Contents
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week 18
Shock of activists as disability minister ignores disabled woman who collapsed on floor after cuts meeting
The disability minister has been accused of a “shocking lack of empathy” after walking past a disabled woman who collapsed on the floor at the end of a meeting about government plans to cut disability benefits by billions of pounds.
Representatives of the Christian charity Church Action on Poverty (CAP) were left stunned after Sir Stephen Timms, the minister for social security and disability, failed to express any concern about the woman’s wellbeing, and simply walked around her and left the room.
He later failed to send her a message to check if she had recovered.
Three disabled activists who work with the social justice charity had joined its chief executive Niall Cooper for the half-hour meeting at Caxton House, the Westminster headquarters of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), as part of the government’s consultation on its Pathways to Work green paper.
Cooper had been accompanied by a staff member and disabled activists Stef Benstead and Mary Passeri, while another disabled campaigner, Sydnie Corley, joined online.
But towards the end of a meeting at which Sir Stephen defended the billions of pounds of cuts announced by his government in March’s green paper, Passeri began to feel unwell.
She told Disability News Service (DNS): “It had been a long journey and I was so angry that he wouldn’t just stop and listen to us.
“I could see tears of frustration building in Stef’s eyes and running down her face, and I felt myself getting shaky and falling in Stef’s direction.”
Benstead saw that Passeri’s arms and legs had started shaking and she helped her onto the floor.
By this time, Passeri had passed out, which is not unusual because of her health conditions.
The two women were lying in front of the meeting-room door and the minister had to walk from the other side of the table and around Passeri and Benstead to leave the room.
Sir Stephen, who is leading the government’s work on its disability benefits reforms, made no attempt to check on Passeri and instead edged around the table without saying a word and then left the room with a member of staff.
Another member of DWP staff with first aid experience arrived soon afterwards.
A civil servant took a DWP laptop with them as they left the room, cutting off the connection with Corley, who knows Passeri well and had been offering advice on how to support her.
Corley said: “Mary has a lot of mini-strokes and strokes, and I didn’t know whether she had taken her meds, or whether it was a diabetic coma, or a mild seizure, or if it was hospital level.
“I was the only one who could tell the difference and I said, ‘don’t cut me off, I need to make sure she is OK.’”
But the DWP staff member cut off the connection and the CAP staff member had to call Corley on her phone.
Sir Stephen failed to contact Passeri afterwards to check if she was OK.
Passeri, who had travelled three hours by train from York to attend the meeting, said: “I feel it was utterly callous.
“He’s a minister, representative of his government, and it illustrates how the government feels about disabled and vulnerable people. We are in the way.”
Benstead, who had been talking to Passeri and asking her if she was OK and needed water, said: “The minister just left.
“If he had just stopped to say, ‘What can I do to help, I think we would all have said, ‘No, there’s nothing you can do, we know you have a meeting to go to, please go to the meeting.’
“But he should have asked. You ask, you don’t just walk out. That’s the bit I don’t understand.
“Maybe he spoke to one of his staff and maybe he was responsible for sending the first-aider, I don’t know, but he didn’t speak to any of us, he didn’t say goodbye, he just left.”
Corley said the minister’s behaviour – which she watched before the online connection was broken – was “really odd”.
She said: “If they treat us like that, how do they treat the rest of the people in the consultation?”
Sir Stephen openly talks about his Christan faith, and he is Labour’s Faith Envoy and a former chair of Christians on the Left.
Benstead said: “I am so completely thrown that someone who by all accounts has always been a very decent man and is a very experienced politician, and knows this area really well, is taking the stance he is taking and also didn’t stop to ask what he could do for Mary.
“If there’s a medical emergency of some sort going on, you stop to ask. He was the most senior person in the room. I just don’t understand it at all.”
Both Passeri and Corley receive the daily living element of personal independence payment, but they are among the hundreds of thousands of disabled people likely to lose their eligibility at some point after 2026 because they do not receive four points for any of the activities claimants are assessed on.
Passeri, who has several long-term health conditions, and was a further education lecturer and ran a community arts business for about 20 years before she became too ill to work, said: “PIP allows us to get taxis and the special diets and without the PIP we will still have the needs, we just won’t be able to do it.”
She said Sir Stephen’s behaviour was “a good indication of how removed he is from disabled people”.
He had told them that the cuts to benefits would cause a “cultural change in disabled claimants”.
Passeri said: “When we asked him what he meant, he said: ‘People like yourselves, with support, you could go to work.’”
A few minutes later, Passeri was lying passed out on the meeting-room floor.
She said: “He had no idea what to do with this woman lying on the floor who he had just told to get a job.”
She was fired from three jobs in further education because she kept collapsing, and has now reluctantly concluded that she will not be able to work again, other than occasional voluntary work with CAP.
She told DNS: “To hear him just say I can just get a job is heart-breaking, because I have had to give up so much already.
“It left Stef and I almost having to justify being alive.
“There was no acknowledgement from Timms that he understood or accepted that we were speaking to him from a place of fear.
“We were desperate to get over to Timms that the cuts in benefits won’t ‘cure’ disabled people and suddenly make us employable.
“Coupled with the cuts in the Access to Work budget, which helps disabled people to work, it shows that the cuts were never about getting disabled people into work.”
The three of them later wrote a blog about the meeting for Church Action on Poverty.
Benstead told DNS they had expected Sir Stephen to be “really conflicted” about the cuts because “he’s going to know it’s really bad, he’s going to know that they shouldn’t be making these cuts”.
Instead, he insisted that the government’s plans for employment support would be transformative, that it was wrong that sick and disabled people receive so much more in out-of-work benefits than non-disabled people, and that spending on PIP was unsustainable.
She said: “I honestly don’t know if he does believe it because I just find it so hard that he could look at the data and believe it, but he came across as genuinely believing that this was the right thing to do because they are going to get so many sick and disabled people into work.”
She told him that he could not tell disabled people that PIP was unsustainable because that was the same as telling disabled people that they are unsustainable, and she said it was the government’s responsibility to ensure there was money available to support them.
Corley said the minister had gone into the meeting “with his foot stamped down” and when he was challenged with difficult questions he became “abrupt and defensive”.
She said: “There was no expression of warmth, there was no sitting and listening; he was expressionless.
“There was no change in his expression, that was what was odd.
“He just kept saying, ‘It’s going to work, it’s going to work,’ like a child.”
She said she asked him to resign as minister to “make a stand and stop the cuts” and told him they were speaking on behalf of so many more disabled people just like them who had already shared their concerns.
In response to the concerns about Sir Stephen’s behaviour, a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “At the heart of our welfare reforms is a mission to give people a better life – by helping disabled people into work where they can and protecting the most vulnerable.
“As we take these reforms forward we are listening to a wide range of views, and Minister Timms is grateful to Church Action on Poverty for the time and effort they took to come and share their thoughts with him.
“He and his team were present when a member of the group collapsed, and he was deeply concerned for her wellbeing.
“He ensured she was being well cared for before leaving.”
But Niall Cooper, chief executive of Church Action on Poverty, told DNS yesterday (Wednesday): “The severe proposed cuts are hugely harmful to many people’s lives and to UK society as a whole, yet the government seems unable or unwilling to grasp just how terrifying this situation is for disabled people.
“I have been working alongside activists to challenge poverty for 28 years but was shocked by the lack of empathy in this meeting and afterwards.
“Church Action on Poverty will be writing to the minister shortly to reiterate our dismay, but also to continue to press for a rethink on these immoral proposals.”
29 May 2025
Access to Work cuts risk ‘decimating’ disability arts movement, disabled artists and consultants warn
Cuts and reforms to the Access to Work system pose an “existential threat” and risk “decimating” the disability arts movement in Britain, disabled artists, companies and consultants are warning this week.
As pressure grows on the Labour government over its Pathways to Work green paper, a series of leading disabled figures have spoken out to urge ministers to pay attention to the threat to more than 40 years of progress within the disability arts sector.
Their concerns have won support from Arts Council England (ACE), which told Disability News Service yesterday (Wednesday) that it was “deeply concerned” about what it was hearing from disabled artists of their struggles with Access to Work (AtW).
Evidence continues to mount that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has already begun to implement significant cuts to AtW support, even though it insists it is still consulting on the future of the disability employment programme.
Labour ministers say their Pathways to Work green paper – and its billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits – is focused on helping disabled people find work and stay in employment.
The consultation on the green paper, including possible Access to Work reforms, does not close until 30 June.
But this week, Jess Thom, founder of the award-winning, disabled-led arts company Touretteshero, announced that she had been forced to stop working by the “devastating” and “destructive” cuts to AtW (see separate story).
Thom has had to halt her job as co-artistic director of Touretteshero after her support package was cut by 61 per cent, a decision she received while recovering from major heart surgery to replace a pacemaker.
DNS reported earlier this month that DWP insiders fear an AtW cost-cutting drive could destroy the scheme and lead to disabled people being forced to quit their jobs.
This week has seen Decode – a partnership between Disability Arts Online and Cathy Waller Company that supports disabled people in the arts and creative sector with AtW – release the results of research showing how the 117 disabled people it has supported with AtW applications over the last 15 months have been severely impacted by cuts to support.
Decode said DWP was making “significant policy changes” to who it supports and what assistance it provides, and that a new wave of cuts in September will “pose a serious threat to the livelihoods and independence of disabled people” and will “risk cutting off access entirely for hundreds of thousands of disabled people who are either in work or trying to enter the workforce”.
The Decode report found that, even after reconsiderations [internal appeals], only 16 per cent of the applicants it supported had their grants renewed in full as requested.
Of the 74 per cent of claimants who complained about their award, half of them (49 per cent) received an apology and an admission from AtW that it was at fault.
The average wait for a self-employed worker’s application to be referred to a case manager was more than a year (55 weeks), and the average wait for a final decision after being referred to an AtW case manager was another 26 weeks.
One disabled creative said the cut to their grant had led to them being admitted to hospital with acute stress; another, who had built a career over two decades, had been forced to lay off employees, and had lost their independence and “a huge chunk of my income”.
A third disabled creative lost £10,000 of work, with five months of stress caused by AtW leaving them “more disabled and needing more support than I did before”.
The disabled-led arts and culture consultancy BAP! has been investigating the impact of AtW problems on disabled people in the creative industries for the last year.
Tom Ryalls, founder and director of BAP!, said: “Changes in Access to Work are now causing the removal of artistic directors, and disability arts organisations are having to do impact assessments to understand whether they can survive these changes.
“These changes really are an existential threat to disability arts practice, and to the wider employment of disabled people across the whole cultural sector.
“It has taken decades of progress to get to the point where only nine per cent of ACE’s National Portfolio Organisation workforce are disabled; these changes risk wiping all of that progress.”
Jess Thom said it was “100 per cent” a dangerous moment for disabled people’s involvement in the cultural sector, which is already “massively in turmoil”.
She said: “If Access to Work make the changes that have been leaked, it would decimate disability arts and culture.
“It would take us back decades in my view. It would prevent new disabled artists and new disabled talent developing or emerging.”
She added: “The impact on disabled-led organisations is going to be huge because if you have a number of disabled people working who require support, and all of that support goes, well of course those organisations are going to go.”
She said that any move towards AtW no longer funding any support workers other than interpreters and job coaches – as suggested by the leaked information earlier this month – would discriminate against disabled people with higher support needs.
Thom said the government’s apparent AtW strategy “fundamentally doesn’t make sense”, which was why it was so important to speak out publicly.
She said: “I need Keir Starmer to make it make sense to me. I need politicians at a senior level to engage with this, because it’s not making sense.
“My worry is, based on 14 years of experience, that disabled people are rarely listened to and so our knowledge and expertise and the leadership we can offer with that will be ignored.
“If what they say they want to do is really what they want to do, then they need to listen to disabled people because we have the skills and expertise to achieve that.”
She added: “There’s no doubt in my mind that if we lose Access to Work, we are immediately losing disability arts and culture as we understand it in this country.”
Darren Henley, chief executive of Arts Council England, told Disability News Service (DNS) yesterday: “We’re deeply concerned to hear artists describe their struggle with the benefits system.
“Thanks to the pioneering work of disabled leaders, the proportion of disabled people working in Arts Council-funded organisations has risen from five to nine per cent of the workforce.
“But we need more progress for our sector to properly reflect society.
“Putting new barriers in place risks taking representation backwards, risks injustice for individuals and ultimately means we all miss out on ambitious, enriching, exciting work.”
Graeae Theatre Company also spoke out this week about the “broken” Access to Work system – as well as raising other concerns about the Pathways to Work green paper – with delays with processing claims of its disabled employees of up to 10 months, “misinformation and confusion” from AtW on a daily basis, and a refusal by AtW to pay support workers more than minimum wage, or to pay for equipment costs.
Graeae said in a statement: “Our community cannot and should not take this further assault on civil liberties.
“We are seriously concerned that these changes will decimate the disability arts movement [which] started in 1980 and is respected around the world.”
Asked about the cuts to disabled people’s support, a DWP spokesperson said: “We are consulting on Access to Work as we want to find the right balance between helping people access employment and helping them stay in work while also supporting employers to provide reasonable adjustments as part of their legal duties.
“We encourage people to have their views and voices heard on how they think the programme and the welfare system could be improved as part of our Plan for Change.”
But Cathy Waller, co-founder of Decode, told DNS yesterday: “The ongoing systemic failures of AtW, persisting for over a year, have already created a deeply damaging environment for disabled workers in the creative industries.
“Yet, if that weren’t dire enough, the changes proposed for phase two of ATW’s reform, scheduled for September 2025, pose an even more serious threat to the livelihoods and independence of disabled people.
“These proposed reforms don’t just build on existing failures; they risk completely severing access for hundreds of thousands of disabled individuals who are either working or striving to enter the workforce.
“If implemented, these changes will cause irreversible harm, stripping away vital support and devastating the ability of disabled people to work, contribute, and thrive.
“In the arts, where funding structures are already incredibly fragile, the consequences will be particularly acute.
“The aggressive reduction in AtW support will lead to fewer disabled people in the workforce, undermine the sustainability of disabled-led organisations, and heavily reduce the presence of disabled artists, leaders, and accessible work for disabled audiences.
“This is not just a funding issue, it’s an existential threat to inclusion, representation, and equity in the creative sector.”
29 May 2025
‘Access to Work showed me a working life was still possible… now Keir Starmer has put that at risk’
A leading disabled artist has been forced to stop working by “devastating” and “destructive” cuts to the Labour government’s Access to Work disability employment programme.
Jess Thom has had to halt her work with Touretteshero after AtW cut her support package by 61 per cent, a decision she received while recovering from major heart surgery to replace a pacemaker.
Since 2011, ATW has funded a full-time support worker to assist her with her mobility and manage her daily seizure-like episodes.
Without this support, she cannot run the organisation she founded – she is co-artistic director – which has become a multi-award-winning, disabled-led creative arts company with an international reputation and an annual turnover of nearly £1 million.
Because of the “huge” AtW backlogs (see separate story), she submitted a renewal application last July, even though her award was not due to expire until late last month.
But when she finally received notification from AtW on 7 May that her award had been approved, she realised her package had been cut by nearly two-thirds, that the hourly rate for her support worker meant she would have to pay them less than the minimum wage, and that AtW had ignored key parts of her request.
Because of her impairment, she cannot work without a support worker.
Her immediate reaction to the notification from AtW had been to burst into tears, as she knew it put her career, and everything she has built at Touretteshero, at risk.
She told DNS: “Without support, I can’t work. It’s as fundamental as that. I need someone with me. It’s way beyond what is a reasonable adjustment.
“Touretteshero makes huge reasonable adjustments for me, but beyond that I need skilled support to do my job.”
She has appealed the decision, with support from consultancy Decode, and has taken legal advice, but it could take 17 weeks until AtW responds to her appeal through the “reconsideration” process.
She said the decision on her claim appears to confirm a DNS report earlier this month which revealed that the government had launched a new AtW cost-cutting drive, aimed at making it significantly harder for disabled people to secure support.
The cuts come as Labour ministers continue to insist that their Pathways to Work green paper – and its billions of pounds of cuts to disability benefits – is focused on helping disabled people find work and stay in employment.
But the consultation on the green paper, including possible Access to Work reforms, does not close until 30 June.
Thom said: “It’s hard not to feel like they are starting to implement something that they haven’t finished consulting on, which then makes it really hard to take that consultation seriously.”
Thom – who posted a blog about the cuts to her support last week – said the government’s AtW policy made no sense.
She said: “The cuts are preventing people who have been successful from working as disabled people.
“I don’t understand how Keir Starmer can hold the position that they are the party of work while also preventing disabled people working by cutting Access to Work.
“It’s hard not to read it as an attack on disabled people and it just doesn’t make sense.
“The planned cuts would be so destructive to the working lives of disabled people.
“It does feel like it’s ideologically driven, but it’s not an ideology that I recognise.”
But many other disabled people are in the same situation as Thom.
Since posting her blog, she has been contacted by 17 other disabled people who have reported cuts of a similar scale to their own AtW packages, which are affecting their working lives.
Some of them have reported cuts that were even bigger than the ones made to Thom’s package, with cuts of between 45 and 80 per cent, although not all in the last few months.
A similar number of “terrified” disabled people who are waiting for decisions on their AtW packages have also contacted her.
Asked yesterday (Wednesday) what guidelines had been used to justify the cuts to the AtW packages of Jess Thom and other disabled people, and how the cuts aligned with its disability employment strategy, a DWP spokesperson said: “We are consulting on Access to Work as we want to find the right balance between helping people access employment and helping them stay in work while also supporting employers to provide reasonable adjustments as part of their legal duties.
“We encourage people to have their views and voices heard on how they think the programme and the welfare system could be improved as part of our Plan for Change.”
The cuts to Thom’s package now threaten the work Touretteshero has been funded to do by Arts Council England as one of its National Portfolio Organisations.
She is due to meet ACE this week to discuss the AtW situation, but ACE has already expressed its concern and support for disabled artists affected by AtW struggles (see separate story).
Thom stressed the importance that AtW had played in her career since her impairments “changed suddenly” 15 years ago.
She said: “I didn’t think that work and a working life was something that I could continue. It felt that everything was falling apart around me.
“Within two weeks, Access to Work had intensified my support and Access to Work was key in showing me that a working life was still possible.
“Everything Touretteshero has achieved in the last 15 years has been built on me having the skilled support funded by Access to Work.
“It’s absolutely that important, and as soon as it stops, I stop.”
She said: “To have worked to grow an organisation like Touretteshero, and then to have to be forced to not do a job that I’m very capable of doing and to have to back out of projects because of a DWP decision made under Keir Starmer’s watch, is just devastating.”
She said she was even more concerned about what the cuts will mean for other working disabled people, and particularly younger disabled people and those with newly-acquired impairments.
Thom said: “It was Access to Work that showed me what good support looked like.
“I had an independent life at work before I had an independent life at home.
“If you want to support young disabled people, you need to invest in Access to Work, you need to broaden it, you need to make sure it is personalised, and you need to make sure it is quick and it is responsive.”
She added: “If Access to Work is not providing [support for disabled people] then either we will lose disabled people from public life, and from creative life, and we will lose disability arts and culture, or that funding will have to be replaced from somewhere and disabled people’s support will have to come from somewhere.”
29 May 2025
Benefit cap could see countless PIP claimants left homeless after cuts, but DWP has no idea how many
Thousands of disabled people could lose out on thousands of pounds a year in housing benefit – and face eviction – because of the government’s cuts to disability benefits, but ministers have no idea how many will lose out and risk homelessness.
Almost nothing has so far been said or written about the impact of the cuts to personal independence payment (PIP) on disabled people who are currently exempt from the benefit cap.
The benefit cap imposes a limit – currently about £22,000 for couples and lone parents outside Greater London – on the total amount of benefits working-age claimants can receive.
But those who receive some benefits – including PIP and the limited capability for work and work-related activity element of universal credit – are exempt from the cap.
This means that the cuts announced in March’s Pathways to Work green paper – which will eventually reduce spending on PIP by more than £4.5 billion a year – could have a huge extra impact on many of those who lose their PIP.
Under the new rules proposed by Labour ministers, all claimants will have to be awarded at least four points on at least one “activity” to qualify for the PIP daily living component.
This will apply to new PIP claims and those having their awards reviewed from November 2026 onwards.
Joe Halewood, a supported housing consultant, warned last month that some current claimants who lose out could lose thousands of pounds a year on top of the amount they lose in PIP, because their housing benefit* will be cut by hundreds of pounds a month when they are no longer protected by the benefit cap.
He believes this could lead to thousands of disabled people being evicted from social housing and left homeless.
After reading the post and contacting Halewood, Disability News Service (DNS) submitted a freedom of information request to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to ask how many current PIP claimants it believed would no longer be exempt from the benefit cap due to its planned cuts.
DNS also asked how many would lose certain amounts from their housing benefit every month due to no longer being exempt from the benefit cap.
And it asked for any documents that have been shown to ministers that deal with the benefit cap issue and which discuss how the government can avoid widespread evictions.
But in response, the department said it would be too expensive to provide the information because it would take more than the equivalent of 24 staff hours to produce it as it would “require new and complex data matching across multiple data sources”.
This means civil servants have not yet discussed the issue with ministers, or estimated how many disabled people will lose out, and by how much.
Inclusion London, which has campaigned for action on accessible housing and disability poverty, said it was shocked that DWP had failed to research how many disabled people would lose their benefit cap exemption and face possible eviction.
Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice at Inclusion London, said: “We are extremely concerned about the devastating impact that losing PIP will have on disabled people’s housing.
“The impact will be particularly severe in London, with its extortionately high housing costs and the biggest number of disabled people who rent privately.
“PIP exempts people from the benefits cap and it also helps to pay higher housing costs.
“Losing this will expose people to eviction, move more into costly temporary accommodation, and ultimately force many to opt for homes that do not meet their needs.
“Our research shows that one in four Londoners who need an accessible home already can’t access basic facilities in their home.
“This move will not only cost more for the public purse, it will devastate the lives of many thousands of people.
“We urge the government to stop and rethink these harmful reforms.”
Caroline Collier, from Inclusion Barnet’s Campaign for Disability Justice (CDJ), said the “vital issue” had so far been “profoundly under-recognised and under-explored” since the green paper was published.
She said: “It will undoubtedly have an impact on homelessness, and all the issues that go with that.
“We are very concerned, therefore, that the DWP has not already produced data for politicians outlining the number of disabled people who will be affected.
“It is hard to avoid the suspicion that none of the ramifications of these very unwise and unjust proposals have been properly thought through.
“It is clear that the effects will be appalling, and any proper impact assessment would highlight the likely huge increase in mental health issues, homelessness, breakdown in caring arrangements and utter desperation that would likely follow their implementation.”
In its submission to the green paper consultation – and in a briefing to the London mayor’s office – CDJ has warned that the PIP changes would affect exemptions from both the benefit cap and the shared accommodation rate of housing benefit, which means that under-35s only receive enough for a single room in shared accommodation.
Collier said these issues will be “particularly acute in London due to the high housing costs”.
DWP’s press office was unable to explain why the department had not worked out how many PIP claimants would be hit by the new four-point rule and lose their benefit cap exemption, or why ministers had not even discussed this issue with civil servants.
But a DWP spokesperson said in a statement: “The majority of people who are currently getting PIP will continue to receive it.
“We have also announced a review of the PIP assessment, and we will be working with disabled people and key organisations representing them to consider how best to do this as we deliver on our Plan for Change.”
The department said it had published some information on the impact of its cuts and would be publishing more in the coming months, and that it was consulting on how best to support those impacted by the new PIP eligibility changes, while also reviewing the PIP assessment process.
Meanwhile, Richard Burgon, who is among the Labour MPs on the left of the party who are opposing the cuts to disability benefits, has asked whether the government department responsible for housing issues has examined the issues raised by the PIP cuts and the benefit cap.
He asked what estimate the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has made of the potential costs of the Pathways to Work cuts.
But local government minister Jim McMahon told him in a written answer on Friday that Pathways to Work was still out to consultation and so was “not current policy, and a full assessment will be made in the usual way at the appropriate time”.
Burgon said on Twitter/X: “The disability benefit cuts will push many into homelessness.
“So I asked the Government the expected cost of this higher homelessness. They’ve not even bothered to look at this yet!
“Yet the vote is expected next month. Totally irresponsible. These cruel cuts must be dropped.”
*Or the housing element of universal credit
29 May 2025
Anger at Network Rail for ‘shocking’ exclusion of scooter-users from ‘future of railways’ exhibition
An exhibition that will travel the country to celebrate the “past, present and future” of the railways will be inaccessible to many disabled people who use mobility scooters, because Network Rail has used carriages that are more than 30 years old.
The Railway 200 project will celebrate 200 years since the opening of the Stockton and Darlington Railway on 27 September 1825.
As part of Railway 200, an exhibition train will tour the country, with its carriages displaying innovations in railway history, offering hands-on activities to explore the science and engineering behind railways, and encouraging those interested in a career in rail.
But many disabled people will not be able to access the exhibition because Network Rail and its project partner the National Railway Museum are using ancient rail carriages that were built years before the implementation of the first Disability Discrimination Act, which became law in 1995.
Users of standard mobility scooters will not be able to visit the Inspiration exhibition train, with its website admitting – in its “answers to questions” section – that although it is wheelchair-accessible, it is “not designed for mobility scooters”.
Instead, many scooter-users will have to content themselves with a “virtual visitor experience”.
Among the destinations the train will be visiting this summer will be Severn Valley Railway, Birmingham Moor Street station, Euston and Waterloo stations in London, Bluebell Railway in Sussex, Lowestoft station, the National Railway Museum, and Locomotion museum, near Darlington.
Tony Jennings, co-chair of a rail accessibility panel and co-founder of the Campaign for Level Boarding, who highlighted the failure this week and had been planning to visit the exhibition, said Network Rail’s discrimination “did not come as a surprise” as “all too often they appear to be normalising excluding disabled people within their organisation”.
He said: “It is symbolic that with the Railway200 exhibition, which purports to celebrate the past as well as a future modern railway, inclusive design is an unacceptable afterthought.
“Ironically, it is a sad reflection of today’s railway, where the government has not made commitments, or indeed a plan, to deliver rolling programmes for level boarding or step free stations, which at the current rate will take 100 years.”
He said the current situation for mobility scooter-users on the railway was “a diabolical mess”, with scooter-users “unreasonably expected to know every train operators’ Accessible Travel Policy, and whether they require a separate scooter permit for individual operators”.
Jennings, whose campaigning has led to both Northern Trains and ScotRail lifting their mobility scooter bans, said the variety of rules leaves scooter-users “at risk of being stranded” when taking a journey that uses more than one train operating company.
He added: “Mobility scooters are a mobility aid, yet unbelievably there are still operators which require mobility scooter-users to fold up and stow their scooter as luggage.”
A Network Rail spokesperson said: “The exhibition train has been procured and designed to be as safe and accessible as possible, to as many people as possible.
“During the procurement process, no carriages compatible with mobility scooters were available.
“The four carriages being used are modified Mark 3 coaches, originally designed and constructed before current accessibility regulations were introduced.
“They were the only suitable rolling stock available at the time that met the operational, heritage and touring requirements for the train’s 12-month tour of Britain.
“Every effort has been made to improve accessibility within the constraints of the original design, including a modification to the vestibule entrance to one of the carriages to allow wheelchair entry in every carriage.
“Specifically, the internal layout and door widths of the Mark 3 carriages, even after modification, do not provide sufficient space safely to accommodate standard mobility scooters.
“Visitors in wheelchairs can board, with staff assistance and via ramps, and can turn around within the exhibition space.
“However, the size, turning radius and weight of mobility scooters exceed what the carriage interiors and entryways can safely manage.”
The spokesperson added: “The National Accessibility Advisory Group, which includes members who use both wheelchairs and mobility scooters, was consulted during development.
“Its helpful insights, gleaned from across the transport sector, were instrumental in shaping mitigations, including the planned virtual visitor experience to ensure broader inclusion.”
Despite the Network Rail statement, and its admission that the exhibition is not accessible to scooter-users, a National Railway Museum spokesperson said: “The National Railway Museum is fully committed to being open and accessible to everybody, including mobility scooter users.
“Inspiration’s carriages were designed to be fully accessible by wheelchair users, and wheelchairs will be available for the public to use during the train’s stay at the museum.”
Flick Williams, a disability rights campaigner and retired disability equality trainer and access consultant, told Disability News Service: “I just think it’s shocking. Network Rail never seem to learn.
“We know they can’t get transport right, but even with the visitor experience they don’t seem to want to make any effort.
“It shows that we are absolutely not headed in the right direction at all.
“I just wonder what it will take to change the culture within Network Rail.”
She added: “It’s no surprise to me that knowing what an awful culture there is within Network Rail towards accessibility, they just don’t treat it as a civil right, as a human right.
“My fear is, with the advance of new technologies like virtual reality, they are going to use that as a ‘fob off’ to tell people, ‘we can’t give you access, but put this headset on and you can have a virtual tour.’
“It’s absolutely not the same at all.
“It just worries me that this new technology is going to be used to exclude disabled people in all sorts of ways.”
29 May 2025
‘Overwhelming response’ to letter to PM from high-profile disabled figures on Labour’s ‘catastrophic’ cuts
Disabled public figures behind a new campaign to persuade the government to back down on its “inhumane and catastrophic” plans to cut billions of pounds from disability benefits say they are overwhelmed by the response since its launch.
Tuesday’s launch saw 100 disabled actors, artists, journalists, academics and activists publish an open letter to prime minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The letter led to widespread publicity, including national newspaper coverage and broadcast interviews.
The disabled activists at the centre of the #TakingThePip campaign said last night that the response to the campaign had been “overwhelming”, with many more disabled public figures already adding their names to the letter.
They said: “We came together to highlight all of the proposed cuts to disability benefits – support that is vital for disabled people to live, work and thrive.
“There are already so many incredible organisations, movements, and individuals who’ve spent years fighting tirelessly for the rights of disabled people.
“As public figures, our role is to amplify those efforts, shine a spotlight on these proposed cuts, and bring as much mainstream attention to these issues as possible.
“We are united in this fight and the more of us who raise our voices, the louder we become.”
The campaign follows protests across Britain, disabled-led campaign coalitions, research, and last week’s mass lobby of MPs, in the two months since Labour’s Pathways to Work green paper was published.
The letter particularly focuses on the billions of pounds of cuts to personal independence payment and the disability element of universal credit, and it warns that the government’s plans will “deepen social exclusion and increase disability-related deaths”, and lead to homelessness.
It says the cuts have caused “tears and sleepless nights”, with disabled people “unsure how they will survive”.
The letter demands that the government “immediately” withdraws the cuts and instead engages “meaningfully” with disabled people and disabled-led organisations to “co-design a fair, compassionate, and sustainable benefits system that supports, not punishes, disabled lives”.
Among those who signed the letter are award-winning writer Jack Thorne, comedian Rosie Jones, actors Rose Ayling-Ellis, Liz Carr, Ruth Madeley, Mat Fraser, Cherylee Houston and Lisa Hammond, musician Dame Evelyn Glennie, scriptwriter William Mager, and comedians Jack Carroll and Lee Ridley.
The campaign’s website provides sample posts that can be shared on social media, parliamentary petitions to sign, and letter templates to allow disabled people and allies to write to their MPs.
29 May 2025
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
Hundreds of thousands of children with special needs could lose their legal entitlement to extra support in schools in England under plans being considered by ministers, a move that campaigners warn could force thousands more pupils out of mainstream education. The reforms relate to education, health and care plans, statutory documents families have relied on for more than a decade to guarantee their children’s right to support: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/may/24/children-with-special-needs-in-england-may-lose-legal-right-to-school-support
Plans for NHS staff to restrain and detain people experiencing a mental health crisis, instead of the police doing so, are “dangerous”, doctors, nurses and psychiatrists have warned. The former prime minister Theresa May has proposed legislation in England and Wales that would change the long-established practice for dealing with people who may pose a risk to themselves or others because their mental health has deteriorated sharply: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/26/plans-for-nhs-staff-to-restrain-those-in-mental-health-crisis-dangerous-medics-say
The British arm of a US contractor that profits from testing whether some people in the UK should receive disability benefits has paid £10 million in dividends to its investors. Maximus, a Virginia-based business, reported a 23 per cent rise in pre-tax profit for its UK arm, from £23.6 million to £29.1 million, in its financial year to the end of September, accounts lodged at Companies House show: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/29/us-firm-maximus-that-tests-eligibility-for-uk-disability-benefits-pays-out-10m-in-dividends
Jobcentres will no longer force people into “any job” available, the employment minister has said, promising there will be long-term, personalised career support for those losing out due to welfare cuts. Alison McGovern said she was ending the Conservative policy under which jobseekers were obliged to take any low-paid, insecure work and that the service would now be focused on helping people to build rewarding careers: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/29/jobcentres-alison-mcgovern-employment-support-policy
29 May 2025
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
