that could be caused, which would enable us subsequently to adjust the legislation if necessary.”

The SNP’s Kirsty Blackman agreed that the disabled people whose names were read out by Milne were “failed by the system that was meant to support them”.

She said that many disabled people “have had to fight for so much, and the system that is meant to support them should not then be another battleground”.

Blackman made clear that her party did not support the bill, partly because of the “potential future risks”.

She said: “I said to the Conservatives when they were in government, and I will say again now that the Labour party is in government, that you will not be in government for ever.

“At some point, somebody else will be in government, and if it is somebody who shares the authoritarian ideas of some potential future leaders, I am not sure that I want them to have access to everybody’s bank accounts.”

Steve Darling, the disabled MP and Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesperson, agreed.

He said: “I am not questioning the reasonableness of the current minister, or multiple ministers who preceded him, but I question what we are seeing on the other side of the Atlantic and the person who has the levers of power in the Oval Office.

“What may be seen as ‘reasonable’ in politics in the United Kingdom is sadly a distant memory in the United States of America.

“We must ensure that we guard against that future [in the UK] in the legislation we are putting forward now.”

But work and pensions minister Andrew Western refused to accept the Lords amendment.

He said the work and pensions secretary was already required to provide the independent reviewer with “all reasonably required material, so there is no need for the reviewer to write a statement to that effect in every report”.

But he said that “if they felt the need to, there is nothing to stop them doing so”.

Labour’s Neil Duncan-Jordan told MPs that several witnesses had said during the bill’s committee stage that the new powers “could result in serious harm to benefit recipients”.

He said: “If the algorithms are scanning the bank accounts of 10 million people, an error rate of just one per cent will result in 100,000 cases where innocent people are wrongly investigated.”

He said it was vital that the independent reviewer of the new powers “considers the harm to individuals, so that we can understand whether the powers being exercised are proportionate”.

But Western said the “question of whether actions taken as part of the eligibility verification measure are necessary and proportionate is baked into the bill” and that with “additional safeguards” that the government has now added to the legislation, ministers had “reached a point where the bill will achieve what it needs to while being fair and protecting vulnerable people”.

Despite that refusal, the government has agreed to remove plans to give some DWP staff “morally dubious” powers to use “reasonable force” against benefit claimants when exercising powers under the bill.

The bill was set to give authorised DWP staff the same powers of search, entry and seizure as the police.

Western claimed the government had never intended that DWP investigators should be able to use reasonable force against claimants but only to “allow them to gain access to property, such as locked filing cabinets or cupboards, when on premises to search for and seize critical evidence”, and then to rely on “the likes of the police” in situations “where force against a person might be needed”.

But following concerns raised in the Lords, he said the government had now introduced an amendment to the bill that will allow DWP investigators to use “force against property only, while retaining the police’s power to use reasonable force where necessary against people and property”.

He said: “I have repeatedly assured the house that the DWP policy position is that DWP authorised investigators will not use reasonable force against people, and I believe that the amendments put that beyond doubt.”

When the bill returned to the Lords on Tuesday, peers approved the government’s concession on reasonable force, but declined to push any further for the annual assessment of the new powers to include checks on whether they have caused any harm.

The bill is now awaiting royal assent.

*All of these deaths, apart from that of Krissi Hunt, are investigated in The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP’s actions and failings, which is published by Pluto Press

13 November 2025

New investigation on NEETs will only target young disabled people, DWP document shows

A new “independent” investigation into the rising number of young people who are not in jobs, training or education will exclusively target sick and disabled claimants, a government document has revealed.

A Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) press release had said the inquiry would “tackle the persistently high numbers of young people out of work, education and training”.

DWP said on Monday that the investigation, to be led by former Labour health secretary Alan Milburn and commissioned by work and pensions secretary Pat McFadden, would have a “particular focus on the impact of mental health conditions and disability”.

But the inquiry’s terms of reference, published the following day, make it clear that this will be its only focus.

They say the investigation will examine the “drivers of the increase in the number of young people who are Not in Education Employment or Training (NEET) and claiming health and disability benefits, including childhood experience”.

The terms of reference say that Milburn and his panel of “experts” – who have yet to be appointed – will “investigate the root causes of this rise in economic inactivity among disabled young people and those with health conditions”.

As part of its initial work, the Independent Report into Young People and Work will aim to identify “underlying factors which may drive these trends”.

DWP said this week that more than a quarter of NEET young people now say long-term sickness or disability is a barrier to their participation, compared to 12 per cent in 2013-14.

There are likely to be concerns among many disabled activists that Milburn is leading the review.

Last year, in a controversial report, which was welcomed by ministers, his Pathways to Work Commission focused strongly on the need to push more people with long-term health conditions into work, and it included a controversial recommendation for DWP to introduce a “duty to engage” with employment support.

Milburn’s report also called on the government to cut benefits for disabled people who are out-of-work – except for those with “severe disabilities” – so they could “close the financial gap between incapacity and unemployment benefits”, a recommendation which was taken up this year by ministers through their Universal Credit Act.

And it completely ignored the serious safeguarding issues within DWP, including those linked to the work capability assessment process and universal credit and associated with efforts to pressure disabled people into work or work-related activity.

There are already concerns over some of the language used by DWP this week in announcing the review, with McFadden describing the growing number of young people who are not in work, training or education as “a disease”, in an interview with the Sunday Times, and claiming that work was an “antidote” to many health conditions.

The terms of reference also say that the review will provide a “diagnosis” on the increase in the number of young ill and disabled people who are NEET.

But there will be hopes that the new investigation could unearth clear evidence linking the increase in young sick and disabled people forced to rely on out-of-work benefits with the impact of the Covid pandemic; the backlogs in mental health treatment; and increases in mental distress and ill-health among younger people.

This could provide ammunition to fend off the growing hostile and disablist attacks on young disabled people from politicians and the right-wing media, and on social media.

DWP promises that Milburn’s investigation will “engage with people with lived experience” as well as employers, and experts in the labour market, welfare and health sectors.

It said the review would “make practical recommendations to help young people with health conditions access work, training or education”.

The final report is due to be published next summer, although the government will see its interim findings in the spring.

McFadden said: “The rising number of young people who are not in education, employment or training is a crisis of opportunity that demands more action to give them the chance to learn or earn.

“We cannot afford to lose a generation of young people to a life on benefits, with no work prospects and not enough hope.”

Milburn said his review would be “uncompromising in exposing failures in employment support, education, skills, health and welfare and will produce far-reaching recommendations for change to enhance opportunities for young people to learn and earn”.

13 November 2025

New project will research and reveal stories behind half a century of the disability arts movement

A new project to research and reveal 50 years of stories behind the rise of the disability arts movement has been awarded nearly £250,000 of National Lottery funding.

Disability Arts Online (DAO) is hoping its project will collect previously untold stories and save them from being lost for ever, through a new accessible digital archive, an interactive timeline, and a series of podcasts.

Over three years, Cripping Culture: A Journey into Disability Arts Heritage will collect memories from disabled artists, allowing it to capture “previously untold stories and shedding new light on key moments in its history”, thanks to the £249,607 grant from The National Lottery Heritage Fund.

The project’s work will include an appeal for those involved in the movement to share their memories.

The plan is to capture the stories of disabled artists and activists who were involved with disability arts through a series of oral history interviews – to be made available through a podcast in accessible formats – but the project will also seek reflections and memories from allies and audiences who experienced the work.

The timeline will include pictures, videos and materials from the disability arts movement.

DAO will work closely on the project with the National Disability Arts Collection and Archive (NDACA), which has previously brought together original art works, photographs, film footage and other material.

NDACA’s archive material will feature as part of the Cripping Culture project, with the research helping to tell the stories of the NDACA material and creating a fuller picture of the disability arts movement and its key moments.

The project also hopes to seek out stories, people and key moments that DAO is not yet aware of, including more accounts from outside London and from an intersectional perspective.

In the project’s final year, a hybrid symposium will bring together the disability arts community and celebrate the history of the movement.

DAO has been documenting the growth of disability arts since 2004, by publicising and critiquing work, reporting developments in the movement, and publishing opinion pieces.

The project will be led by DAO’s founder, Colin Hambrook, who will move to a new role as heritage project director of Cripping Culture after more than two decades as DAO’s editor.

Hambrook said: “We are in imminent danger of losing our heritage as activists central to the movement are ageing and many elders have already died.

“Their memories, stories, and interpretation of artworks make a critical contribution to society and disabled people’s culture.

“There’s an urgent need for Cripping Culture to digitally preserve this heritage and present it through the prism of lived experience in accessible and inclusive forms.”

Trish Wheatley, DAO’s chief executive, said: “Cripping Culture is hugely significant for our organisation, alongside being of vital importance to the movement.

“My favourite part of the project is that we’ll be seeking out contributions from across the country to show how widespread this movement has been and still is today.”

Dennis Queen, DAO’s co-chair, said: “The stories and testimonies gathered through Cripping Culture will help to build a more widespread and nuanced understanding of the disabled experience.

“Anyone can become disabled at any time, yet it is very hard to find a sense of community and empowered disabled identity without a rich cultural heritage to refer to.”

To register interest in sharing your story about the disability arts movement, visit www.disabilityarts.online/cripping-culture

13 November 2025

Government must drop ‘economic burden’ narrative and sanctions, MPs are told

The government needs to change its “extremely damaging” narrative that suggests disabled people are an “economic burden”, and move away from threats and sanctions, if it wants to increase disability employment, MPs have been told.

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) told members of the Commons work and pensions committee yesterday (Wednesday) that the government needed to listen to DPOs on how to reduce the disability employment gap.

One DPO told the MPs that the under-fire Access to Work programme “needs rescuing”, with its lengthy backlogs and a refusal by ministers to accept that support packages are being cut.

Michelle de Oude, co-chair of Greater Manchester Disabled People’s Panel (GMDPP), told the committee that the government’s frequent use of the term “economic inactivity” to describe disabled people who were not in paid work wrongly implied that they are “not contributing to the economy” and are “an economic burden to the rest of us in society who are working”.

She said this “extremely damaging” narrative failed to recognise that many disabled people volunteer with charities or contribute to their community in other ways, and it failed to recognise the work of unpaid carers.

If these groups suddenly withdrew their labour, she said, it would cause a huge economic cost to the country.

And she said that all disabled people contribute to their local economy by buying services, and most of them spend money online, and are therefore “economically active”.

She awarded the government “two or three out of 10” for its record on disability employment because of its “narrative” that disabled people “are a problem because we are not employed or we’re not employed enough, or we are not doing enough to get employed”, which ministers claim is costing the country money.

She said that GMDPP was trying to challenge this narrative.

De Oude said a key issue the government needed to address was the lack of expertise among work coaches in how to support disabled people to negotiate with an employer on reasonable adjustments.

Currently, she said, disabled people and employers are not given the opportunity to test out what adjustments could work.

She said it was important for disabled people to understand that they have a right to reasonable adjustments in the workplace and are shown how to ask for them.

She said: “If you support them to ask for the right reasonable adjustments in the right way, and you support the employer to understand that ask and to implement it in the right way, then you’ll really start to tackle the employment gap [between disabled and non-disabled people].”

She told the committee that Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) employment support programmes treat disabled people as if they are being put through a “sausage machine”.

De Oude also said the government should ask DPOs how they would spend money to support disabled people to access jobs and persuade employers to remove barriers, rather than endlessly repeating the failed policies of successive governments over the last 30 or 40 years.

She said DPOs would instead focus on disabled people’s expertise and individual knowledge and work with employers to remove barriers and “explore things and try things”.

Geoff Fimister, head of policy for Inclusion Barnet and spokesperson for the Campaign for Disability Justice, highlighted the harm caused by conditions and sanctions imposed on disabled people by DWP.

He said that “as long as the system is backed up by the threat of work-related conditionality and sanctions, I think there’ll be a lack of trust, and getting that trust and engagement from disabled people is crucial.

“Moving away from pressure and towards support is where we need to be going.

“There needs to be a confidence that what is on offer will actually lead to employment, and decent employment, and is not backed up by the threat of loss of income.”

De Oude added: “If conditionality worked, if threatening people worked, then all of the conditionality that had ever been in place would have worked, wouldn’t it, [and] the employment gap would have reduced.

“The fact of the matter is it doesn’t work because what you’re… doing is penalising disabled people for the fact that there are consistent, persistent barriers across the employment market.”

Fimister said good quality employment support was important, but the readiness of employers to employ disabled people was “key”.

But he said that the specialist knowledge of work coaches was “very patchy, very variable”.

He also told the committee that the Access to Work disability employment scheme was “very important” but “needs rescuing”, because of its backlogs and “unofficial cutting back” of support.

He said: “People are finding when they have their packages reassessed, they’re getting much less than they were getting before.

“The DWP denies that this is happening. They say that they’re just trying to stick to the original policy objective, so we’re having some very surreal conversations.

“It’s like looking out the window and saying, ‘It’s raining,’ and the DWP saying, ‘Well, the policy intention is that it’s not raining.’

“That won’t do. Access to Work is in need of rescue.”

Conor D’Arcy, deputy chief executive of Money and Mental Health Policy Institute, told the committee that his organisation had asked its research community of 5,000 people with mental health conditions “whether they had felt like the support that they’d got from DWP had ever got them into a job that had actually understood and was suitable for their mental health, and only nine per cent said yes”.

And Evan John, policy and public affairs adviser for the disability charity Sense, said there was a lack of understanding within jobcentres of the support requirements of disabled people with “complex needs”, which can “leave them feeling discouraged and distrusted”.

13 November 2025

Minister refuses once again to reveal truth about cuts to Access to Work

The disability minister has refused once again to explain what role he played in his department’s secret programme to cut Access to Work (AtW) grants.

It is the latest failure by Sir Stephen Timms to clarify when and how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) took the decision that guidance should be “more consistently applied” and that AtW staff should be more “scrupulous” in applying the guidance.

That decision led to significant cuts to the number of AtW grants being awarded, and to the size of many grants being reduced.

Sir Stephen told Disability News Service (DNS) at Labour’s annual conference in September that he would provide the date on which he approved an order from senior DWP civil servants for AtW staff to be more “scrupulous” in how they applied guidance.

But he has failed to provide that date.

Instead, DWP provided background information which failed to clarify when, or if, Sir Stephen approved a document about the guidance, but which suggested that the changes were put into effect through additional training for AtW case managers.

It suggested – although it refused to clarify this – that he may have seen a document but did not have to approve it.

Now Sir Stephen is claiming that he did not go back on his word by failing to provide the date, even though the information provided by DWP’s press office offered no date or clarity on how and when the new AtW regime was introduced.

He told DNS that he was “disappointed” to see the DNS report “stating, incorrectly, that I had gone back on my word”.

He said: “After we met, I checked what had happened, as I said I would.

“What I established was, as stated in the note you had from the department’s press office, ‘No submission has been sent to the Minister seeking a decision on case manager training as this is standard practice to improve our service.’

“I did ensure that the information I promised reached you.”

But when DNS asked – yet again – for clarity on who made the decision to apply the guidance more scrupulously, when it was shared with AtW staff, in what form it was sent to them, when he saw this information, and whether he approved it or just read it, he refused to provide any further information.

Instead, he wrongly stated in an email to DNS: “I fully delivered – via the press office – on the assurance I gave you.”

He had failed to respond to a further request for clarity by noon today (Thursday).

The first signs of how the new AtW regime has been impacting disabled people seeking support through the disability employment scheme came last month when DWP figures showed the number of people who had had any AtW provision approved fell by more than 10 per cent in the year to March 2025.

It is thought that more up-to-date figures will show a much steeper fall since the new rules began to be applied.

13 November 2025

Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week

Disabled workers will effectively work for free from today until the end of the year, according to fresh analysis of the disability pay gap. Earnings between disabled and non-disabled workers remains a significant £2.24 an hour, which means disabled employees working a 35-hour week have to get by with more than £4,000 less a year on average compared to those who are not disabled, according to the Trades Union Congress: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/disability-pay-gap-workers-stop-earning-b2862889.html

Private companies operating care services in just three regions of England have taken more than £250 million in profits in three years, with more than a third going to providers owned by private equity firms or companies based in tax havens. New analysis by Reclaiming Our Regional Economies warned that public money is being rapidly funnelled out of the care system into the hands of private companies, rather than reinvested to improve services: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/nov/12/private-care-providers-in-three-english-regions-make-250m-in-three-years

Schools in England are steering away children with special educational needs (SEN), leading some to have six times as many pupils requiring learning or behaviour support compared with others, according to research. Local authority leaders told the National Foundation for Educational Research they knew of schools that were “happy” to see others take children requiring extra support detailed by education, health and care plans , including headteachers who feared the impact on exam results of enrolling children with SEN: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/13/schools-steer-away-special-needs-pupils-research-finds

Care homes that are graded as inadequate or requiring improvement are often not being reinspected for a year or more, a BBC investigation has found. More than 2,100 care homes in England, as of October this year, were rated as “requires improvement” by the Care Quality Commission, but the BBC found three-quarters of those had not been reinspected within a year or more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14pvyn473ro

Ministers could encourage employers to allow more hybrid and remote working to help get greater numbers of disabled people and carers into the workplace, according to a House of Lords committee. A report by a cross-party committee says the government should set out whether it has considered including remote and hybrid working in back-to-work initiatives to offer more working flexibility to disabled people and those with long-term health conditions: https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/nov/13/hybrid-working-disabled-people-lords-committee

The pioneering actor and writer Nabil Shaban, who has died aged 72, co-founded the theatre company Graeae in the 1970s, which is now a firmly established platform for deaf, disabled and neurodivergent performers: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/oct/30/nabil-shaban-obituary

13 November 2025

News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com