Category: Disability

March 21, 2025

‘Anti-Disability Rhetoric and Policy Lies at the Heart of the Second Trump Administration’: CounterSpin interview with David Perry on MAGA and disability

Janine Jackson interviewed historian David Perry about MAGA and disability for the March 14, 2025, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

MSNBC (3/3/25)

Janine Jackson: A fair amount is being written about Linda McMahon’s lack of qualifications to be secretary of education, except the one that matters: an evident willingness to destroy the department she’s charged with leading. Our guest’s piece for MSNBC.com was one of few, so far, to address the impact of the Trump White House, including McMahon’s appointment, on the rights and lives of people with disabilities.

David Perry is a journalist and a historian; he joins us now by phone from Minnesota. Welcome back to CounterSpin, David Perry.

David Perry: It’s so nice to talk to you again.

JJ: McMahon at the DoE is not the only piece of this story, of course, but we might start with that. There’s some confusion, I think, around what the Department of Education does. They don’t really write curricula, but they do have a role in the school experiences of students with disabilities, don’t they?

DP: Yeah. It’s one of the places where the federal level really matters. It matters across the board. It matters that we have a functioning Department of Education that cares about education. But there are specific things it does, when it comes to students with disabilities—like, actually, both of my kids in different ways—particularly around something called a 504 plan. And we don’t need to get into the weeds there, but there’s two different kinds of ways that students with disabilities get services, and one are things we can call special ed, where kids are pulled out or get really modified curricula, but most people just get small accommodations; that really makes a difference.

Conversation (2/13/25)

If there’s a problem, it is the Office of Civil Rights of the Department of Education, that you appeal to. If there are materials that aren’t accessible—say, for example, you’re blind, and you can’t get materials over audio—you can file an OCR complaint to the Office of Civil Rights and expect to get some kind of response. And certainly under the Obama administration, and even under the first Trump administration, under Betsy DeVos—I’m not a fan of Betsy DeVos, but that office remained functional—and then more recently, all of that was happening. These civil rights offices are not surviving what Trump is doing these first six weeks, and I don’t expect the Ed Department’s to either.

JJ: In your piece for MSNBC, you situate McMahon’s appointment among a number of top-down threats to people with disabilities, and some of it’s old, things people have been pushing for for a while, off and on, but some of it feels kind of new, and some of it is policy, and some of it is, I guess, cultural. What are you seeing?

DP: Yeah, I wrote this piece in MSNBC, and I’ve been thinking about it in some ways since last summer, when I saw this coming. But here’s the version that came out.

AP (3/19/25)

There has been, with incredible amounts of work since the ’50s and ’60s and all the way through to today, the creation of a bipartisan, basic consensus that people with disabilities deserve to be able to work, deserve education, deserve housing that is accessible, deserve healthcare through things like Medicaid.

It has never been a great consensus. It has never been sufficient. The divisions between Democrats and Republicans, or even among Democrats and among Republicans, are vast and important and worth fighting for.

But I do think we achieved that kind of basic consensus, and I do not believe that the current Trump administration supports that consensus, and I have a lot of evidence to talk about it. And we’re going to see more, with the shuttering of Social Security offices, and the things that are coming from Medicaid. And, again, these basic issues around education.

And I think it’s really important for liberals, people like me, to not just say, “Oh, Republicans were always bad on this.” Again, we really disagreed on things, but the example I used is when Fred Trump Jr.—or the third, I can’t always remember their name—the president’s nephew, he has a son who has cerebral palsy and significant needs, went to the first Trump administration for help. He found a lot of people who were ready to help him, who were ready to do important work around access and around medical support.

Guardian (7/24/24)

None of those people are working in the second Trump White House except for Trump, whose famous or infamous response to his nephew is, “Well, wouldn’t it be better if your kid was just dead? It’s too much work. It’s too expensive.” And that’s the attitude we’re seeing now.

And that’s not even getting into what Elon Musk says about disabled people, or RFK, what he’s doing. I mean, we could talk for an hour just about the ways in which anti-disability rhetoric and policy lies at the heart of the second Trump administration.

JJ: It’s so appalling, and so many different appalling things are happening, and yet one can still be surprised to hear people, including Elon Musk, throwing around the r-word. Again, I don’t quite get what is so enjoyable about punching down, but people with disabilities, it seems, are always going to be at the sharp end of that.

DP: It is amazing to me. I’m a historian; I’m pretty cynical about things like progress. I know that things can be cyclical, that things we expect we achieve, we discover that ten, 20 years later, we did not achieve them. We’re seeing that right now with issues of integration, with the attempt to resegregate America racially.

HuffPost (3/14/25)

But I really felt we had gotten somewhere on the r-word, and really basic issues of respect. And all it takes is one billionaire constantly using that as his favorite insult, and now it’s back. It’s back everywhere. I see it all the time on social media. I’m sure it’s being said by kids at school to other kids. That’s something that never happened to my elder son—he’s 18, he’s about to graduate high school—that I’m aware of. I never heard that, but I bet kids following his footsteps are going to be called by the r-word. And I just thought we had beaten that one, and we clearly didn’t.

And I shouldn’t be surprised, as you say, right? I mean, that these things happen. We lose progress. But I’ll tell you that, in my heart, I thought we had beaten at least that slur, and we clearly haven’t.

JJ: I am surprised at my continued capacity to be surprised.

DP: Yeah.

JJ: When we spoke with you some years back, you had just co-written a white paper on extreme use of force by police, and the particular connection to people with disabilities. And part of what we were lamenting then was news media’s tendency to artificially compartmentalize disability issues.

So there were stories that focus on disabled people or on disability, and they can be good or bad or indifferent. They often have a “very special episode” feeling to them. But then, the point was, when the story is wildfires, there’s no thought about what might be the particular impact on people with disabilities. So it’s like spotlight or absence, but not ongoing, integrated consideration.

David Perry: “When you start to dig into the most harmful things the Trump administration is doing, I find disability there, again and again and again.”

DP: The thing about disability, as opposed to other categories of difference—by which I mean race, gender, sexuality—is the ways in which people can move in and out of disability, the ways in which disability, while it is associated with issues like poverty, it does transcend it. It’s everywhere. Every family, everyone who lives long enough, if we’re lucky to live long enough, we will experience disability in our own bodies and minds. It is a different kind of difference, is one of the things that I like to say, lots of people like to say.

And so there is no issue in which disability is not part of it, including, as you say, the weather. And one of the things that was cut from my MSNBC story was when the wildfires were raging through California, conservative influencers—and these are not just people who tweet, but people who get to talk to Trump, right? People who get to talk to Musk, like Chris Rufo—started making fun of ASL, American Sign Language interpretation, when it came to wildfire announcements. Like, who are these people gesticulating? Well, there are deaf people who need to know how to evacuate, right? This is not a joke. This is not wokeness, right? This is trying to save lives, and I really do see it all of a piece that when the planes crashed, that first plane crashed right after Trump took office, the first thing Trump did was blame hiring people with disabilities for the FAA.

I think at the heart of their failures around Covid response is a real fear and dislike for disability and disease, and kind of a eugenic mentality. Just again and again, when you start to look—and I never want to say that disability is the only issue, or the most important issue; one of my kids is disabled, but also trans, right? I’m very aware of other ways in which other people are being attacked for different kinds of identities. But when you start to dig into the most harmful things the Trump administration is doing, I find disability there, again and again and again.

JJ: You’re speaking also to this absence of intersectionality in media, and we talked about this last time, too, because, “Oh, police brutality is a Black problem. It’s not a disabled problem.” People can’t be Black and have a disability, right? Media just can’t grok that, because those are two different sections in the paper, so it’s like they can’t combine them.

Indianapolis Star (3/6/25)

And I want to say, I have seen some coverage, not a tremendous amount, but some coverage, of likely and already occurring impacts of things like budget cuts and agency dysfunction on people with disabilities. A lot of that coverage was local: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the Garden City Telegram in Kansas, the Indianapolis Star: local folks, local reporters—who are, I guess, just listening to folks saying, “This is going to close this program. This is going to impact us in this way”—seem to be doing the story as kind of a local government function story.

DP: Nine years has been a long time, and I would say that the disability community has organized around both media outreach, around getting disabled reporters into the media. There are things I just don’t write anymore, because there are too many better people working on them, who are—I mean, I’m also disabled. I’m dyslexic and have mental illness. But my primary relationship to writing about disability hasn’t always come from that.

Things have gotten better in the media about talking about disability. It’s still something that gets missed. It still gets compartmentalized and sidelined. There’s a number of national outlets, like Mother Jones or the Indypendent or 19th News, that have people who’ve come out of the disability community and are full-time journalists. But also I think local organizations have gotten very good at working with local media to tell better stories. And there’s social media organization, starting really with Crip the Vote, was the phrase on Twitter a long time ago, with Alice Wong out of the Bay Area….

JJ: And Andrew Pulrang.

DP: Yeah, that’s right. I just want to say, things have gotten better, and they’ve gotten better, in part, because the disability community and these wonderful leaders have pushed very hard. And it is particularly trying to show these connections across areas, so that when we talk about Medicaid, we also talk about Social Security, and we also talk about the Department of Education, and we see—that’s what I’m trying to do in this piece, is I’m trying to say, “Look, there’s a consistent problem here that manifests with these different policies.”

Man of Steele (1/15/25)

JJ: There is a line in your MSNBC piece, and maybe it was cut back from more, because you do say in response to Trump’s wild, weird claims after the plane crash, that “with mental illness, their lives are shortened because of the stress they have.” And you say, “Well, no, their lives are shortened when they don’t have healthcare, when they can’t get jobs, when they can’t get housing.”

And it does have the line, “because when a wildfire rages, no one communicates the threat in a way they can understand.” But that sentence alone does not convey the energy with which right wingers attacked the very idea of communicating to, in this case, deaf people or hard-of-hearing people in a wildfire. So just to say those things don’t exist, I see why that one sentence doesn’t convey quite the pushback on that.

DP: I mean, I could have written an entire essay, and I think other people did when it happened, on Chris Rufo’s specific attack on ASL, and the way they got picked up by Ben Shapiro and Charlie Kirk and these other really influential people online, attacking ASL, right, ASL! It should be the least controversial kind of adaptation, right? We’ve had it for a long time. Everyone understands what ASL is, and yet, here we go.

JJ: It’s like pushing the limits to see what we will tolerate.

CBS Mornings (3/3/25)

Finally, I will have a positive note, which was just a little snippet on CBS Mornings on March 3, where they were talking about cuts to DoE, and they had just a fraction of a moment with a woman whose kid has autism, and she was asked what a downsized DoE could mean if federal oversight, as we’re talking about, goes to another agency, which is of course what they’re saying. They’re not just going to shutter DoE, they’re going to shuffle these things off somewhere else. And she said, “My fear is that other schools, instead of helping a child with a disability get the services that they need in the school, they’re going to fix their football field, and it’s going to be OK, because nobody is regulating special education.”

DP: That’s really, really good. Yeah.

JJ: That’s a real good nugget that pulls together the fact of something that might be portrayed as abstract—budget-cutting, efficiency—the way that that actually falls down and affects people’s lives.

DP: We didn’t talk about it, but my framing for this piece was my son, who was 18, saying my name for the first time, which was an amazing moment, and we’ve had lots of these moments, but what I want to say is, they don’t just happen. They’re not just things that magically happen. It takes work and it takes funding and it takes policy and it takes good government and it takes schools, it takes all these different things, and I just don’t see that work being done. And I see where it is being done, the support being stripped away, and it’s terrible to watch.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with David Perry. His piece, “The Trump Administration Is Ready to Abandon Kids Like My Son,” is up at MSNBC.com. Thank you so much, David Perry, for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

DP: It’s always a pleasure to talk to you.

This post was originally published on FAIR.
March 21, 2025

An open letter to Labour from the Autistic brother of a severely disabled woman

The following article is a comment piece from an anonymous reader

An open letter to Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting, Rachel Reeves, and the Labour Party, from the Autistic brother of a severely disabled woman living in the north.

Last night, on my bus home from a self-enforced jaunt out for St. Patrick’s Day I heard the word “mong” used as a casual insult for the first time in years.

I am sure that this shortening of “mongoloid”, an archaic, mean-spirited (and racist) way of referring to Down’s Syndrome people is still often used as a casual insult here in the northwest, but I haven’t heard it recently.

In normal circumstances, I would grit my teeth and bear the use of such a word by uninformed young people. Or maybe ask if they knew the origins of the word that they so readily use as an insult.

In this instance, in the context of your recent political attack and scapegoating of those who are unable to work, I could not sit on my hands.

I lashed out (rhetorically, and uncharacteristically), and let the person who casually used the slur know that my sibling is what would (far too frequently) be called a “mong” or a “retard”, and that I love them to bits. I also made it plain that I would defend my sister from imminent threats to her person should they occur. Your government, in its rhetoric, has made it such that people are quick to forget that people love, cherish, and are more than willing to protect disabled people.

(If not to let someone willing to use such words that disabled people are not yet completely socially isolated).

An ableist slur on the eve before DWP benefit cuts announcement

I was confronted by other bus-goers, accused (ironically) of bullying, and remained seated/physically non-confrontational through the whole ordeal.

The young man who used the word was defiant throughout the process, and I felt very much that I was the only one on the bus who saw an issue in the use of the word.

I may have been the only person on the bus aware of the extent of your scapegoating of disabled people within the last two weeks. I may have been the only person on the bus aware of the alarmingly rapid rise in overtly fascist policies coming out of the USA (nice kowtowing, Keir).

I may have seemed, in a contextual bubble, to be inappropriately lashing out at a young man and “language-policing” a word. The fact remains, however, that I heard an ableist slur for the first time in years on the eve of your assault on the funding of the disability arm of the welfare state.

I am not able to work myself due to health issues (yes, including but not limited to anxiety, Wes). Several of my diagnoses were made by an NHS panel (ADHD, Asperger’s) when I was a child, before such diagnoses were as commonplace as they are now.

I spent the best part of the 2010s working low-level customer service jobs. I can’t work now. My health issues are not imagined or “over-diagnosed”. If my sibling was not part of my life, I may well have felt ostracised to the point where I would not be able to speak out for the rights of the neurodiverse or disabled. However, the stakes are greater than my own wellbeing.

Labour Party scapegoating disabled people: for shame

That said, my sibling can not speak for themself and the Labour Party’s scapegoating of the neurodiverse pales in comparison to the Labour Party’s scapegoating of those who will never be medically fit to work.

You’ve chosen the wrong easy target guys. Plenty of disabled people have loved ones who are willing to pick up the slack as best as they can, and in targeting the most vulnerable, you are also targeting those surrounding the most vulnerable.

People like myself don’t want to be angry, or confrontational, or desperate, or backed into a corner. We’d love the opportunity to thrive. Making a political football of us will not achieve this.

Us and our loved ones have far less economic leeway than those who could contribute massively via a wealth tax and higher marginal income tax.

If you’re too politically cowardly to consider said taxes, please at least have the common decency not to target the disabled. The people affected by your recent decisions are already so fatigued.

The Nazis rounded up the disabled first for a reason.

Maybe I over-reacted last night. Maybe I’d had too much Guinness. Or maybe I was the only one on the bus who read the political room. We are not your scapegoat. Why on earth would you choose to victimise the vulnerable?

I don’t leave my home much, and on a rare occasion where I did, I contended with outright ableism. My beautiful sibling aside, do you want to force me to go and contribute to this society that you’re creating to the detriment of my own health? Every time I see a doctor I ask for specialist (Autism, ADHD) mental health treatment that doesn’t exist.

The way to defeat the far right electorally is not to co-opt their rhetoric and policy.

For shame.

A concerned citizen.

Featured image via the Canary

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 21, 2025

Meet Crips Against Cuts – who have joined the fight against Labour and the DWP
A new grassroots campaign group is planning to take action against the Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) brutal plans to cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits.

In the space of little more than a week, disabled-led Crips Against Cuts has mobilised to challenge all this. Now, under its banner, activists across the country have organised 14 demonstrations against the government’s sweep of dangerous cuts.

And, as a Crips Against Cuts activist told the Canary, this is only the beginning of its plans to fight back.

Crips Against Cuts: the new kid on the block for resistance against the DWP

Crips Against Cuts is a new decentralised network of disabled activists and allies. The group sprung up in a little less than a week in response to the news the Labour Party government is sizing up deep cuts to welfare, targeting chronically ill and disabled claimants.

What started small as a group of Crip activists, largely based in Bristol, soon took off. Around the country, activists set up multiple Crips Against Cuts groups. You can join up with these and get involved via their national WhatsApp:

FIND YOUR LOCAL GROUP

— Crips Against Cuts (@crips-against-cuts.bsky.social) 2025-03-19T23:20:38.502Z

On Saturday 22 March, the groups will be holding a number of protests nationwide. Local Crips Against Cuts activists are hosting these in tandem in the following locations:
- London
- Birmingham
- Sheffield
- Leeds
- Bournemouth
- Exeter
- Brighton
- Bristol
- Portsmouth
- Edinburgh
Crips against cuts protests planned for this weekend. Please follow the QR for details and please please please repost on your accounts @crips-against-cuts.bsky.social

— Just Em x (@agirlcalleddave.bsky.social) 2025-03-20T09:57:07.496Z

To find your nearest protest, you can head to Crips Against Cuts Instagram at www.instagram.com/crips_against_cuts and its linktr.ee.

Time to ‘cut the discrimination, not our lifeline benefits’

Beth O’Brien, from Crips Against Cuts London said:

This is nothing short of an assault on the dignity and rights of Disabled people in the UK. Human life has dignity regardless of work or productivity. Removing entitlements which helps pay for basic care and necessary support creates far bigger barriers to work and independent living.

Charities have warned the new 4-point rule will leave 700,000 people struggling to survive in poverty. Without PIP, you cannot claim other disability benefits. GPs lose their vital role assessing and signing people off work, instead referring them to a “back to work program”- not what you need alongside a new cancer or dementia diagnosis.

Instead of punishing disabled people, this Labour government must invest in sickness prevention, research and treatment, and address widespread inaccessibility, prejudice and abuse. 1 in 4 working age adults have some form of disability, and most of us will experience disability in our lifetime. It’s time to cut the discrimination, not our lifeline benefits and access to society.

Black and brown allies at the heart of it

The Canary spoke to Crips Against Cuts activist Mac, from Bristol. Mac and her wife Abby founded the group, but she was keen to emphasise that “all they really did was get it started”.

Crucially, she highlighted how:

It has all been led by cripples, and so, every decision has been made by a community of about 250 Crips that have got involved in the last week.

She also wanted to underscore that none of it “would be possible” without the help of a dedicated collective of allies, who she said:

are predominantly Black and brown women, and I think it’s really important that we recognise that they’re the only real group coming in as allyship.

Mac explained how Black and brown women allies had been the driving force behind the group’s organisation in recent days.

So just what have the groups planned for the day?

Largely, the 90-minute to two hour demos will start with a line-up of set speakers. In Bristol, Mac said this largely includes long-term community leaders and local politicians against the cuts. Bristol Central MP and Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer will open the protest. Mac also explained how some DWP employees have come forward to speak out against their department’s cuts at the Bristol demo.

However, the bulk of the protests Crips Against Cuts have set aside to give local disabled people a supported space to speak out:

Everybody in the crowd, whether a cripple, carer, or an ally, feels as important and as amplified as the people who are booked speakers. And so we’re going to have the majority of the two hours put aside for anybody who would like to speak, or has been inspired to speak at the demo.

This ‘isn’t going to be the end of it’

Mac expressed that the groups want to make sure disabled people across the country feel heard over the Labour-led DWP’s disgraceful plans. Noting how this isn’t “going to be the end of it”, she said how she and other activists hoped that:

the more inclusive we are, and the more empowering the rally is for other disabled people in the city, the more likely we are to get the government to not only U-turn on this, but actually improve things for disabled people and poor people.

Importantly, Crips Against Cuts want these protests and their national groups to be a focal point for support for chronically ill and disabled people as well.

At the Bristol protest for instance, Mac told the Canary that there will be a:

safe space, where we do have a couple of qualified first-aiders.

On top of this, the group has coordinated for there to be a:

small sectioned-off area for anyone who feels emotional or overwhelmed or feels like they need additional space.

Despite the short notice, the group has additionally managed to get a small number of local mental health professionals – all independent therapists – to offer free therapy sessions on the day. Crips Against Cuts also hopes to have the presence of mental health charities, who it has invited to support the protest.

After the event, the Bristol team intend to host some regular mental wellbeing and community socials.

Crips Against Cuts ‘furious’ at Labour

Drawing together a broad community of disabled people and allies across the country, Mac also reflected on the ferocity of feeling for what many feel is an unforgivable betrayal by Labour. She told us that:

Something that has become really apparent in all of the groups across the country and in the support groups on WhatsApp, is that people are furious that they voted for Labour to get rid of the Tories, and instead Labour are just pushing further to the right than they would ever allow the Tories to do.

She told the Canary how many in the group now want to see Starmer and his cabinet face a vote of no confidence.

Ultimately, Mac said that through Crips Against Cuts, her, and other disabled activists want to empower as many people as possible to resist Labour’s cruel plans:

Every single human being is an activist. If you are a human living in a democracy, part of your role is activism. A lot of people feel like they need permission to try and create change, and they don’t.

Featured image supplied

By Hannah Sharland
March 21, 2025

A disabled art activist has sent a powerful message to Labour over its DWP benefit cuts

Disabled art activist Dolly Sen is sending the Labour Party government a clear, and harrowing message. That is, the callous plans of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will lead to countless more deaths of disabled benefit claimants.

An act of art activist resistance against the DWP’s cuts

Sen will send A5 postcards to all 404 Labour MPs to highlight the DWP’s brutal policies that have led to the deaths of disabled claimants.

As the Canary’s Steve Topple has reported previously, between 2011 and 2018 alone, the DWP was responsible for over 35,000 (recorded) deaths. Of course, many more people have died since due to the DWP.

So crucially, Sen’s postcards will spell out that it will happen on Labour’s watch if they act on Starmer’s dangerous and false rhetoric on disability benefits. Sen’s action is a plea to MPs to do the moral thing and oppose the plans.

The postcard displays the photographs of “just a handful” of disabled people the DWP’s brutal policies have killed:

On the other side, the postcard lists a haunting block wall of names under the caption: “Some DWP deaths” and “there are thousands more”:

The postage for this intervention was crowd funded.

‘Wouldn’t it be a government to be proud of’ if no disabled claimants died from DWP policies?

Dolly Sen has previously made a documentary on DWP deaths and has undertaken two art interventions at the DWP head office in London.

She has also made an accompanying video about why she is doing this action, which you can view here:

Disabled people have been seen by successive governments as easy targets and very little actual truth about the situation is publicly known. For example, even the DWP’s own figures on fraud shown it is less than 0.2% and is going down.

Sen hopes her postcard will nudge the humanity of MPs and compel them to do the right thing. Ultimately, she’s challenging the Labour government to be better than the Tories with the DWP, poignantly asking:

Wouldn’t it be a government to be proud of if no disabled claimant starved to death, took their own life, or die from their condition after being deemed ‘fit to work’?

If they don’t do the decent and moral thing, Sen has put boxes on the postcard to fill in the details of those who will die in future – on Labour’s watch.

Featured image supplied

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 21, 2025

Audience member puts entire BBCQT panel to shame over DWP cuts

On BBC Question Time, an audience member had a powerful message for the Labour Party government as it prioritises attacking the people most in need of help. That it, it is planning the severest cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits for chronically ill and disabled people in decades.

The DWP: exposed on Question Time

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party is aggressively seeking DWP welfare cuts of around £5bn, despite such a plan not appearing in its 2024 election manifesto. This is also despite the party being very quiet and shy about getting £5bn by “cracking down on tax avoidance and non-dom loopholes”, a pledge that was in its manifesto.

As the lady on Question Time rightly asked over the DWP controversy:

Why don’t we start taxing more the rich – the wealthy people that can afford it? You’re taking money from people that just don’t have anything.

She also pointed out that:

Previous benefit cuts for disability have been linked to over 500 deaths, some of this suicide, people starving.

And she stressed regarding the DWP:

You’ve got to look at who is being affected – the most vulnerable people… I was a Labour voter. I’m not gonna be any more. Because it seems that you’re actually betraying the people that are voting for you – the ordinary people that need your help.

Big up the lady in green. #bbcqt pic.twitter.com/uSuYoWHmcb

— Eddie Burfi (@EddieBurfi) March 20, 2025

Starmer’s Labour: a party for the powerful, not the people

Labour is attacking disabled people (along with children and pensioners) via the DWP instead of making their rich donors/owners contribute their share to society.

Although it estimated in its manifesto that it could get £5.2bn in “revenue from closing further non-dom tax loopholes and investment in reducing tax avoidance”, it clearly prefers to prioritise attacking the people in society who need the most support instead.

In fact, the Labour government has actually blocked UN efforts to crack down on global tax havens since coming to power – which sounds even worse when you realise “the UK and its overseas territories are responsible for approximately one-third of global tax avoidance through firms moving their profits offshore”.

The audience member above talking about the DWP was spot on. Because Starmer’s Labour absolutely isn’t a party that seeks to serve the majority of the population. It is in bed with people who profit from death and destruction – of people and the planet. It has not just betrayed Britain – it has betrayed humanity.

A mass left-wing movement to challenge the rich and support ordinary people is already in the making. And it’s not just the woman on Question Time who is sick of Labour and the DWP’s elitist shitshow and calling out for change. Because people around the country are desperate for a bit of humanity and integrity, which is almost completely absent from British politics today.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 21, 2025

It’s World Down’s Syndrome Day – but under Labour, there is nothing to celebrate for us and Betsy

At the end of a week that saw our Labour Party government announce plans to strip some disabled people of Personal Independence Payment and entitlements under Universal Credit, we have World Down’s Syndrome Day on Friday 21 March. A day dedicated to celebrating the lives of people living with Down’s Syndrome; people like my daughter Betsy.

As a disabled person myself I am scared about how I’m going to survive after the DWP reforms.

But as the mother of a disabled child I am terrified. For her.

What kind of world are disabled children growing up in?

This is the world she is growing up into. In a country that punishes people for being disabled, forcing us into poverty. Any parent of a disabled child will tell you that their greatest fear is dying and leaving their vulnerable child without care and advocacy. That fear has never been so extreme as it is right now, because nobody else is going to advocate for her; write the letters; attend the meetings, and lodge the tribunals – alongside providing 24/7 care for her.

Down’s Syndrome is a genetic condition caused by the body having an extra copy of chromosome 21. It expresses differently in every person, causing a wide range of health conditions and always comes with learning disability.

My daughter is medically complex, with multiple serious health conditions that means she needs 1:1 care at all times. She frequently needs hospital treatment. Learning disability can be caused by many different factors, but in my daughter’s case, it is because she has Down’s Syndrome.

She cannot advocate for herself. I am her voice.

The UK is a country that does not have the infrastructure and funding in place to ensure that children with learning disabilities have access to the same rights as typical children. For my daughter’s entire life I have had to fight to get her the support she needs, in every arena. Education. Healthcare. Enrichment.

Yet sometimes there is literally nothing in place to fight for, such is the black hole of support provided by our government.

So to hear that, despite having education, health care, and social care systems that fail disabled children, they are expected to magically grow up to be able to work and support themselves is absurd. The government aren’t even giving children with SEND a fighting chance.

The state is failing us at every turn

To start at the beginning. Early intervention in nursery education for children with SEND is virtually non existent. Even for my daughter, who was born with a physically-evident disability, was denied extra help by our local government. So I fought. Wrote the complaint. Submitted an appeal.

Then we reach school age. Hundreds of thousands of children with SEND cannot access mainstream education. It’s just not designed to meet the sensory and physical needs of many children. That would require huge investment from our government, which is clearly not forthcoming. To have the right to attend a specialist provision children need a Education Health and Care Plan. A legal document that gives a child the right to the support they need. Whether that be a member of staff with them at all times, Speech and Language Therapy, or anything else they need. Even getting an assessment for a child to have an EHCP is gold dust. Betsy was denied an assessment for her EHCP that she needed to access education. So I fought. Wrote the complaint. Submitted the appeal. Lodged the tribunal.

Then, I think we all know how well the NHS is functioning right now.

The NHS and social care

For disabled children not having access to the healthcare they have a right to is another arena in which they are being failed. Children are stuck on two-year waiting lists for an assessment for Autism. My own daughter required urgent surgery, due to a breathing problem while she was sleeping. The waiting list was over six months. When I say ‘urgent’, I mean life-threatening. My daughter was denied referrals for Orthotics support with the excuse that it’s normal for children with Down’s Syndrome to have hypermobile ankles. Yes, so treat it with the correct insoles and support. I wrote the complaint. Made the phone calls. Got the appointment.

If anyone has had to call 999 and have a trip to A&E you will know the trauma of that scenario under the current circumstances in the NHS. Which brings me on to social care.

Families who have a disabled child face higher levels of poverty than those with typical children. More often than not, one parent has had to give up work to care for their child. Why? Because there is no social care service. Social care is broken. Even for the few children who qualify for a few hours, it’s virtually impossible to find a support worker. Another gift from Brexit. Carer’s Allowance for parents who have had to give up work, stands at £81.90 per week. Often for providing 24/7 care. That drop in income from parental loss of a salary affects disabled children drastically. There are no letters to write or complaints to lodge about this. This is the accepted normality for families like mine, from our government.

Locked out even further by the Labour government

So we have disabled children locked out of healthcare, education, and even opportunities to enrich their lives.

I can count on one hand the amount of wheelchair swings there are in Northumberland. Changing Places facilities are few. Activities are often not inclusive. Community groups run by parent carers who volunteer their time, and what little energy we have, seek to create opportunities for children with SEND to experience childhood activities in an accessible format. The group I run is massively oversubscribed. Places on enrichment activities are in such demand. Children miss out on enrichment experiences due to their disability.

Implementing the social model of disability is vital for children too.

So yes, I am celebrating Betsy today on World Down’s Syndrome Day. I am celebrating her life, the amazing person she is: her resilience, her kindness, her creativity, and her very being.

At the same time though, I am beyond angry at how this government have created a destructive narrative around her. That she won’t have worth if she can’t work. This, combined with the complete failure to have a working social model of disability support in place for children in the UK, paints a dark picture for her future.

World Down’s Syndrome Day: give disabled children a chance

On World Down’s Syndrome Day I call on our government to take a close look at the stark reality of life for disabled children in the UK and ask themselves, is this what you want to be your legacy? Exclusion. Sickness. Poverty.

Give disabled children in the UK a fighting chance. After all, they have human rights. Don’t they?

Featured image supplied

By Rachel Curtis

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 20, 2025

The state of accessible transport has been exposed – just as the DWP is hammering disabled people
A House of Commons committee has revealed a damning picture of wide-scale accessibility failures that it says are “systemically ingrained” across every mode and network of travel across the UK. The findings come from the cross-party Transport Committee, which has published the results of its inquiry into disabled people’s access to transport. Of course, taken in tandem with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) brutal benefits cuts, it paints an abysmal picture for chronically ill and disabled people which its new welfare reforms are angling to force back to work.

First DWP cuts, now this

Since February 2023, the House of Commons Transport Committee has been running its Accessible transport: legal obligations inquiry. This was to look into the current situation for chronically ill and disabled people accessing transport services across the UK.

Now, the results are in, and what it found is a shameful indictment on the state of transport accessibility across the full spectrum of services available.

The inquiry’s report underscored gargantuan gaps in accessibility for chronically ill and disabled passengers across a range of transport areas. Notably, the inquiry found that:
- Just under 90% (89%) of respondents said they experienced “challenges or barriers” to travel either often (22%), most of the time (31%), or always (36%). Only 2% said they never experienced difficulties.
- 68% of respondents reported difficulty often, most of the time, or always travelling as pedestrians owing to an inaccessible street environment.
- The same was true in over 60% of replies for both bus and rail travel.
In particular, respondents raised issues with infrastructure features like pavements and bus stops. For instance, the National Federation of the Blind raised difficulties with ‘floating bus stops’ and ‘bus stop bypasses’ that made it:

extremely difficult to cross these cycle lanes safely

Similarly, illustrating some of the difficulties navigating the street environment as a chronically ill and/or disabled person, the report highlighted issues with pavement parking. This typically revolved around space for wheelchairs, walking frames, guide dogs or canes.

For rail, the report highlighted how failure of passenger assistive services was an endemic problem, noting that:

The industry was habituated to regular failed assists

Of course, there was significant media attention over this in August when passenger assistance on train services in London abandoned Paralympian and wheelchair user Tanni Grey-Thompson. So, the inquiry underscored how this is a systemic and common experience for disabled passengers on trains.

Overall, while the street environment, trains, and buses were the worst forms of transport for accessibility, the report observed that:

No mode of transport is free from problems.

As a result, more than a third of respondents said they often decided not to make a journey because it would be too complicated or unsafe, more than once a week. In total, more than half said they would avoid traveling for those reasons either more than once a week, or more than once a month.

Recognise transport accessibility for the human rights issue it is

On the whole then, the report revealed a damning litany of failures in transport accessible for chronically ill and disabled passengers. As such, the committee made a series of recommendations to redress this.

Importantly, it stressed how accessibility for chronically ill and disabled people must be:

recognised as an issue of human rights and protection from discrimination, not as an optional customer service matter.

It therefore made suggestions to overhaul the inadequate accountability mechanisms that place the onus on chronically ill and disabled passengers making complaints or taking legal action to correct this. Part of this would involve implementation of a new unified and user-friendly complaints service – which it called on the government to establish within the next twelve months.

On top of this, it argued for a review of current transport accessibility legislation to:

assess how it could be streamlined, clarified and updated, and underpinned by greater specification of the standards providers must work to, including in matters currently subject only to the Public Sector Equality Duty and duty to make reasonable adjustments

Alongside that, it urged a review of regulators’ powers, as well as more resources for enforcement action.

Finally, the Transport Committee set out how it expects the Labour Party government to produce a:

new inclusive transport strategy, backed by a costed, practical plan that will close the gap between rights and reality.

DWP cuts: all about work, but it’s impossible to get there

Its findings come as the Labour Party government launches its plan for a suite of DWP cuts to chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits.

And crucially, this flagship Pathways to Work green paper is – as its name suggests – focused on forcing chronically ill and disabled claimants into the workplace. Crucially, the basis of the cuts revolves around the idea that at present rates, health-related benefits like Universal Credit’s LCWRA part “incentivise” people to stay out of employment.

Partly, this is because the DWP claims that because the basic rate is so low, people that don’t need to be out of work apply for the health-related part. Of course, the basic rate is sorely inadequate after more than a decade of cuts, freezes, and punitive sanction policies successive Tory governments have applied. However, this doesn’t equate to the health-related part being too “generous” as the government is keen to imply.

Nevertheless, the DWP is justifying cuts to this of up to 50% for new claimants, as they raise the basic rate. It means chronically ill and disabled claimants not-fit-for-work will be £146 worse off a month. The intention is that these less “generous” out-of-work benefits will push people into finding work. That might be true for some because the state-sanctioned poverty will leave them with no other choice, but it will invariably come at a cost to their health. For many others, it simply wouldn’t be possible, so will actually just result in more and deeper poverty for chronically ill and disabled claimants unable to work.

This also forms the underlying thrust of the DWP’s proposals for ‘reforming’ contributory Employment Support Allowance (ESA) as well. Moreover, even though Personal Independence Payment (PIP) isn’t an out-of-work benefit, it has conflated the rise in claims for it with unemployment.

Predictably then, it’s putting forward plans to make it harder to claim this too, by tightening the eligibility criteria for it. In reality of course, making PIP harder to claim will do the opposite of helping people into work. The benefit is there to aid chronically ill and disabled people with the additional costs of living. Without it, they’ll have less financial means for travel, assistive technology, mobility aids, and medication that actually make it possible to work.

Overall, in a nutshell, the government’s plans are geared around forcing chronically ill and disabled people to work. So, the Transport Committee’s findings obviously have enormous implications for all this.

A ‘constant negation of the fact’ chronically ill and disabled people have lives

Notably, the report detailed that the systemic inaccessibility of the different forms of transport chronically ill and disabled people use is:

a considerable barrier to going about daily life in the way that the wider population expect to be able to.

Naturally, this includes barriers to work as well. Tanni Grey-Thompson told the committee that the immense amount of planning chronically ill and disabled people have to do to travel is a:

constant negation of the fact that we have lives, we have work, we have families. We are constantly treated differently.

Meanwhile, disabled activist and wheelchair user Alan Benson also gave evidence to the committee. He calculated that across a six month period, out-of-service lifts on his normal route to work added an extra three weeks of travelling time to his journey.

Another anonymous respondent articulated the impact of the inaccessible built environment for their journey to work:

I live less than a mile away from my workplace but as a wheelchair user I need to travel on the road for most of that journey because the pavements are badly damaged, mostly from cars driving across them or parking on them, and there is a lack of dropped kerbs in several places
making it impossible to get on/off the sidewalk.

Broadly, the experiences of respondents and witnesses to the inquiry underscored that transport inaccessibility impacts whether chronically ill and disabled people can even get to work, and safely. So, just as the committee’s findings articulate all this, the DWP wants to cut benefits in a bid to force more chronically ill and disabled people into work.

That is, instead of looking at the systemic barriers they face getting and being in employment, the DWP is stripping away the support to give them no choice but to seek work – even though the dire state of transport means they can’t get there.

Access to assisted dying will be easier than access to transport

The Transport Committee’s chair Ruth Cadbury said of its findings that:

It should be a source of national embarrassment that our country’s transport services effectively treat disabled people as second class citizens, denying them access to jobs, leisure, support networks and essential services – denying them their rights.

Of course, the DWP cuts, and the Transport Committee’s scathing findings also come amid Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill. The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) bill is currently making its way through Parliament – presently at committee stage.

Leadbeater and the committee MPs skewed in favour of the bill have rejected multiple amendments that seek to mitigate the risks it poses to chronically ill and disabled people. And notably, they have often disingenuously claimed they have done so to ward against a “bureaucratic thicket” restricting access to assisted dying.

Moreover, Cadbury’s words should also be seen in the context of the bill as well. Notably, Cadbury has come out in support of assisted dying, and voted for Leadbeater’s bill at second reading. The Canary has separately reported on her familial and personal connections to the key lobby groups pushing for Parliament to legalise it. Until February, Cadbury had been chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) – the Choice at the End of Life APPG – connected to the lobby group and promoting assisted dying.

The merry-go round of punching down on chronically ill and disabled people

So what we have is a Labour MP and government ministers in the assisted dying bill committee working to remove ‘barriers’ to assisted dying. That is, the ‘safeguards’ generally there to protect chronically ill and disabled people – though it’s dubious they’d do so in practice anyway. At the same time, the Transport Committee has exposed how impossible it is for chronically ill and disabled people to access transport. Moreover, it showed that the Labour government is not moving fast or far enough yet to change this.

All the while, the same government is rapidly angling to cut benefits to chronically ill and disabled people. This will push them into further poverty, and prevent them from accessing the aids, services, medications, and even the basics they need. It might coerce some ‘back to work’, but it won’t be without health consequences.

But hold that thought, because the Transport Committee inquiry showed that the appalling lack of accessible transport makes it harder for them to get to their workplaces…And round the merry-go-round of punching down on chronically ill and disabled people goes.

See where this is heading yet? If you’re chronically ill and disabled, but not ‘enough’, or the ‘right kind of’ disabled according to the ableist arbiter that is the DWP, no PIP, and no UC health component for you. Go to work – but if you can’t because of the shocking state of public transport accessibility – sucks to be you.

You can’t have any social security to live, but when the DWP’s enforced poverty ensures you’re near starved to death, the state can give you that final little nudge. After all, your pain meds might be unaffordable, but if Parliament passes Leadbeater’s bill, you can pop a euthanasia pill for free.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 20, 2025

Charlotte’s friends with Down syndrome are paid $3 an hour. It’s legal in Australia – and she’s taking a stand
Down Syndrome Australia launches campaign to encourage politicians to abolish subminimum wage
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Charlotte Bailey has two jobs. Three days a week, she works in the bistro at Eastlake Football Club in Canberra, brewing coffee, ferrying meals and making jellies. One day a week, she performs admin tasks at the offices of ACT Down Syndrome and Intellectual Disability, where she writes speeches to advocate for people who, like her, have Down syndrome.
The 24-year-old’s situation is unusual: she is paid at least the standard minimum wage for both jobs – currently $24.10 per hour before tax. But workers with Down syndrome often receive vastly less than this, sometimes as low as $3.01 an hour.
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This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.
March 20, 2025

Want to support chronically ill and disabled people into work? Why not try listening to them.

Peter had been an HGV driver for over 20 years. One day, Peter had a seizure. And – bang – just like that, Peter was medically unfit to drive a lorry. Imagine the shock.

Like most people, Peter had financial commitments. There was no work he could get that paid anything like the same wages. The fact he’d paid his tax and paid his National Insurance all that time counted for nothing. He was skint.

His debts built up. The stress of money worries, the health worries – he still really didn’t understand why he’d had a seizure – all overwhelmed him. Peter went into a desperate spiral of mental ill health. He started drinking heavily. His relationship broke up.

Peter was referred to a mentoring course I funded as North of Tyne Mayor. He got one-to-one support from a counsellor. The first think they did was listen to him. Not fill in forms. Not assess him for ‘work capability’. Not tell him to buck his ideas up. Just listened to him, not as another client to be benignly steered to some work course, but as Peter. His worries. His regrets. How he saw his future. It gave him the head space to get his life back under control. We were patient. There was no deadline.

‘Disabled’ is not a one-size-fits-all category

I met him a year later, and I’ve changed his name for this article. His confidence was rebuilt. He retrained in logistics. He’s got a new job and is back on his feet. He’s in a new relationship, and has a little baby. There was nothing about the person I sat and had a cup of coffee with that made me think he was different from anyone else. He was warm, thoughtful, and a good communicator. When life dealt him a blow, he stumbled. When he was offered a hand, he got back on his feet.

I wonder if I hadn’t funded that course, whether Peter would now be another increment on the suicide statistics.

We must see people as people. There’s nothing ideological about saying we should not leave people behind.

By investing in Peter, he’s healthier, happier, in work, and paying taxes. It’s common sense to say that treating people with dignity produces better outcomes.

We did it by listening to people. I’ve always believed that if you want good education policy, you should listen to teachers. If you want good health policy, listen to doctors. If you want to know how to speed up buses, listen to bus drivers.

I did the same thing with our equalities assemblies. My remit was economic – how to grow the economy. I wasn’t in charge of running any public services. Still, we convened people from disabled groups, and listened to their actual problems. The real barriers they faced day-to-day. We improved the understanding of me and my team, that “disabled” is not a one-size-fits-all category.

Labour now: no logic, nor morality

All the talk of “savings” and “iron clad fiscal rules” is not just cruel, it’s illiterate. Seeing people as nothing more than economic work units assaults our common humanity and blinds us to common sense.

The Film I, Daniel Blake sums it up perfectly. A skilled worker, with much to contribute, is crunched by the system and driven to an early grave. It’s set in Newcastle, and Dave Johns who played Daniel Blake was kind enough to do a fundraising gig for my election campaign.

When that film came out, Labour MPs queued up to be seen with Ken Loach. When the Labour Party expelled him, they ran for cover.

These people are now preparing to decimate the little remaining support that chronically ill and disabled people have. I was famously blocked from re-standing for Labour after talking to Ken Loach about his films at a cultural event about films. Neither logic nor morality seems to influence Labour policy any more.

Treat people with dignity

Hannah is a young woman I met. We worked directly with the charities and campaigning groups to co-design the courses I funded.

The first thing Hannah told me was that she’s an autistic person. She did have a job, some years ago, but her line manager changed. Her new manager wasn’t sympathetic. In fact, she’d snapped at Hannah:

Why can’t you be more like everybody else?

Hannah lost her job there, and felt she would never be employed by anyone. Her confidence was rock bottom.

Most work courses tell people how to put together a CV, and then make people apply for jobs for 35 hours a week. As someone who has employed a lot of people, I can tell you it just wastes everyone’s time.

Employers don’t want to have to sift through applications where people are clearly not qualified. People looking for work can do without the constant rejection. Why make people jump through hoops just so angry people with no understanding of the subject can feel good that “lazy” people are getting punished. It’s straight out of a Dickens novel.

Instead, Hannah got one-to-one support. Her coach found out what she liked and what she was good at. He got to see Hannah as a person. They worked together, and thought about what would be Hannah’s ideal job. It turned out that Hannah has an aptitude for images. So they actively approached companies that manage automatic number plate recognition systems, and got Hannah a job. When the computer can’t recognise the image, she corrects it.

But it doesn’t end there. Her mentor still checks in on her. He got her employer to adjust the way they decide employee of the month so her work could be included. Hannah now has a permanent job, she’s earning decent money, paying tax, and feeling good about herself. I saw her again a few months later, and she’d won employee of the month.

Treating people with dignity is economic common sense.

Featured image via the Canary

By Jamie Driscoll

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 20, 2025

The DWP just quietly released its most disgusting piece of ‘research’ yet
The same day the Labour Party government launched its plans for a sweep of devastating welfare cuts, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) published a piece of research quantifying the cost of chronically ill and disabled people to society. Or, in effect, the Labour-led DWP was putting a price-tag on chronically ill and disabled people’s lives – just as it readies to strip some of their benefits, and drastically cut them for others.

All aboard for the disabled people-are-benefit-scroungers-and-burdens-to-society government gravy train to wherever the fuck ministers want to make their killer corporate salaries next.

DWP cuts: Kendall on a welfare spend warpath

On Tuesday 18 March, DWP boss Liz Kendall laid out the government’s broad catalogue of plans to ‘reform’ disability and health-related income-based benefits. Broadly, the green paper made for a callous cocktail of catastrophic cuts and changes that will harm chronically ill and disabled claimants.

Notably, the paper included a suite of regressive reforms to make it harder for people to claim disability benefits like Personal Independence Payment (PIP). As expected, the changes it’s proposing will target certain claimants in particular, namely young, neurodivergent, learning disabled, and those with mental health disorders. Alongside this, there’ll be cuts to out-of-work benefits like the LCWRA health-related component of Universal Credit. Once again, it additionally wants to make this harder to claim, and all as it ramps up reassessments and conditions for doing so.

The government is now consulting on the majority of these plans until 30 June. You can respond to this here.

In tandem with its wide-scale assault on chronically ill and disabled benefit claimants, it published a separate statistical report. And the intent was obvious – to vilify sick/disabled people further and back Kendall’s case for this cruel new wave of cuts.

Chronically ill and disabled people: an economic burden

In particular, the DWP publication looked at what it considered the “cost to the economy” of “ill health or disabilities” that stop working age people from being able to engage with employment. In short, that is, it was quantifying the economic expense of chronically ill and disabled people unable to work.

It looked at a number of areas in which it determined they would lose the economy money, including:
- Their so-called long-term or temporary “economic inactivity” and sickness absence meaning “lost production” for employers.
- Care-giving responsibilities resulting in “lost production”.
- Costs to the NHS.
- Lost tax and National Insurance returns.
- Social security benefits.
The basic thrust for all was: chronically ill and disabled people unable to work cost the Treasury, the DWP, the taxpayer, and employers. It estimated all this on revenue loss for 2022.

Firstly, apparently, through lost “output per worker” the 2.7 million chronically ill and disabled people outside the workforce lose the economy anywhere between £132bn to £188bn.

Meanwhile, for sickness absence, it’s purportedly between £38bn and £56bn.

Then, informal care supposedly accounts for somewhere in the region of £37bn.

On top of this, the analysis says they rack up a £2bn cost to the NHS, and an expense of £57bn to the exchequer in lost tax and National Insurance.

More disability benefit-bashing

And it wasn’t going to leave DWP benefits out either, naturally. It put this between £36bn and £47bn.

To calculate that, it added together the cost of claims for a number of disability and ill health-related benefits. However, the already shoddy research doesn’t even solely focus on benefits like PIP and the UC LCWRA. What it actually does is take a picture of ALL the benefits chronically ill and disabled people out of work are claiming. So, this includes social security like the UC basic rate, the UC housing element, and housing benefit.

Setting aside for a moment that the housing-based benefits go into the pockets of landlords anyway, including income-based benefits might almost imply that only people in work should be entitled to them… We hear you, subsidise poverty-paying employers, but no income for the “workless” that those same profiteering pricks can’t squeeze for capital generation, amiright?

Additionally, it seemed to forget throughout the whole analysis of course that chronically ill and disabled people not working ALSO spend this money in the ECONOMY. What’s more, as other analyses have shown, these DWP benefits are actually also good for the economy in terms of the wellbeing returns they bring.

Never mind in the first place that they deserve the financial support to live regardless.

Overall then, it tallies these all up to say that chronically ill and disabled people out of work cost between £240-330bn in 2022. The bottom line then (because that’s all they seem to care about)? Chronically ill and disabled people are a burden to society.

Expendable human capital is all we’ll ever be to the DWP

As if all that weren’t utterly atrocious enough – the DWP only went and put a price on workers’ heads. For this, it introduced some nifty neolib chicanery titled ‘Gross Value Added (GVA)’ to work out each person’s “average (mean) value”. It described that this:

can be thought of as the individual’s job contribution to Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Yes, you read that right. We’re all just expendable ‘human capital’ to these neoliberal narcissists in Lord Alli white collar. Worse still, here’s the quiet part out loud:

The GVA output per worker was £68,818 for the UK in 2022. This analysis also estimated a GVA figure for disabled people that may be more appropriate to apply to individuals with known ill-health. The GVA for a disabled worker is estimated for this analysis through multiplying mean GVA for all workers, by the ratio of median hourly pay of disabled workers to mean hourly pay for all workers (excluding overtime). Using this, the estimated median annual GVA for a disabled person was £46,513 in 2022.

That is, on some completely bullshit metrics you can’t convince me it didn’t dream up on the back of a fag packet, my chronically ill and disabled ass is worth less to the economy than a non-disabled worker’s. Could have probably saved the DWP some effort and told it that one if it’d asked. Hellooo, ardent anti-capitalist trying to capsize the corporate-captured charlatans at Whitehall, working for the Canary here.

If DWP timing is everything…

Then there’s the timing of the publication – the very day of the DWP’s green paper. Coincidence? About as much as these political pigs in shit schmoozing it up at an ex-Labour staffer’s lobby firm gala. Throw in BlackRock, a smattering of bankers and City billionaires, and we have ourselves the new, new Labour Party – and an apt comparison for how hella unlikely it is this wasn’t entirely intentional.

It was only too deliberate. Both in Parliament and in the green paper, Kendall was banging on about the claim rates. She opined in the foreword how:

One in every 10 working-age people in Britain is now claiming at least one type of health or disability benefit.

And this quickly led on to a tirade tying in the cost to the Treasury, and the NHS:

Total spending on incapacity and disability benefits for working-age adults has soared by £20 billion since the pandemic, an increase of almost two-thirds. In 5 years’ time, we expect to spend over £70 billion. That is more than a third of our current NHS budget and more than 3 times what we currently spend on policing and keeping our communities safe.

Now, I’d almost bet my DWP PIP bottom daily living allowance dollar that Kendall has never delivered a disgusting diatribe with as much unconcealed zeal as she did with her new pet punching down on disabled people project to Parliament this week.

At the end of the day though, the clear issue here is that it sounds a lot like she’s leaning into the research above. And that wouldn’t be at all surprising. The green paper itself is filled with a veritable manufactured outrage-fest of ableist, demonising tropes. These especially scapegoat chronically ill and disabled people unable to work.

Nothing new then from this “taking the mickey” IDS clone in blood red new Labour ministerial garb.

Nothing new under a Labour in bed with the Sun

So there you have it. Chronically ill and disabled people unable to work are a drain on the economy. We’re skivers, burdens, “useless eaters”, blah blah blah, take your pick. There’s really no shortage of stigmatising synonyms the shitrag press like shameless Labour’s favourite new soapbox the Sun, won’t continue to churn out with giddy, grotesque glee, and immoral abandon. At the same time however, the DWP has estimated that we also have less economic value in the workplace than our non-disabled peers.

Incidentally, the analysis didn’t think to look at the costs of removing society’s disabling barriers, and tackling rampant institutional ableism. But then why would it? Chronically ill and disabled people are worth a third less to the economy by its own cold-hard capitalist calculations.

Therefore, if you’re wondering why the Labour Party government is pushing to force us into work by slashing and stripping away our benefits, but won’t put its money where its mouth is and actually implement genuine support for us to do so, look no further.

And that’s before you even consider the costs that are truly on the line here. Namely how coercing chronically ill and disabled people into low-wage, inaccessible, and toxic work environments will come at an expense alright – and it’s their very lives. Far from the DWP-manufactured propaganda about work being good for people’s mental health, for many it will be anything but. For still yet more, it will be actively harmful and dangerous to their physical health as well.

Even more disgusting in the context of the assisted dying bill

It’s truly appalling that it even needs spelling out, but people’s value should never be tied to their ability to work.

However, that’s precisely what the DWP is doing here. It ascribes a value based on the government’s fucked up framing of dignity as something people have by means of their function inside the exploitative capitalist extortion racket. Where have we heard that one before? (Clue: a certain fascistic ideological stain on the conscience of 20th century Europe). Now, in 21st century Britain, your worth is contingent on your financial contribution to society. Nothing changes.

Kendall’s cuts are one thing, but this is all against the backdrop of Kim Leadbeater’s assisted dying bill that’s making its way through Parliament as well. In this climate, the concerted attempt to paint chronically ill and disabled people as a burden should be seen for what it is. In short: a gross and hostile attack on our right to even exist.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 19, 2025

A ‘Labour’ government creating more barriers to work for disabled people
Those with a disability want to work, and do work, if they can. But mounting disability-related costs, such as care-costs, as well as hostile environments for those who do get jobs, mean there are lots of barriers to entering the workplace and remaining in work. A Labour government making it harder to apply for PIP or renew claims for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) will be another barrier for those who are trying to access the workplace.

Labour DWP cuts: hitting disability-related costs

With the reports of disabled people languishing at home and not wanting to work, it’s important to get two points clear from the start. Nobody wants a disability, and nobody wants to be stuck at home all day.

When I sustained my spinal cord injuries at the age of 18, I was keen to study and get to work. It was only decades later when my leg was amputated and I’d been diagnosed with the secondary conditions connected with my disability – osteoporosis, kyphosis and serious pressure sores that forced me out of paid work. I did work as a non-executive board member in a voluntary capacity until my physical condition deteriorated further.

My story is like most disabled people in that we do want to get out there and work for as long as we can. We’re not ‘reluctant’ or as some right-wing reporters say ‘feckless’.

What helped me take that step into work and remain in work for so long was the benefit Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and formerly Disability Living Allowance (DLA). This is paid whether someone is working or not, as it’s to help for the additional disability-related costs.

But since my day, these costs have been rising exponentially. This is a huge barrier to employment, as it’s often difficult to find work that pays enough to cover them.

The ‘disability price-tag’

The charity, Scope, who campaign to transform attitudes to disability, tackle injustice and inspire action, call these costs the ‘disability price-tag’ and in their 2024 report found that:
- On average, disabled households need an addition £1,010 a month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households.
- On average the extra cost of disability is equivalent to 67% of household income, after housing costs
Scope says:

The financial struggle with extra costs is ongoing. And has a detrimental impact on the health and wellbeing of disabled people. At the very worst, this can be life-threatening.

Such figures are familiar for Sarah, who works with disabled children and young people. Sarah is Autistic, and also lives with serious and long-term health conditions.

Sarah told me:

My monthly take-home pay is home pay is £1050. But I have to pay £1030 just the on the care-costs to help me with tasks around the home.

With these disability-related costs rising each year, making PIP harder to claim could be catastrophic.

Sarah said:

Without PIP or my amount of PIP decreased, I wouldn’t be able to work. I’m at breaking-point at the moment. I would in effect be paying to go to work as I can’t stop paying for the help at home.

Losing PIP means losing independence

Catherine works at a university. She has neurodevelopmental and learning disabilities as well as other long-term conditions.

I asked her what impact changes to her PIP entitlement could have. She said:

It would lead to the loss of assistive software helping me to do my studying/job as well as the medications that enable me to focus and deal with pain.

My transport costs would increase, and I would lose the subscriptions to services which enable me to work and the analytics software the university doesn’t provide.

Then it’s the loss of things that keep me sane from time to time, losing any kind of small social life, things that keep me going.

Changes to PIP such as making it harder to get or reapply for it could mean difficult decisions for Sarah and Catherine as to whether they can afford to go to work. But there’s a further risk, as this might mean they’re no longer able to remain independent at home.

This is the case for Frank, who worked as a school caretaker, and has a mental health and learning disability. He explained to me how he had to give-up work last year due to a serious accident. He’s now facing mounting care-costs.

Frank said:

A keyword in the title of PIP is ‘independence’. If I lost my PIP, I might have to go into a care home. I’ve been fighting for years to stay independent and for this not to happen.

The cost of accessible housing in comparison to homes for those who are able-bodied can contribute to this battle to remain independent.

Making more barriers to employment for disabled people

Simone, who’s currently not working due to mental illness said to me:

I don’t think many people realise that PIP ends up being swallowed-up by such high rents. I often have to ask my friend to help me pay for the healthcare costs that aren’t covered by my prescription. If my PIP award changed and I lost any money, then I don’t know what would happen in relation to my housing.

Such high disability-related costs can be a huge barrier to employment. Making PIP even harder to obtain, could mean disabled people don’t get this crucial benefit. This might mean the difference in taking up a post or remaining in employment.

Of course, it’s not just cost barriers that disabled people face regarding the workplace. Getting the equipment required using ‘Access to Work’ can be problematic. In an article last year, I wrote about Glyn Hayes who has a spinal cord injury and needed a wheelchair adaptation for work.

Instead of the expected 12 weeks, delays and delays pushed this to 12 months. Hayes was lucky in that his employer was ‘disability friendly’. But many employers are not so patient.

Disability discrimination in the workplace

Daisy’s main area of work is data input and data analysis. She is Autistic and is physically disabled. She told me:

Despite legislation banning such discrimination, I’ve often been called for an interview after submitting my CV and application but as soon as they see my wheelchair that’s it, I don’t get the post.

This is something Catherine has also witnessed. She said:

Barriers for disabled individuals can start early and seem insurmountable, such as when an employer chooses not to interview a candidate who discloses their disability in a cover letter, or who rejects them when they discover the truth during the hiring process.

Daisy has also mentioned just how hostile workplaces can be if employees manage to get a job. She said:

Most jobs I have faced constructive dismissal from. I’ve been fired from two jobs, one for being stalked by a colleague, another after I was physically attacked by a contractor, who did not get a job he wanted after he arrived late to work. I was the one deemed a problem. In another case, I was fired by withholding hours after a new manager came in and decided that I was an ‘insurance risk’.

Catherine also knows how stressful, and tense workplaces can be for disabled people. She said:

The perceptions of co-workers can translate into behaviour towards that disabled person which can negatively impact a disabled person’s work.

Stereotypes (or uncomfortable realities) about disability can lead to marginalisation within the workplace, influencing everything from job performance to professional relationships”

Labour-led DWP’s demonisation filters down

The demonisation of disabled people by government filters down, creating what already is an uncomfortable environment even worse.

Catherine said:

Every ‘disability benefits scrounger’ story is another potential reason for someone to put a target on our backs.

If you’re lucky, you might end up as “One of the good ones who deserve help”, but if your co-workers see you to be “Playing the system”, then you’re not just in danger of people creating a hostile environment towards you, but disability hate-crimes and workplace discrimination, too.

For disabled people, Labour have not just broken our trust, they’ve also managed to re-create the fear of the Cameron/Osbourne period, with actions that appear incomprehensible and cruel.

That’s because if the intention is to encourage more disabled people into work, then Labour should be looking at the barriers disabled people face, when trying to access the workplace, such as the housing and care costs, plus the disability mark-up on essential products.

And, as a matter of urgency, Labour should be addressing the hostile workplaces and discrimination disabled people still face at work, and when applying for jobs.

Making PIP even harder to obtain or reapply for – will simply create another barrier. If Labour wants to change the culture around disability and work, then a more ‘sustainable’ way will be by removing such obstacles.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ruth Hunt

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 19, 2025

Liz Kendall ‘backs’ petition to stop government ‘cutting disability benefits’ while bowing to the rich
Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) boss Liz Kendall has encouraged people to sign a petition to stop “unfair cuts to those most in need” while letting rich elites off the hook.

The only problem is, this was nine years ago – when it was the Blue Tories attacking disabled people. Now, as she heads up the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), she’s the one in charge of the Red Tories’ own attack.

Please sign the petition here https://t.co/RCgGSSWs3Q & RT https://t.co/HuDYR7nlJQ

— Liz Kendall (@leicesterliz) March 18, 2016

Kendall: ‘cutting thousands of pounds from disabled people every year’ – then and now

The 2016 petition Kendall shared, coming under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, urged people to:

Stop the Tories’ unfair cuts to those most in need

It added that the Conservative government of the time had:

chosen to cut £3,500 on average a year from people with disabilities while offering tax breaks for those at the very top.

Fast forward nine years, and it’s Keir Starmer’s Labour Party – and Kendall – that is embarking on welfare cuts of around £5bn, despite such a plan not appearing in its 2024 election manifesto. And again, disabled people are likely to lose thousands every year.

Specifically, Kendall is planning to:
- Increase the Universal Credit basic rate from £364 every four weeks to £392 (£91 a week, to £98) for a single person over the age of 25. It’s planning to bring this in from 2026/2027.
- Freeze the Universal Credit health-related part of Universal Credit at £97 a week until 2029/2030. In other words, it won’t rise with inflation. This also applies to everyone found LCWRA prior to April 2026 who gets a reassessment before then – and is still found LCWRA.
- New claimants will see a 50% cut of the health-related component – taking it down to £47 a week. It wants to bring this in for April 2026/2027.
- Scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) and tie health-related elements of Universal Credit to the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) assessment. This could see 600,000 people lose entitlements
All this looks even worse than it would have done under the Blue Tories. And like their ideological bedfellows, the Red Tories (including Kendall) are also attacking disabled people (along with children and pensioners) instead of making their rich donors/owners contribute their share to society.

Featured image via the Canary

By Ed Sykes

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 19, 2025

The most callous part of Liz Kendall’s DWP plans was actually a Tory idea she’s made worse
The Labour Party government has announced it will ram through plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) under Universal Credit. Instead, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will be rolling this into a single assessment tied to Personal Independence Payment. However, shamefully, it’s gearing up to do so without consulting the public – meaning those it will impact, namely chronically ill and disabled people, will get no chance to input over this.

It could mean more than 600,000 chronically ill and disabled people losing their health related out-of-work benefits. On top of this, it would also entail the department denying it to many more who need it in future.

And, if that weren’t already devastating enough – Labour has also laid out plans to cut the benefit for chronically ill and disabled people anyway.

Scrapping the Universal Credit WCA without consultation

On Tuesday 18 March, DWP boss Liz Kendall announced the details of the government’s long-awaited disability green paper to Parliament.

The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey has detailed the key points from Kendall’s speech. You can read her analysis of Labour’s main plans for disability and income-related benefits here.

One significant revelation was that the Labour government plans to scrap the WCA.

In particular, the paper laid out that it’s continuing with the Tory’s plans to roll the WCA into the PIP assessment. It’s an option previous Conservative governments have floated in some form since as far back as 2019. So now, it seems Labour is following through on this.

Kendall and the DWP’s paper tried to temper this blow with the frankly pointless promise to ditch the Tories’ other WCA plans. These were of course the ones the High Court found the consultation over to be unlawful in January. That also happens to be the consultation the Labour government shamelessly decided to defend in court – at an eye-watering half a million cost to the taxpayer.

Notably, these changes would have tightened the criteria, to in effect, deny health-related Universal Credit to certain claimants. So, Labour has now purportedly dropped these plans – by doing away with the WCA altogether. And crucially, it has a devious plan to avoid the inclusion and respecting disabled people’s rights pitfalls that the Tories encountered with their consultation. The ingenious solution it has found? Not running one at all.

Serious issues rolling them into one assessment

In a nutshell, rolling the WCA into PIP assessments means that to get the health-related (LCWRA) component of Universal Credit or the ESA support group, applicants will have to also be awarded PIP.

However, the Canary’s Steve Topple has previously pointed out a number of serious issues with this. Specifically, he noted how:

The WCA and PIP criteria are completely different, as are the benefits. The DWP may be asking people for the same information about their illnesses or impairments. But the context is completely different. The WCA looks at what sick and disabled people can do regarding work. The PIP health assessment looks at what support people need. To combine both these assessments is simplifying people’s health. But more often than not, people’s health is not simple at all.

In other words, currently, PIP is about the extra costs chronically ill and disabled people need to live. Or more to the point, it’s completely separate from whether or not they are in work, or can work. However, Labour now seems set on blurring this line.

Moreover, the way the DWP’s outsourced providers assess for these are completely different. For one, the PIP form is a notoriously complicated process – at longer than 40 pages long and requiring substantial medical evidence. Of course, this is not something every chronically ill and disabled person will have, made no less difficult by the inaccessibility of NHS services and specialists. Plus, PIP’s assessment is massively inaccessible – so many chronically ill and disabled people are simply unable to go through the lengthy, traumatising, and complex process anyway.

So now, Labour wants to make it so that far fewer chronically ill and disabled people unable to work can’t access health-related out-of-work benefits.

Stripping hundreds of thousands of claimants of health-related benefits

Yet, if all that weren’t bad enough, the key issue is that Labour proceeding with this could strip hundreds of thousands of people of their health-related out-of-work benefits. This is because there are many people who currently get them, but not PIP or DLA.

In 2023, policy adviser Ken Butler at Disability Rights UK told the Disability News Service (DNS) that:

The health element proposals will mean that around 632,000 disabled people who receive the employment and support allowance or universal credit support component will lose this as they do not receive PIP or DLA.

Specifically, as Topple also detailed, this will most likely impact chronically ill people and those living with mental health conditions.

The DWP’s current statistics don’t paint a rosier picture. As of August 2024, 780,250 Universal Credit claimants getting the health-related part also claimed PIP or DLA. There were around 1.4 million in the LCWRA group – meaning that just little over half of Universal Credit claimants eligible for the health part were also getting PIP or DLA.

In short, figures have little changed from this. What the Green Paper didn’t confirm however, is whether this will apply to people getting reassessments. However, given its accompanying emphasis on conditionality – in particular by increasing the number of assessments for people getting health-related out-of-work benefits – it seems likely this will be the case.

More than 600,000 chronically ill and disabled people could therefore lose their out-of-work benefits with Labour pressing ahead on this.

Denying chronically ill and disabled people a say

So, given the enormous stakes for chronically ill and disabled people with this move, you might think the DWP would seek their views on it. Wrong. Instead, Labour’s green paper spelled out that it would drive these Universal Credit changes through WITHOUT public consultation.

Specifically, the paper states that the government will:

implement this change via primary legislation. Further details will be published in the forthcoming White Paper. We are not consulting on this measure.

In short, it will bring forward a Bill to make this change. MPs will of course get to vote on it, however, given Labour’s enormous majority, it likely anticipates it will be easy to get this through.

Appallingly, it isn’t intending to consult the public ahead of putting together the legislation.

Of course, that’s hardly surprising from this Labour government. To date, it has failed to include chronically ill and disabled people in much of its policy-making that would affect them. This green paper was no exception to that.

At present however, it hasn’t laid out a timeline for putting this in motion – just that more details will come in an upcoming white paper.

Moving the goalposts as ever

The paper claims that rolling the WCA into PIP assessments will:

de-couple access to the health element in Universal Credit… from work status, so people can be confident that the act of taking steps towards and into employment will not put their benefit entitlement at risk.

But the reality is that it will just make it harder for people to claim these. Of course, that’s precisely the point. Labour doesn’t want as many chronically ill and disabled people applying for it – so by linking it to PIP, it’s moving the goalposts on this.

At the same time, it’s planning to tighten the criteria for PIP, restricting the number of people who can get it.

It’s worth bearing in mind however that Kendall’s scaremongering about the number of people claiming that is also preposterous. Charlton-Dailey has pointed out that in reality, the vast majority of chronically ill and disabled people AREN’T claiming PIP:

Labour are making a huge fuss of how many people are claiming pip (3.6 million).

But there are 16.1 million disabled people in the UK. That means 12.5 million disabled people AREN’T getting PIP or any support.

— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey) March 17, 2025

Yet, disabled households on average have additional costs of £1,010 to meet the same standard of living as non-disabled people. In other words, all chronically ill and disabled people in the UK should get extra help with the costs of living – and most aren’t.

To sum up then, Labour wants less people getting PIP, and by rolling the WCA into the PIP assessment, ergo, less people getting health-related out-of-work benefits as well.

But let’s be clear: stripping chronically ill and disabled people who can’t work won’t push them into it. It will push them into deeper poverty.

Universal Credit changes: callous beyond belief

And just to cement that fact, the green paper revealed that Labour wants to follow through on one of the dangerous plans leaked to ITV. Specifically, it wants to raise the basic rate of Universal Credit for those in or searching for work while cutting the rate of the benefit for those judged unfit to work (LCWRA addition in Universal Credit).

Specifically, it’s planning to:
- Increase the Universal Credit basic rate from £364 every four weeks to £392 (£91 a week, to £98) for a single person over the age of 25. It’s planning to bring this in from 2026/2027.
- Freeze the Universal Credit health-related part of Universal Credit at £97 a week until 2029/2030. In other words, it won’t rise with inflation. This also applies to everyone found LCWRA prior to April 2026 who gets a reassessment before then – and is still found LCWRA.
- New claimants will see a 50% cut of the health-related component – taking it down to £47 a week. It wants to bring this in for April 2026/2027.
For this plan at least, Labour is consulting on it through the green paper. Nonetheless, the fact it’s even proposing these is atrocious. The government is knowingly putting plans forward that will cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits, or deny them altogether.

People will die

Ultimately, none of this is actually about supporting chronically ill and disabled people into employment. It’s about punching down on vulnerable people so Labour doesn’t have to tax the super-rich and corporations. It’s to frame sick and disabled folks as burdens to society – and make them feel that way – more than they do already.

And all it will do is impoverish and kill more chronically ill and disabled people. So it’s little wonder Labour doesn’t want them to have a say over its plans for doing away with the WCA.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 19, 2025

The most callous part of Liz Kendall’s DWP plans was actually a Tory idea she’s made worse
The Labour Party government has announced it will ram through plans to scrap the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) under Universal Credit. Instead, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) will be rolling this into a single assessment tied to Personal Independence Payment. However, shamefully, it’s gearing up to do so without consulting the public – meaning those it will impact, namely chronically ill and disabled people, will get no chance to input over this.

It could mean more than 600,000 chronically ill and disabled people losing their health related out-of-work benefits. On top of this, it would also entail the department denying it to many more who need it in future.

And, if that weren’t already devastating enough – Labour has also laid out plans to cut the benefit for chronically ill and disabled people anyway.

Scrapping the Universal Credit WCA without consultation

On Tuesday 18 March, DWP boss Liz Kendall announced the details of the government’s long-awaited disability green paper to Parliament.

The Canary’s Rachel Charlton-Dailey has detailed the key points from Kendall’s speech. You can read her analysis of Labour’s main plans for disability and income-related benefits here.

One significant revelation was that the Labour government plans to scrap the WCA.

In particular, the paper laid out that it’s continuing with the Tory’s plans to roll the WCA into the PIP assessment. It’s an option previous Conservative governments have floated in some form since as far back as 2019. So now, it seems Labour is following through on this.

Kendall and the DWP’s paper tried to temper this blow with the frankly pointless promise to ditch the Tories’ other WCA plans. These were of course the ones the High Court found the consultation over to be unlawful in January. That also happens to be the consultation the Labour government shamelessly decided to defend in court – at an eye-watering half a million cost to the taxpayer.

Notably, these changes would have tightened the criteria, to in effect, deny health-related Universal Credit to certain claimants. So, Labour has now purportedly dropped these plans – by doing away with the WCA altogether. And crucially, it has a devious plan to avoid the inclusion and respecting disabled people’s rights pitfalls that the Tories encountered with their consultation. The ingenious solution it has found? Not running one at all.

Serious issues rolling them into one assessment

In a nutshell, rolling the WCA into PIP assessments means that to get the health-related (LCWRA) component of Universal Credit or the ESA support group, applicants will have to also be awarded PIP.

However, the Canary’s Steve Topple has previously pointed out a number of serious issues with this. Specifically, he noted how:

The WCA and PIP criteria are completely different, as are the benefits. The DWP may be asking people for the same information about their illnesses or impairments. But the context is completely different. The WCA looks at what sick and disabled people can do regarding work. The PIP health assessment looks at what support people need. To combine both these assessments is simplifying people’s health. But more often than not, people’s health is not simple at all.

In other words, currently, PIP is about the extra costs chronically ill and disabled people need to live. Or more to the point, it’s completely separate from whether or not they are in work, or can work. However, Labour now seems set on blurring this line.

Moreover, the way the DWP’s outsourced providers assess for these are completely different. For one, the PIP form is a notoriously complicated process – at longer than 40 pages long and requiring substantial medical evidence. Of course, this is not something every chronically ill and disabled person will have, made no less difficult by the inaccessibility of NHS services and specialists. Plus, PIP’s assessment is massively inaccessible – so many chronically ill and disabled people are simply unable to go through the lengthy, traumatising, and complex process anyway.

So now, Labour wants to make it so that far fewer chronically ill and disabled people unable to work can’t access health-related out-of-work benefits.

Stripping hundreds of thousands of claimants of health-related benefits

Yet, if all that weren’t bad enough, the key issue is that Labour proceeding with this could strip hundreds of thousands of people of their health-related out-of-work benefits. This is because there are many people who currently get them, but not PIP or DLA.

In 2023, policy adviser Ken Butler at Disability Rights UK told the Disability News Service (DNS) that:

The health element proposals will mean that around 632,000 disabled people who receive the employment and support allowance or universal credit support component will lose this as they do not receive PIP or DLA.

Specifically, as Topple also detailed, this will most likely impact chronically ill people and those living with mental health conditions.

The DWP’s current statistics don’t paint a rosier picture. As of August 2024, 780,250 Universal Credit claimants getting the health-related part also claimed PIP or DLA. There were around 1.4 million in the LCWRA group – meaning that just little over half of Universal Credit claimants eligible for the health part were also getting PIP or DLA.

In short, figures have little changed from this. What the Green Paper didn’t confirm however, is whether this will apply to people getting reassessments. However, given its accompanying emphasis on conditionality – in particular by increasing the number of assessments for people getting health-related out-of-work benefits – it seems likely this will be the case.

More than 600,000 chronically ill and disabled people could therefore lose their out-of-work benefits with Labour pressing ahead on this.

Denying chronically ill and disabled people a say

So, given the enormous stakes for chronically ill and disabled people with this move, you might think the DWP would seek their views on it. Wrong. Instead, Labour’s green paper spelled out that it would drive these Universal Credit changes through WITHOUT public consultation.

Specifically, the paper states that the government will:

implement this change via primary legislation. Further details will be published in the forthcoming White Paper. We are not consulting on this measure.

In short, it will bring forward a Bill to make this change. MPs will of course get to vote on it, however, given Labour’s enormous majority, it likely anticipates it will be easy to get this through.

Appallingly, it isn’t intending to consult the public ahead of putting together the legislation.

Of course, that’s hardly surprising from this Labour government. To date, it has failed to include chronically ill and disabled people in much of its policy-making that would affect them. This green paper was no exception to that.

At present however, it hasn’t laid out a timeline for putting this in motion – just that more details will come in an upcoming white paper.

Moving the goalposts as ever

The paper claims that rolling the WCA into PIP assessments will:

de-couple access to the health element in Universal Credit… from work status, so people can be confident that the act of taking steps towards and into employment will not put their benefit entitlement at risk.

But the reality is that it will just make it harder for people to claim these. Of course, that’s precisely the point. Labour doesn’t want as many chronically ill and disabled people applying for it – so by linking it to PIP, it’s moving the goalposts on this.

At the same time, it’s planning to tighten the criteria for PIP, restricting the number of people who can get it.

It’s worth bearing in mind however that Kendall’s scaremongering about the number of people claiming that is also preposterous. Charlton-Dailey has pointed out that in reality, the vast majority of chronically ill and disabled people AREN’T claiming PIP:

Labour are making a huge fuss of how many people are claiming pip (3.6 million).

But there are 16.1 million disabled people in the UK. That means 12.5 million disabled people AREN’T getting PIP or any support.

— Rachel Charlton-Dailey (@RachelCDailey) March 17, 2025

Yet, disabled households on average have additional costs of £1,010 to meet the same standard of living as non-disabled people. In other words, all chronically ill and disabled people in the UK should get extra help with the costs of living – and most aren’t.

To sum up then, Labour wants less people getting PIP, and by rolling the WCA into the PIP assessment, ergo, less people getting health-related out-of-work benefits as well.

But let’s be clear: stripping chronically ill and disabled people who can’t work won’t push them into it. It will push them into deeper poverty.

Universal Credit changes: callous beyond belief

And just to cement that fact, the green paper revealed that Labour wants to follow through on one of the dangerous plans leaked to ITV. Specifically, it wants to raise the basic rate of Universal Credit for those in or searching for work while cutting the rate of the benefit for those judged unfit to work (LCWRA addition in Universal Credit).

Specifically, it’s planning to:
- Increase the Universal Credit basic rate from £364 every four weeks to £392 (£91 a week, to £98) for a single person over the age of 25. It’s planning to bring this in from 2026/2027.
- Freeze the Universal Credit health-related part of Universal Credit at £97 a week until 2029/2030. In other words, it won’t rise with inflation. This also applies to everyone found LCWRA prior to April 2026 who gets a reassessment before then – and is still found LCWRA.
- New claimants will see a 50% cut of the health-related component – taking it down to £47 a week. It wants to bring this in for April 2026/2027.
For this plan at least, Labour is consulting on it through the green paper. Nonetheless, the fact it’s even proposing these is atrocious. The government is knowingly putting plans forward that will cut chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits, or deny them altogether.

People will die

Ultimately, none of this is actually about supporting chronically ill and disabled people into employment. It’s about punching down on vulnerable people so Labour doesn’t have to tax the super-rich and corporations. It’s to frame sick and disabled folks as burdens to society – and make them feel that way – more than they do already.

And all it will do is impoverish and kill more chronically ill and disabled people. So it’s little wonder Labour doesn’t want them to have a say over its plans for doing away with the WCA.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 18, 2025

Labour confirms plans to kill disabled people with DWP benefit cuts
On Tuesday 18 March, the Labour Party confirmed what many disabled people and campaigners feared: they are planning on killing disabled people with Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits cuts.

DWP cuts: Kendall confirms the cruelty

Whilst the speech was full of what felt like deliberate and violent language, what was clear was that despite them trying to make it sound like a good thing and that disabled people would be supported, not a lot of DWP support was offered.

Kendall told the Commons that the DWP plan had some clear principles:
- “Stopping people from falling into long-term economic inactivity through early intervention and support”. This will be done through cutting the rate of Universal credit for new claimants.
- “Restoring trust and fairness in the system by fixing the broken assessment process that drives people into dependency on welfare”.
- This was announced by her boasting that PIP would not become vouchers and that PIP would not be frozen, two plans which were 100% never real in the first place.
- “Delivering better and more tailored employment support to get more people off welfare, into work – alongside a higher expectation to engage with that support”. This is seemingly job coaches and letting people work from home.
- “Ensuring the system is financially sustainable to keep providing for those who need it most”. This of course means once again DWP cuts.
So where are these cuts going to be?

Major changes

Well for one thing the Work Capability Assessment will be scrapped. Whilst this should be seen as cause for celebration from campaigners, what will happen is the worry.

Kendall announced that the rate of DWP Universal Credit standard allowance for new and existing claims would increase by a whole seven pounds in 2026. Current claimants will have their health element frozen at £97 per week until 2030, while new claimants will receive just £47 per week – down from £97.

However, the way this is being assessed will also change. It will become part of the PIP assessment to, as Kendall said:

be based on the impact of disability on daily living, not on capacity to work.

Crucially however, this would mean that the claimant would have to qualify for PIP too as well as Universal Credit, though there’s no clear timeline as to when WCA and DWP PIP will be merging, as it will require legislation to do so.

Kendall insisted however that anyone deemed unfit for work before 2026 and remains on LCWRA wont lose their health element or see their entitlement change.

However, PIP will also be harder to claim, with Kendall announcing that disabled people will now have to score four points or more on any particular part of the daily living section, meaning for example it would’ve been enough that you can’t wash your torso, now you will only qualify if you can’t wash your lower half. While being incontinent if its due to loss of bowel or bladder control would qualify, you won’t if you can get changed unaided after shitting yourself.

Another big change is that the government want to scrap contributory-based ESA with “work insurance” which would be the same rate as contributory ESA but “enable” people to look for work, i.e. force those who were told they wouldn’t have to because they previously contributed to society.

DWP: it will have blood on its hands

Kendall said:

We will protect disabled people who can’t and won’t ever be able to work and support them to live with dignity.

What is clear from Kendall’s announcement and the green paper today is that disabled people will be required to prove they deserve support even further in order to survive, something that many don’t have the capacity to do. The freezing and cut to Universal Credit’s health element is disastrous, too – and will lead to increased poverty and, potentially, people’s deaths.

However this is just the start. The consultation will run until 30 June and its vital that as many disabled people as possible tell the government how these changes will affect them.

You can view the full consultation here and respond here.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 18, 2025

The Labour government is now coming for SEND children, too

The Labour government have launched attacks on children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and people with mental health diagnoses.

On Friday 14 March, Bridget Phillipson, education secretary, said that parents have to ‘think differently‘ on SEND support for children. No doubt this is a labour preparing us for what is to come – them stripping back services – which are already shit.

Clearly, the way parents are thinking about SEND support is the problem, rather than the abhorrent services, support and funding.

Bridget, we need to talk…Thinking about SEND funding is not parents’ job—they’re worrying about their children getting an education. The present system ‘hasn’t worked’ because it was sabotaged by LAs & funding cuts. NONE of this is parents’ fault. https://t.co/yuKmd8T7OA

— Special Needs Jungle (@SpcialNdsJungle) March 15, 2025

Then on Saturday, Tom Rees, the Department for Education’s inclusion advisor said he would like to see the SEND label retired. He complained that the current system is too “medicalised” and highlighted the problems with using an “umbrella term” like SEND. However he then contradicted himself and went on to say that there are too many children needing support and:

It’s too big a number to deal with through individualised…specialist support

Firstly, he needs to make his mind up. Then, he needs to start answering questions because like most bureaucrats, he has created more than he has answered.

1. Hi @TomRees_77.
When you say you want to ‘retire’ the SEND label, what exactly would you replace it with, *without* reducing children’s rights, or reducing communication that a child has needs?
pic.twitter.com/FqAMNXh8EA

— thehighcliffeguy (@AdamHighcliffe) March 15, 2025

3. When you say the current system is “too big” to manage “individualised specialist support”, what would you replace it with?
And how do you square this retreat from specialist support with the ambition to be “much more precise in our understanding of different needs”?
pic.twitter.com/01XcKxBRCp

— thehighcliffeguy (@AdamHighcliffe) March 15, 2025

SEND: ‘financially unsustainable’

Back in October, the National Audit Office (NAO) said that the Special Educational Needs system is financially “unsustainable”.

Since 2015, there has been a 140% increase in children and young people with an education, health and care plans (EHCP).

As of January 2024, there were 434,354 pupils in schools in England with an EHCP. This is 4.8% of all pupils. An additional 1.2m receive SEN support. According to their website:

Most of this increase related to autistic spectrum disorders; speech, language and communication needs; and social, emotional and mental health needs.

Their annual budget has risen by 58% in the last 10 years and now sits at £10.7bn. Yet, it has not led to better outcomes for SEND students. That’s at least in part because the Tories didn’t keep funding up with increasing demand. The problem is only getting worse, yet Labour seem to think that if we stop using certain words, the problem vanishes.

Next they will be trying to retire the word disabled. Maybe then disabilities will magically disappear?

‘Over-diagnosis’

In his usual fashion, Wes Streeting then followed this up on Sunday. He claimed that services are over-diagnosing mental health conditions and writing too many people off. Given the context of all the DWP ‘welfare reforms’ and SEND provision, who’s betting he means ADHD and autism?

He can bang on about over-diagnosis all he wants. But Wes Streeting has clearly never tried to get an appointment with a mental health professional, let alone a diagnosis or treatment.

Wes Streeting talking about an over diagnosis of mental health problems leading to people not working and claiming benefits whilst completely ignoring that people can’t get any fucking treatment and maybe that’s why they’re not well enough to go to work.

— Cara Lisette (@CaraLisette) March 16, 2025

Also, take a look around Wes, this country sucks. Everyone is broke and cold and hungry and the seas are full of sewage and it takes months to get healthcare and the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. I wonder why so many people have poor mental health.

— Cara Lisette (@CaraLisette) March 16, 2025

Trying to bury the problem.

Between getting rid of words like SEND and the assisted dying bill, Labour are really trying to make the problem disappear.

I’d imagine the new assisted dying bill will help out with numbers of those with long term illnesses.

This country is done! They don’t care about the most vunerable so I refuse to care about them (Govt)

They’re not on the side of those that need help so they’re the enemy.

— Betty Swollocks (@DontBullehMeh) March 16, 2025

Not only are Labour going after disabled and chronically ill adults – they are now also going after kids with SEND. That should tell you everything you need to know about the new nasty party that is this Labour government.

Feature image via the Canary

By HG

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 17, 2025

EXPOSED: Labour’s plan for DWP cuts to severely disabled people’s Universal Credit came from the Resolution Foundation
A thinktank appears to be at the heart of the Labour Party-led Department for Work and Pensions DWP brutal Universal Credit cuts. In particular, it revolves around the government’s plans to cut the health-related part of Universal Credit, known as LCWRA.

However, it wasn’t the usual suspects pushing for this. Instead, it came from a surprising source, because ordinarily, the thinktank in question is at the forefront of pulling apart the ableist benefit cut policy-making. Shockingly, it was the Resolution Foundation.

DWP Universal Credit cuts

As the Canary’s Steve Topple previously reported, on Friday 7 March, the DWP leaked its plans for up to £6bn in welfare cuts to ITV News. Notably, this largely revolved around changes to Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and DWP Universal Credit cuts that would hit chronically ill and disabled people the hardest. Specifically, these were:
- £5 billion in Treasury ‘savings’ by making it harder for people to qualify for DWP PIP.
- Freezing of PIP payments next year so that the award does not rise with inflation.
- Raising the basic rate of Universal Credit (UC) for those in or searching for work while cutting the rate of the benefit for those judged unfit to work (LCWRA addition in UC).
- £1 billion of the proposed cuts invested in employment support for those in receipt of health-related benefits who are looking for work.
However, the government is now purportedly planning to scrap the PIP freeze after backlash from the public and its own MPs. Nonetheless, it’s still looking to proceed with the rest of its plans.

On top of this, the Times followed this up the following Friday 14 March with further information on the government’s plans. This included reducing benefits for one million people, and tightening eligibility criteria. The latter would particularly target people suffering from some mental health disorders, and those who have difficulty washing, dressing, or even eating.

So, the question was of course – who has been shaping the Labour Party’s plans over this?

As it turned out, where the LCWRA ‘reform’ is concerned, it seems to have been the Resolution Foundation.

Enter the Resolution Foundation

To start, the Canary found that the thinktank has been promoting DWP Universal Credit cuts at least since November 2024. Notably, its senior economist Louise Murphy did so in a oral evidence session to the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee.

This was the committee that in January, put out a disgraceful report attacking disability benefit claimants. In particular, this called for the government to ramp up conditionality and implement more assessments for people not fit for work. However, as John Pring from the Disability News Service (DNS) noted, the committee took no evidence whatsoever from disabled claimants or Deaf and Disabled People’s Organisations (DDPOs). Moreover, Pring highlighted how Tory peer George Bridges led the committee and that he is:

a former chair of the Conservative research department, and the party’s former campaign director, a former leader writer for The Times, and now a senior adviser to the Spanish bank Santander.

Nonetheless, on 12 November, Murphy gave evidence alongside a representative each from the CSJ, and Policy Exchange. Dr Sean Phillips spoke for Policy Exchange. He is a co-author for the thinktank’s recent report pushing for draconian PIP reforms, and which made the erroneous conflation of it as an out-of-work benefit. Meanwhile, policy director Edward Davies provided the CSJ’s input.

But while both Phillips and Davies presented the nonsense notion that the generosity of not fit for work benefits was ‘incentivising’ claimants, it was actually Murphy that put forward an alarming suggestion for tackling this that the Labour government now appears to have taken up.

A ‘bit more generous’ on the basic rate…

Committee member and peer Alison Wolf asked each of them in turn:

what would be your two proposals to change the benefit system such that, in a concrete and doable way, it reduced the rationality of staying on long-term benefit for ever and got more people back on that work route?

And this was when Murphy told the committee (our emphasis):

The first is working to remove this cliff edge, so that we derisk movements into work. To me, the fundamental issue is that people, rationally, will be thinking, “Even if I will perhaps be better off in the long term if I find a higher paying job, I immediately risk losing £400 a month”. For people on low incomes who are likely to be in receipt of benefits, that will be at the front of their minds.

There are ways you can do that. Either you can move to a slightly more gradated system, so that, rather than it being zero or £400, there are levels depending on whether you are able to do part-time work, full-time work and so on. Or you just increase the level of benefits for everyone slightly to make the overall level of benefits seem a bit more generous, but significantly decrease the amount for people who are out of work due to ill health. There are pros and cons, but I certainly think that there are ways to remove the all-or-nothing scenario.

In other words, Murphy pointed to cutting the LCWRA component of Universal Credit. Now of course, the Labour Party government appear to be gearing up to do just that. It therefore seems likely that the DWP has adopted Universal Credit cuts on the Resolution Foundation’s advice.

So-called ‘incentives’ to get back to work – but actually DWP Universal Credit cuts

Moreover, this isn’t the only instance of the Resolution Foundation promoting DWP Universal Credit cuts policy either.

That’s because, ironically, it put this forward in a recent report that thoroughly lambasted the government for its plans to cut disability and sickness benefits.

The Canary reported on this analysis at the time, which the thinktank released the day before ITV dropped the leaked details of the government’s plans. The Resolution Foundation’s big take-aways were that:

reducing access to DWP disability benefits should not be the primary focus of government cuts. The organisation emphasises that any attempts to tighten eligibility could lead to devastating financial consequences for those already relying on these vital supports.

In a landscape where welfare cuts often hit the most vulnerable, the Resolution Foundation highlights the stark reality faced by people with disabilities and health issues. They argue that freezing benefits as a method to curb government spending would only yield savings of approximately £1 billion annually by the end of the parliamentary term, a negligible amount compared to the hardships that would be bestowed upon claimants.

However, amid the thinktank’s evisceration of DWP moves to cut disability benefits, was the damning policy. In its press release, it stated that:

The scale of losses faced by newly ineligible incapacity benefit claimants is due to the large gap between basic and health-related support in Universal Credit (UC). For a single adult, basic support of just £393 a month more than doubles to £810 a month if they are eligible for health-related support. This creates a strong incentive to claim the latter.

The Government should look to close this gap by redistributing levels of health-related support into basic awards. If the Government is committed to making cuts in the short term, it could reduce the gap by freezing health-related support in cash terms between 2025-26 and 2029-30, saving £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament.

But cuts for chronically ill and disabled people

The report goes further than this on DWP Universal Credit cuts. Under the guise of ‘redistribution’, it presents a number of possible scenarios in a column chart:

The green columns represent the amount a person over the age of 25 claiming the Universal Credit basic rate and LCWRA part would get. Conversely, the grey column is what an individual over 25 claiming the basic rate would receive.

Essentially, it illustrates three separate scenarios, the first being the current set-up. The second shows what would happen to these benefits if the DWP were to cut the LCWRA component by 25%. Similarly, the third shows this if the DWP cut it by 50%.

In effect then, the idea is to increase the amount that claimants on the basic rate would get. At 25% redistribution, the DWP would increase their Universal Credit to £425, and £456 in the 50% option.

However, there’s one glaring issue with this. It would mean that chronically ill/disabled claimants unable to work would have significant cuts to their Universal Credit. Under the 25% redistribution, chronically ill and disabled claimants not fit for work would lose 9% – or £73 a month – of their Universal Credit. For the 50% scenario, they would see cuts of 18% – £146 a month – to their benefits.

Yes the basic rate is woefully inadequate, but why cut the LCWRA?

To sum up then, the Resolution Foundation is advocating that the government should CUT chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits. It’s reasoning for doing so? To ‘incentivise’ people back into work. In other words, it’s implying the worn and preposterous notion that people are claiming the LCWRA because they’re too generous. Seemingly to demonstrate this, the graph singles out the “income boost” LCWRA claimants get over those on the basic rate. At current levels, it points out this is 106% more. For the 25% scenario, it shows this would be 73%, and 46% for the 50% cut to the LCWRA.

Of course, the thinktank is highlighting this in the context of the woefully inadequate present Universal Credit basic rate. This undoubtedly needs to increase, as it doesn’t even cover the costs of the bare minimum essentials people need to live. However, the idea that chronically ill and disabled people unable to work should shoulder the costs for this is atrocious. This is especially appalling given that chronically ill and disabled people are more likely to be facing destitution – many of whom will rely on benefits as their main source of income.

Murphy communicated the abysmal situation on the basic rate to the committee in another part of the session:

The other thing that has changed is that the benefit system has become less generous overall. We squeezed other parts of the system gradually through the 2010s, for example through the benefit freeze and the introduction of things like the benefit cap. That just means that people feel worse off overall.

If you are feeling financially vulnerable, the incentive to get that extra £400 is greater. That came out very clearly when we were speaking to advisers on the ground, who said that the introduction of the benefit cap, for example, has had a big impact on people’s decision-making.

Suggesting that people are claiming the LCWRA because the basic rate is so low, is patently ridiculous. The implication is that people aren’t sick or disabled, or aren’t that sick or disabled that they can’t work.

It’s also skirting over the fact that it’s society which is disabling people too. Even if some people in the LCWRA could work, it doesn’t translate to there being suitable, accessible work. For instance, the DWP’s ‘Find a job’ website is currently listing just 689 “fully remote” jobs out of more than 114,000 in the whole UK. Of these, just 250 are part-time positions – and only 7 of those are ‘Disability Confident’:

It therefore plays right into the hands of the right-wing corporate media and politicians’ actions to malign certain disabled claimants, namely neurodivergent people and those with mental health conditions. In short, the ‘incentive’ framing buttresses DWP boss Liz Kendall’s “taking the mickey” demonisation of chronically ill and disabled benefit claimants.

Reject the premise for DWP Universal Credit cuts, or move over

The Canary contacted the Resolution Foundation for comment on DWP Universal Credit cuts. It only seemed to double-down on this position:

In our recent work considering possible approaches to slowing the increases in spending on working age health related benefits, we have pointed out that there is a very large difference in entitlement between the standard rate of UC and what you get by being entitled to the LCWRA (the difference is over £400 a month). This means that UC claimants have a very strong incentive to try to get on to the LCWRA and might then be reluctant to do anything which risks them losing the LCWRA. We have suggested that, especially given that core UC entitlements are so low, it might be better to redistribute money from the LCWRA element to the basic allowance of UC.

Overall, it’s shameful that the Resolution Foundation is buying into the government’s premise that it even needs to make cuts to welfare in the first place. Worse still, it’s loaning legitimacy to the DWP’s pitch to punch down on chronically ill and disabled people to meet chancellor Rachel Reeves’s self-imposed ‘savings’.

Perhaps however, the thinktank’s de-fanged approach should also come as little surprise. After all, its former chief executive from 2015 to 2024, Torsten Bell, became a Labour MP in July’s elections. What’s more, he holds a dual post as both parliamentary under-secretary to the Treasury, AND the DWP. That is, he works directly under both Reeves and Kendall – the two cabinet ministers largely spearheading Labour’s latest callous proposals.

In that context, the Resolution Foundation’s ostensible shaping of the health-related Universal Credit plans only makes sense. All the same, it will come as a shock to the many chronically ill and disabled people who had counted on the thinktank to be on their side.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 16, 2025

Labour’s DWP cuts would be the BIGGEST since 2010 if they go ahead
With Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) boss Liz Kendall set to make a speech on Tuesday 18 March that lays out the department’s plans for health-related benefit reforms, briefings have suggested that cuts of around £6 billion a year are being discussed. Personal Independence Payments, known as DWP PIP, are potentially on the line for cuts as large as £5 billion per year. The health-related part of Universal Credit, known as LCWRA, is also reported to be targeted.

DWP cuts: how much?

New facts from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) show that if the rumoured total £6 billion cuts go ahead:
- It would be the biggest cut to disability benefits since the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) was created in 2010.
If the reports of a £5 billion cut to PIP are true:
- It would be a cut three times bigger than the cut that led then Work and Pension Secretary Iain Duncan Smith to resign in 2016.
If cuts to the LCWRA and PIP go ahead, taken together:
- This would be the largest social security cut since the summer of 2015, when a series of cuts and freezes to the system were implemented that have left the UK with one of the weakest safety nets in the OECD, according to a NIESR report out earlier this week.
Commenting, Peter Matejic, Chief Analyst at the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, said:

If the government cuts benefits, this will only serve to deepen hardship. As we’ve demonstrated, cuts on this scale would be unprecedented. It is no answer to the nation’s health or employment prospects. If a disabled person needs financial support to be able to live and work, taking that support away or freezing it risks pushing them further away from a job. It is an unethical and short-sighted approach.

A government that came to office pledging to end the moral scar of foodbank use clearly should not be taking steps that could leave disabled people at greater risk of needing to use one. History shows us what happened when previous Prime Ministers oversaw huge cuts, this Prime Minister should reflect on that.

What are the rumoured cuts?

On Friday 7 March, ITV reported what it said were details of DWP welfare cuts the government was planning to announce, amounting to cuts of over £6 billion a year from social security. These were:
- £5 billion in Treasury ‘savings’ by making it harder for people to qualify for DWP PIP.
- Freezing of PIP payments next year so that the award does not rise with inflation.
- Raising the basic rate of Universal Credit (UC) for those in or searching for work while cutting the rate of the benefit for those judged unfit to work (LCWRA addition in UC).
- £1 billion of the proposed cuts invested in employment support for those in receipt of health-related benefits who are looking for work.
On Friday 14 March the Times reported the following:
- A total of one million people facing a reduction in their benefits.
- People suffering from some mental health disorders or who have difficulty washing, dressing or even eating could be denied payments after changes to eligibility criteria.
Separately on 14 March POLITICO reported that plans to freeze PIP payments next year so that the award does not rise with inflation have allegedly been scrapped.

What is DWP PIP?

PIP, or Personal Independence Payment, is the main working-age disability benefit in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, it has been replaced by the Adult Disability Payment (ADP).

Scope’s Disability Price Tag research shows that even when taking disability benefits into account, on average, disabled households need more than £1,000 a month extra to have the same standard of living as someone who is not disabled.

PIP helps people cover these extra costs, for example the cost of specialist equipment such as a wheelchair, needing to bathe and wash more due to incontinence, paying for counselling and therapies that you can’t access on the NHS, needing to stay warm to manage a condition such as arthritis, or needing to use taxis rather than public transport because of autism.

It is a non-means tested benefit, so someone’s level of savings is not taken into account when considering awards. It is not affected by a person’s income and is paid on top of most other benefits or pensions a person might be receiving, including Universal Credit, housing benefit or Income Support.

Crucial to understanding the current discourse, it is not an out-of-work benefit and is payable whether someone works or not. It does not matter if they live alone or with other people, nor whether they have a carer or other help. Awards are based solely on whether they satisfy the entitlement conditions.

What are the current rates of DWP PIP?

There are different rates and components of PIP, reflecting the varying effects of a person’s ill-health on their life and the activities for which financial assistance is required.

There are two components to PIP, which relate to a potential claimant’s ability to perform specific activities related to daily living and mobility.
- The ‘daily living’ component for 2024/25 has a standard rate of £72.65, and an enhanced rate of £108.55 a week.
- The ‘mobility’ component for 2024/25 has a standard rate of £28.70 and enhanced rate of £75.75 per week.
Who qualifies to receive PIP?

Qualifying for either PIP component depends on an assessment of your ability to perform specific activities related to daily living and mobility. Each activity contains a range of statements (called ‘descriptors’), describing various levels of difficulty in doing that activity. Descriptors score between 0 to 12 points.
- For the daily living component, activities assessed include preparing and eating food, washing and dressing yourself and communicating verbally.
- For the mobility component, ability to plan and follow journeys and physically moving around are assessed.
The number of points you score for each activity within each component is added up. If your total score is between eight and eleven, you are awarded the standard rate of the relevant component. If your total score is 12 or more, you are awarded the enhanced rate of that component.

The real-world consequences of the cuts

An anonymous DWP PIP recipient with Multiple Sclerosis said:

Even with my husband’s income and my PIP payments, our finances just disappear each month. My MS means I have extra costs like taking supplements and accessing different therapies which can be expensive. And alongside that, our day-to-day living costs are increasing. We’ve not been able to afford a holiday for the last six years, our landlord is increasing the rent and we’ve had to borrow from family.

The thought of cuts scares the hell out of me. There’s this awful rhetoric about people on benefits being lazy and I just don’t understand it, MS is not a curable condition so I’m not going to get better even if I wanted to. There needs be better support for those who really can’t work.

A disabled person who wished to remain anonymous said:

DWP Benefits are the only reason I can work. I am disabled and rely on benefits, as I am too sick to work full time. If I were forced to work more hours I would become incapacitated. It was only through being able to claim disability benefits that I was in a position to get to the point I’m at now by slowly building up my work hours and reintegrating – at my own pace.

Featured image via the Canary

By Steve Topple

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 16, 2025

Two people who know f*ck all about medicine are now doctors when it comes to the DWP
The Canary has reported on disability and mental health since its founding – particularly in relation to how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) handles these issues. As such, we can confidently state that there is no real difference in how the previous Tory governments viewed disabled people and how the current Labour Party government does. This means that conditions are still worsening for society’s most vulnerable people, with Labour continuing the squeeze on their living conditions.

All this was achingly apparent when health secretary Wes Streeting appeared on this week’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg:

Wes Streeting says there is overdiagnosis of mental health conditions. #bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/Ht0zgNzAs9

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 16, 2025

Continuity Tory at the DWP

Speaking to Streeting, Kuenssberg said:

One of the areas where you are, we understand, gonna try and claw back money, [is people who’ve] been signed off because of mental health problems. Now in the last few days, it’s interesting, the prominent neurologist, Suzanne O’Sullivan, has said there’s overdiagnosis of mental health problems.

Firstly, let’s point out the language used here – particularly the ‘clawed back’ part. This is the way you speak about someone who has stolen money and are refusing to give it up; not people with mental health problems who are simply trying to exist in the bleak reality of modern Britain.

The other thing to note is that O’Sullivan has indeed published a book in which she makes a case that we are over-diagnosing health conditions. As the Week reported, other medical professionals have other opinions, but Kuenssberg doesn’t make that clear.

The book from O’Sullivan is new, so we’ll have to wait to see how it holds up to criticism, but as of right now it’s worth understanding that the broader media has happily accepted her central argument, because it’s very much in line with pre-existing health narratives:

It’s no secret why the establishment hate the idea of workers being ‘on the sick’ in the hellish late-stage capitalist world we live in – a system which requires low-paid disposable workers to function (it’s also no surprise that poor mental health has increased alongside income inequality and job insecurity). And believe us when we say that books and studies which go against mainstream narratives rarely receive the same attention.

Leading questions

Kuenssberg finished her DWP-related question to Streeting as follows:

Your colleague, Liz Kendall, when she was here, talked about the problems of self diagnosis when people feel that they might have a condition. Do you believe, as a health secretary, that too many people are being treated as sick and incapable of work for essentially struggling with what are quite normal feelings.

This technique – in which you present an answer and ask if the guest wishes to accept it – is what’s known as a ‘leading question’, and it betrays Kuenssberg’s own thoughts on the matter. These people aren’t mentally unwell; they’re simply having normal feelings – the sort of ‘normal feelings’ people must have when their horrible lives become increasingly precarious – but that’s just progress, I’m afraid.

Streeting also betrayed his feelings by accepting Kuenssberg’s answer entirely:

Well, I want to follow the evidence, and I I agree with that point about overdiagnosis.

But, here’s the other thing. I mean, mental, well-being, illness, it’s a spectrum. Right? And…

Kuenssberg interjected at this point to reaffirm that he believed that there was “overdiagnosis”, even though he’d literally just done that. She isn’t simply a attack dog for continuity Conservatism; she’s an XL Bully on bathsalts.

Callous and cruel

Streeting continued:

I think there’s definitely there’s an overdiagnosis, but also there are too many people being written off.

And to your point about treatment, there’s too many people who just aren’t getting the support they need. So if you can get that support to people much earlier, then you can help people to either stay in work or to get back to work, and that’s why we’re recruiting eight and a half thousand more mental health staff to make sure we can get the waiting list down, and also starting early. So making sure we’ve got mental health support in every primary and secondary school in the country so we can give people that those that resilience and those coping skills.

Labour wanting to recruit more mental health staff is a good thing. From direct experience, the Canary and its writers can confirm that the mental health support offered currently is basically non-existent, and that even that which does exist is often more about ticking boxes than providing support.

As such, it’s not unrealistic to think that increasing actual mental health support could genuinely help people and reduce the number of people who require long-term support.

The doctor knows best

But there are two problems still:
1. As far as we can tell, Labour’s plans to reduce the number of people claiming DWP PIP aren’t reliant on this mental health support actually working. Their plan seems to be to change the eligibility requirements to drop people out of PIP, which almost certainly isn’t going to help people with mental health problems – especially as we’re probably years away from this team of mental health support staff being in place.
2. Labour is talking out of both sides of its mouth on this issue. On the one hand, they’re claiming they think people are suffering mental health issues, but the issue is that these issues are being prolonged by a lack of access to health. They’re also claiming that DWP claimants are “taking the mickey” – i.e. they’re pretending to be unwell to claim the pitiful entitlements that exist in this country. The first point they’re making is to try and appease sick and disabled people (and rebel MPs); the second point is the one they’re pitching to the media, as is made clear by Kuenssberg’s next intervention:
But you do believe there’s a problem with overdiagnosis. What then would your message then be to medical professionals watching this?

Yes, what message should medical professionals take from Wes Streeting and Laura Kuenssberg – two people who know fuck all about medicine?

We’d say this would be like doctors advising Streeting and Kuenssberg on how to do their jobs, but let’s be honest – it would be hard to provide advice which made them worse.

The new nasty party hits the DWP again

As you’d expect, the Streeting interview is going down poorly:

Streeting’s a fucking rotten, Bought & paid for MP, who’s taken over £300k in dodgy Donations from private healthcare firms since he’s been in Office.
Public information Laura wouldn’t Dream of bringing up, because she’s politically aligned with the state & paid handsomely for it https://t.co/7rui1oMUXW

— Michael Walsh (@thatbloodyMikey) March 16, 2025

He's a doctor now then ? No, he's been sent out to tout cutting peoples money to force vulnerable people into work they cant do.

— Jen Wood – est optimum simpliciter (@unojen_wood) March 16, 2025

STOP CALLING PIP A BENEFIT FFS !!!

It's an entitlement, that we all pay towards, to help our sick and disabled brothers and sisters support themselves, or to support us when we we fall sick or become disabled.#bbclaurak

— Interim Genocide Manager (@respeak_uk) March 16, 2025

Same old tired rhetoric.

Work, work, work, work. Get back to work you feckless lazy scroungers.

For many people it's work that *causes* their mental sickness.

Not that the likes of Streeting or Kuenssberg would ever admit that.

##bbclaurak

— Brian Harris (@harrisimo) March 16, 2025

One X user made a point that agrees with the need for more mental health professionals:

Overdiagnosis of mental health problems? How many people are assessed by a psychiatrist or psychologist? Hardly any!! GPs aren't qualified to diagnose mental health conditions but the reality is that they are the only medical professionals people have access to. #bbclaurak

— Sue Kelly (@SueKellyUK) March 16, 2025

Again, though, it’s worth pointing out that if increasing the number of mental health workers will reduce the people who need DWP PIP, why make it harder to qualify for PIP? We’re also eager to find out how many of Streeting’s “mental health staff” will be qualified medical professionals and not just social security hatchet men who complete an eight-week course on counselling.

It’s also worth noting that not everyone in the media is as callous as Kuenssberg (although Susanna Reid does seem to implicitly accept that some cuts are necessary):

Susanna Reid on how the Labour govt has gone out of its way to deliberately cause stress and anxiety to some of the most vulnerable people in our society #bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/pD9SENvvKH

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 16, 2025

Susanna Reid: "If it looks like [Starmer] is using cuts to welfare to pay for war I'm not sure that's going to be popular at all" #bbclaurak pic.twitter.com/InkUbfPgVH

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) March 16, 2025

The Green Party, meanwhile, suggested that Streeting is just another bought-and-paid-for shill:

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has received £311,400 from private healthcare interests since entering Parliament.

Could that be reason he's such a fan of private involvement in our health service?

The Green Party is clear – private profit motive should be nowhere near the NHS. pic.twitter.com/PmZpyhgqHr

— The Green Party (@TheGreenParty) March 14, 2025

Work will set you free

In another interview, Streeting argued that work is actually the cure to people’s problems:

'The welfare system is unsustainable.'

Health Secretary @wesstreeting argues that 'work is good for your mental health' and that too many people are being signed off. pic.twitter.com/bvDQ2IfuUA

— Sky News (@SkyNews) March 16, 2025

This may be true for a rewarding career with great benefits, but for many in 2025 ‘work’ means stagnating wages, increased job insecurity, and an overriding sense that things are only going to get worse.

Too bad Labour is also going back on some of its measures to boost workers’ rights.

Featured image via the BBC

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 16, 2025

This DWP assault on disabled people isn’t what Labour is supposed to look like… is it?

A little over a week ago — and unsurprisingly ignored by the British corporate media — the United Nations published a new report calling for Keir Starmer’s Labour Party government to take “corrective measures” to address the impact of the devastating cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefits introduced under Conservative governments.

The recommendations, made by the UN’s committee on economic, social, and cultural rights, call for an increase in disability-related benefits, more commonly known as PIP and ESA, to allow disabled people to live adequately.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Just as the UN calls for an increase in spending on Britain’s welfare system along comes Keir Starmer’s Labour to attack the very people the report calls to be protected by increased spending.

DWP cuts to cover for the unwinnable war against Putin

With an unwinnable war of distraction against Putin’s Russia looking increasingly unlikely to happen, Labour has officially declared a catastrophic war on sick and disabled people instead.

Documents leaked to ITV suggest the Labour government plan to cut £6 billion from the welfare budget, with £5 billion coming from DWP PIP — money that is awarded to help with the additional cost of living with disabilities.

I need to know, what the fuck actually happens to an MP when they enter parliament?

Their promise of building a better tomorrow is left at the door, along with anything that resembles the intellectual ability to think for themselves.

These detestable, Labour freeloaders make traffic wardens and speed camera cops look like loveable angels of the highways.

Have any of the soulless carpetbaggers even thought about looking at the number of current job vacancies — 819,000 — and the number of healthy DWP jobseekers — 1.46 million — and then wondered what they plan to do with the disabled people that they will try and force into work with a combination of ‘anti-obesity’ pills, public shaming and cuts to disability benefits?

How things have changed

Cast your mind back to 2020. Covid arrived in the UK, millions of people were told to stay at home, and in many cases were forced to apply for DWP Universal Credit to help make ends meet.

For some, it was the first time in their lives that they needed to claim some form of social security, and as pitiful as Universal Credit is, there’s no doubt that it’s better than a poke in the eye with a shitty stick when you’re wondering how you are going to afford to put some food on the table, wherever you sit upon the political spectrum.

But most noticeably, the media and the political establishment came together to mute the entirely dishonest feckless scrounger narrative, almost.

Suddenly, you could get a speedier advance on your Universal Credit claim. Universal Credit, and let’s not forget the furlough scheme, were shining examples of why the welfare state was so important to the British people.

Now think about where we are today.

The hostility towards disabled benefit claimants being promoted in the British media, and helped along by Labour politicians this past week has been as vile and hostile as anything I have seen over the past ten years. No doubt.

The half-hearted, dim-witted attempt at compassion and understanding from just five years ago has gone, and once again, the hostile rhetoric has returned to haunt the millions of disabled people that feel utterly betrayed by Keir Starmer.

Dignitas sponsoring the DWP?

Labour think the answer to our apparent economic woes lies in penalising some of the most vulnerable people in Britain while the media get angry over Sky TV, iPhones, and single mums scrounging DWP benefits. We’re actually living through the Cameron years again.

What next? Why don’t we just have Dignitas sponsor the DWP’s ‘economically inactive’ task force and be done with the fluffy bullshit about helping disabled people back into work?

If you tell them you’re friendly with Liz Duncan Smith they might even throw in a free flight to Switzerland. One way, obviously.

How do they sleep at night?

I’ll tell you exactly how they sleep. Perfectly well, on a nice comfortable bed, with adequate warmth that is generously paid for from the public purse. That’s not all of them. Some of them hang upside down in their lairs all day because they cannot be exposed to sunlight.

I’ve sat down over the last few days and looked at the “difficult decisions” that we need to make to ensure Zelenskyy can lose a war to Russia in a dignified manner, and I think we’re missing an obvious opportunity.

Why force millions of disabled people to find nonexistent jobs AND send the neo-Nazis a shit tonne of bombs when we can send the Ukrainian comedy guy a shit tonne of disabled people, deemed surplus to requirements by the British Labour Party?

Furthermore, why do we need to boost our own army numbers at home while there’s plenty of British pensioners that can earn back (some of) their winter fuel allowance with a bit of paratrooper duty and hand-to-hand combat with Putin’s highly trained killers, and keep warm at the same time?

YOU try filling out a DWP Universal Credit claim

I need to be careful here.

I don’t want the editor thinking I’ve joined UKIP 2.0, but don’t let anyone tell you a bed-bound chronic pain sufferer can’t do their bit by volunteering to pull down lefty protestors from Big Ben, or better still, do some labouring on one of the many building sites that must be cropping up everywhere, what with the prime minister promising to get Britain building houses again…

In a coma? Don’t let that hold you back. Members of the House of Lords have been getting away with it for centuries. If those brandy-drenched dossers can turn up half-dead for a twenty minute shift and pick up more than £300 for the inconvenience, there’s absolutely nothing stopping you from finding ‘dignity in work’.

Work sets you… okay I’ll stop now.

I think it’s a weird coping mechanism. Labour turns out to be worse than the Tories, my little brain retreats in absolute horror, and all I’m left with is sarcasm.

If the ridiculous right honestly believe a life on benefits is so bloody easy, why don’t they ditch their jobs and start filling out the forms to claim DWP Universal Credit? They can always volunteer if they want to contribute something positive, or give themselves a purpose to get up in the morning, right? They can start on my front garden first thing Monday morning, if it’s a pride thing.

You should see the weeds that are growing, and I’m not talking about the laughably-illegal stuff that you can smell just about everywhere these days.

I don’t smoke da reefa – however…

I know that’s another conversation altogether, but why is it you can go to your doctor and get some seriously heavy duty opioids — I’m regularly offered oxycontin and morphine by my various GPs — for free if you qualify, but you can’t smoke a bit of self-purchased pain relieving wacky baccy without risking a criminal record? Isn’t that what’s known as “arse about tit”, or something?

I don’t smoke weed, and I rarely take anything stronger than a paracetamol to manage osteoarthritis, a chronic pain syndrome called fibromyalgia, and a couple of other issues that deem me to be blue-badge-worthy.

There’s also the fact that I don’t want to be having conversations with imaginary purple penguins whilst trying to lecture sizeable groups on the virtues of losing weight in a healthy and balanced way, if you know what I mean?

But like most of you, I know more than one person that benefits from instant pain relief after they’ve had a smoke, so why not take it out of the hands of the dealers, who often sell harder substances, and make it as widely available as a pack of 16 Nurofen from your nearest Tesco Express?

That would obviously require a tiny bit of progressive thinking, so you can bet your bottom dollar that Keir Starmer will reclassify cannabis as a Class A substance before you can say “a pack of king-size Rizla and just these eighteen bags of Haribo Tangfastics, please”, given half-the-chance.

Labour’s new war on disabled people will go down as one of the darkest chapters of this deeply unpopular government’s one term in power.

Labour’s assault on DWP claimants: its darkest hour yet

We were ridiculed by the centrists for having the temerity to point out that Keir Starmer is a bit of a Tory. Perhaps they were right to laugh at us, because there’s no “bit of” about it. Keir Starmer is a one nation Tory, and a fucking nasty one at that.

Taking money from pensioners? Looking for war with Russia? Slashing DWP disability money to pay for it? Kissing the saggy arse of a neofascist tangerine? Funded by foreign lobbyists? Supportive of genocidal regimes and their fugitive leaders?

This really isn’t what a Labour government is supposed to look like. Is it?

Finally, sharing independent left-wing media on every fucking platform known to humankind has never been so important.

There’s a very good chance you are reading my weekly Canary column via the platform formally known as Twitter, or perhaps Facebook.

While the battle with the establishment media will never end, the giants of social media have turned up and taken the narrative to a whole new, exceptionally dangerous level.

Please do support the Canary, if you can. You will struggle to find better coverage of Labour’s war on the disabled people of Britain, because the Canary actively supports and employs disabled writers and journalists to bring you the news the corporate media prefers to gloss over.

And they do a mighty fine job of it.

Featured image via Rachael Swindon

By Rachael Swindon

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 14, 2025

Democratic Attorneys General Sue Trump to Protect Education Department

Twenty-one Democratic attorneys general have filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to stop the dismantling of the Department of Education, arguing that firing approximately 50 percent of the department’s workforce significantly impairs its ability to fulfill its legal duties. “This administration may claim to be stopping waste and fraud, but it is clear that their only mission is…

Source

This post was originally published on Latest – Truthout.
March 14, 2025

The world’s first disabled-led national youth orchestra is returning to London
The world’s first disabled-led national youth ensemble, the National Open Youth Orchestra (NOYO), returns to London with an uplifting programme of music for 2025 before continuing their tour in Poole, Cardiff and Birmingham. In a relaxed performance at Milton Court Concert Hall, the orchestra welcomes a diverse audience – inclusive of disabled and neurodivergent concertgoers and families – for a joyous afternoon of music, in partnership with Guildhall School of Music & Drama.

National Open Youth Orchestra is back

Following the triumph of Feel The Music at Milton Court Concert Hall last year, 16 musicians come together for a 2025 concert tour, Ring Out! No more barriers, just great music, featuring relaxed and British Sign Language-interpreted performances across the UK.

This pioneering ensemble, which brings together disabled and non-disabled musicians aged 11-25, presents an exciting new programme of contemporary classical music including two world premieres.

The National Open Youth Orchestra tour visits four UK cities, with the ensemble appearing in Cardiff for the first time:
- Sunday 27 April 2025, 3-4pm – Milton Court Concert Hall, London.
- Saturday 10 May 2025, 3-4pm – Lighthouse Poole (live and streaming).
- Saturday 17 May 2025, 3-4pm – Hoddinott Hall, Cardiff (debut performance).
- Sunday 8 June 2025, 3-4pm – Birmingham Town Hall.
NOYO launched in September 2018, to provide a progression route for some of the most talented young disabled musicians in the UK. A pioneering inclusive ensemble, NOYO promotes musical excellence, supporting 11–25-year-old disabled and non-disabled musicians to rehearse and perform together. Some of the NOYO musicians play acoustic instruments; others, play accessible electronic instruments. NOYO collaborates with cutting-edge composers to create new and exciting music for a diverse range of musicians and instruments.

The ensemble continues its commitment to new music with the programme for its third series of relaxed concerts, showcasing the orchestra’s genre-bending creativity with two new commissions.

A diverse programme in every sense

National Open Youth Orchestra pianist Oscar Abbott performs the world premiere of Ivor’s Academy Award-winning composer Liam Taylor-West’s piano concerto Ring Out!, commissioned by Dr. John Manley (High Sheriff 2020-21). The piece was due to be performed at the 2020 High Sheriff’s Concert at Bristol Cathedral, which was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then, NOYO’s young members’ voices continue to be central to the programme, which includes the world premiere of Yfat Soul Zisso’s Fragile. Commissioned in partnership with nonclassical, this 10-minute composition focusses on climate change, a theme close to their hearts.

The programme also features bold new arrangements of familiar works, including an energetic rendition of Meredith Monk’s minimalist Parlour Games, and a joyful arrangement of the jazz funk tones of Lucky Chops’ Behroozi. Barriers, written by former NOYO member Oliver Cross and performed by the orchestra in 2022, is a heartfelt tribute to lost friends and fellow disabled musicians.

The orchestra also gives new life to Kate Whitley’s Falling, originally composed as part of a collaboration that brought together professional disabled and non-disabled musicians from RNS Moves and BSO Resound.

All pieces in the programme have been composed or re-arranged specifically to showcase NOYO’s instrumentation, which combines traditional acoustic instruments with electronic instruments rarely found in orchestras, such as the bass guitar, or cutting-edge electronic instruments, such as the Clarion^®, which can be played with any movement of the body. The Clarion is an accessible digital instrument played on an iPad by NOYO musician Evie Read. It is also the first-ever digital instrument to be recognised by the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music (ABRSM).

Expressing themselves

Composer Liam Taylor-West says:

The composition features a solo pianist prominently, opening the piece with loud, bold piano chords left to sound in their entirety, like bells being rung out from hilltops, passing signals from one place to another. I pictured the rest of the ensemble emerging slowly from these piano chords, with the music expanding to tell a story, before fading away and leaving the audience with just the bells again. I can’t wait to hear NOYO musicians sharing their interpretation of this story emerging between the bell chords.

On the concert series’ theme, Taylor-West says:

I love that the phrase ‘Ring Out!’ is being associated with a sense of pride and unashamedness about the orchestra’s unconventional, innovative music.

Yfat Soul Zisso says:

Fragile was composed as a journey, with the beauty and serenity of nature being gradually attacked and altered, and our emotional response to this happening, the anger that makes us decide to fight back and defend our environment – What does it take for us to acknowledge rather than ignore the attack, to step up and use our voices to stop it? I wanted the piece to have all these viewpoints and emotions, so it would hopefully represent both my feelings and the musicians’, giving them a musical voice to express themselves on a topic they deeply care about.

Fragile was written in a more flexible way with NOYO in mind, with no fixed instrumentation given. It’s a piece that could be played by any type of flexible ensemble in the future. It shows the importance of accessibility when composing new music.

National Open Youth Orchestra: groundbreaking

Lilian Hopper, NOYO oboist says:

NOYO is such a fun ensemble to play in, and I think that enjoyment really comes through in our concerts. We do a wide variety of music, and each piece is arranged to suit the orchestra, creating interesting new takes on existing songs. There’s something in there for just about everyone, but my personal favourite in the lineup is Behroozi. It’s just so funky, and I rarely get to play jazzy pieces like it on the oboe.

I love big performances. What I like less are the hours of rehearsing with barely any breaks in between that usually come before that. It takes all my energy and sometimes also my enjoyment of the performance part. But in NOYO, the timing and the way things are organised works a lot better for me, so I can focus more on just playing good music instead of masking how I feel. It’s a place where I can work with my differences instead of trying to compensate for them all the time.

Tickets for the National Open Youth Orchestra concert at Milton Court Concert Hall, London, on 27 April are on sale now, bookable from the event page.

All National Open Youth Orchestra musicians have come through the ranks of five regional NOYO Ensembles, which are delivered through major partnerships in locations across the country.

Featured image supplied

By The Canary

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 14, 2025

An open letter to my MP – begging him to oppose DWP benefits cuts
If I’m honest, I’ve struggled to write a column this week. While our deepest fears were confirmed with Labour’s planned cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) disability benefits leaked, I felt like I didn’t have anything new to add to the conversation. After all it’s what I’ve been writing about for weeks and months. Whilst other journalists “waited to see” what would happen I wrote about Labour feeding the media clickbait, mine and other disabled people’s fears of being made to feel more like a burden, and was derided when I wrote that life under labour was already far worse than it was with the Tories.

So now while (most of) the rest of the media have stopped pushing constant clickbait about scroungers, I’m out of words. I’m exhausted. But I’m not giving up. This week’s column is something a little different. As so many disabled people are emailing their MPs I wanted to share what I wrote to my MP Lewis Atkinson. If you would like to write to your own MP you can use this as a template.

DWP cuts: the cruelest so far

Dear Lewis,

I am writing to you to share my deep concern about the reported DWP cuts to disability benefits that are coming.

As a disability rights journalist, I am appalled that Labour are (reportedly) planning further cuts to disabled people’s vital benefits. I’m saddened that after years in opposition holding the Tories to account on disability benefits-related deaths, the Labour Party now want to push disabled people further into poverty, which could result in god knows how many more deaths.

These DWP cuts are supposed to help disabled people into work, but in reality, they will do the opposite. DWP PIP is a vital benefit for many who do work already, it has nothing to do with unemployment. In fact many, including myself, rely on PIP so that we can work only the hours we need instead of making ourselves more ill.

PIP is not ‘easy’ to get

Despite what is often claimed by politicians and the media, DWP PIP is also not an easy to claim benefit, so it’s preposterous that the government seemingly want to make it harder to claim. The PIP form is 40 pages long, and requires the claimant to provide an extensive amount of evidence from medical professionals. You can’t just say you have mental health issues of ADHD like many pundits claim.

Just 51% of all claims are successful and the DWP has spent a horrendous amount of taxpayer money fighting claimants – Big Issue reports that the government spent around £50 million last year alone on this.

Whilst raising Universal Credit for those searching for work or in work is a good thing, balancing that by cutting benefits for those who can’t work is just cruel. How is that supposed to incentivise people in to work when they’ve already been deemed unfit for work by a system that is already inhumane to navigate?

Stark figures

What is equally worrying to me is the claim that the DWP plans to freeze the rate of PIP so that it doesn’t rise with inflation, this is despite disabled people already being in deep poverty. There are many, many stats around disability and poverty but here are just a few:
- Disabled people have on average 44% less disposable income annually than non-disabled people.
- 34% of disabled people are in the lowest category for household income, compared to 13% of non-disabled people.
- 55% of disabled adults said they were struggling to afford energy bills.
- 41% of disabled people couldn’t afford to heat their homes.
- 31% of disabled people said they had less money to spend on food.
- 36% of disabled people are struggling with their rent of mortgage.
- Trussell Trust estimated in 2023 that 75% of people accessing their food banks had at least one disabled person in their household.
As you well know, our area the North East is a hugely deprived area, with 25% living in poverty, but you may not know that the North East also has the highest rate of disabled people in the whole country. 21.2% of people in the North East are disabled, while 7.8% of households in the North East have two or more disabled people in them. I surely don’t need to impress on you how much further this would plunge our region into poverty and make it even harder for our people to live.

Dodgy stats

A key statistic that the DWP use to support all of this cruelty is that 200,000 people in the Low Capability for Work Related Activity Universal Credit group said that they would like to work. However, this isn’t the whole picture.

That figure was taken from just 5% answering that they would like to work tomorrow if given the right support. The second half of that sentence is crucial, as at the moment, disabled people do not have enough support. Pumping money into work coaches wont stand for anything when the waiting list for Access to Work grows and grows.

There’s also another part to that stat that is ignored. If 5% said they could work with the right support, then 95% said no, they couldn’t. The 200,000 figure has been scaled up to be representative of the number of claimants. So if we do that for how many said no, we’re looking at around 3.8 million who the government know couldn’t work and are still planning on cutting the benefits for.

DWP cuts must not go ahead

I also know that you are on the Assisted Dying Bill Committee, whilst the committee maintains that disabled people are not in danger of being subjected to assisted dying, many disabled people are still concerned – especially due to the amendments that are being denied. Whilst there has still not been an expansion for incurable conditions, people will be allowed if they feel like a burden. I honestly do not see how disabled people would not feel like burdens when this government consistently makes us out to be them.

I would finally like to invite you to a meeting held by the Coalition Against Benefit Cuts in Parliament next week. The meeting is on 17 March 4-6pm, at the Thatcher Room in Portcullis House.

I urge you to stand against these reported changes, for the good of all disabled people – but especially for those in your constituency who would struggle to live if these DWP cuts came in.

Rachel Charlton-Dailey

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Charlton-Dailey

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 14, 2025

David Perry on MAGA & Disability, Kehsi Iman Wilson (2023) on ADA

Right-click here to download this episode (“Save link as…”).

This week on CounterSpin: In early February, when Rep. Maxwell Frost tweeted that he and Rep. Maxine Waters were denied access to the Department of Education, Elon Musk responded on the platform he owns: “What is this ‘Department of Education’ you keep talking about? I just checked and it doesn’t exist.” That, we understand, was the shadow president skating where the puck’s gonna be, as they say—because a month later, we learned that indeed newly appointed Education Secretary Linda McMahon is tasked not with running but with erasing the department.

Elite media have talked about the political machinations, how this was expected, how it fits with Trump/Musk’s grand schemes. When it comes to what will happen to the under-resourced schools, and the students with disabilities for whom the DoE supported access and recourse for discrimination? Media seem happy with McMahon’s handwaving about how that stuff might be better off in a different agency.

The impacts of policy on people with disabilities are overwhelmingly an afterthought for corporate media, even though it’s a large community, and one anyone can join at any moment. We talked, on March 5, with journalist and historian David Perry about the threats McMahon and MAGA pose to people—including students—with disabilities.

Also on the show: You wouldn’t know it from what comes out of the mouths of today’s “leaders,” but there has long been a widely shared view in this country that people with disabilities deserve full human rights, but don’t have them. July 2023 marked the 33rd anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. And, as happens every year, a dismaying amount of the anniversary coverage was about buildings or spaces coming into compliance with the ADA—as though complying with a decades-old law was a feel-good story, and despite the relative absence of feel-bad stories about decades of noncompliance.

CounterSpin spoke at the time with Kehsi Iman Wilson, co-founder of New Disabled South, about what’s lost when the public conversation around disability justice revolves around abiding by a baseline law, rather than a bigger vision of a world we can all live in. We revisit that conversation this week on CounterSpin.

Featured Image: A protester at a disability rights protest in May 2022 in new York City. Credit: FollowingNYC from Pexels

This post was originally published on CounterSpin.
March 14, 2025

Long Covid campaigners to target Parliament after five years of neglect
On Tuesday 18 March campaigners from Not Recovered UK – who all live with long Covid or are impacted by it – will be taking to the streets of Westminster to ask the government #WhereIsIt? Because currently, a crucial parliamentary report from 2022 into long Covid has been ignored – leaving millions of people suffering.

Long Covid: destroying lives

Previously across the UK, the group has taken out billboard adverts – crowdfunded by chronically ill people themselves. Not Recovered UK has put them in Bournemouth, Southampton, Havant, Swindon, Portsmouth, Manchester, Leeds, Bradford, Cardiff, and Glasgow.

The billboards were highlighting that for millions of people, there are currently no effective treatments for long Covid and ME. They also stated that doctors often leave these patients without help. Overall, the billboards pointed to the fact there is still no cure for either of these conditions, too. All of this is partly due to the medical community’s poor understanding of long Covid and ME.

The impact of all this can be devastating – hence Long Covid Awareness Day.

‘A shell of myself’

Alex Sprackland lives with long Covid and co-founded Not Recovered UK. He said of the disease:

Before contracting Covid-19 in March 2020, I was a fit and healthy 29-year-old. I went to the gym five days a week and competed in weightlifting competitions; rode my BMX for hours a day; had no health problems and had a bright future as an engineer.

I am now a shell of that person.

Mostly I am confined to a wheelchair and have to spend my days housebound, as even short trips outside make me sick. This illness is very isolating, most of my time is spent alone and I barely see any of my friends. It has also cost me my relationship and all my hobbies.

There are no treatments and none of my doctors can help me. It feels as if I have been completely abandoned by the government. My life is on hold, and I don’t know if I will ever get it back. Long Covid has stolen my identity.

Long Covid Awareness Day

Now, Not Recovered UK has decided to act around Long Covid Awareness Day. Thanks to crowdfunding the group has hired a Digivan which will display information about the disease and patients’ pictures and stories. On top of this, Not Recovered UK has printed thousands of leaflets – using the billboard as inspiration – which will be distributed by patients, their allies, and campaigners not only in London but in locations across the UK.

However, the main thrust of the day will be to ask the government where the progress is on an All-Party Parliamentary Group report from 2022. It laid out 10 clear actions that the government could, and should, be doing to support people living with long Covid. These were:
1. £100m a year in funding for research into long Covid.
2. Employer guidelines.
3. Key worker compensation.
4. Long Covid care pathways.
5. Legal definition.
6. Measure, report, monitor.
7. Public health policy.
8. Care pathways for children.
9. Guidance for education settings.
10. Guidance for medical practitioners.
Yet, inexplicably, few of the APPG’s 10 recommendations have been actioned. For example, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines for long Covid have not been updated for over three years. Care pathways are often non-existent, with specialist centres closing. And crucially, the government has failed to commit to £100m in funding for research – which, given the scale of the challenge for the two million people affected, seems counterproductive, at best – and at worst a dereliction of duty.

So, Not Recovered UK are taking this directly to Westminster to ask #WhereIsIt?

Five years on – and nothing has changed

Sprackland said of this year’s campaign:

We are now five years into the Covid-19 pandemic and according to ONS there are two million people in the UK suffering from Long Covid. There are people who have been sick for five years and there are still no treatments for this disease. Despite the enormous burden on the patients and the economy, there has been no new research funding since 2021. The Long Covid clinics are closing, and the government has just abandoned those suffering.

There was an All-Party Parliamentary Group on Coronavirus that produced a report in 2023 that made 10 recommendations for dealing with the Long Covid crisis. One of which was £100 million in annual funding to find diagnostics and treatments for those suffering. This recommendation has not been met, and we think it would go a long way to finding answers for the patients.

We are calling on the government to make good on its own recommendation and fund the research to give these people their lives back. The government itself has recommended funding and support for those with Long Covid. The two million people in the UK with Long Covid want to know… Where is it?

The Digivan and campaigners will start Long Covid Awareness Day at 10am at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), before making multiple stops at parliament, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), and Downing Street

At parliament, Not Recovered UK has invited MPs from all parties to come and discuss long Covid with patients and campaigners. It specifically wants to know from MPs what is being done about the APPG report.

Plus, at Downing Street the group has hinted that it will be “making some noise” – aimed at the occupants inside.

Lives destroyed. Action must happen.

Aaron Campbell co-founded the campaign. He has lived with long Covid since July 2022. Campbell said he launched the project out of:

Desperation. ME patients have been left to suffer for decades without any appropriate treatments, and it is very likely that long Covid patients (50% of these patients are meeting the criteria for ME) will have a similar fate unless there is an urgent and drastic change in the level of research and funding they are both currently receiving.

Many of these patients are too sick to leave their beds and an online awareness campaign driven by donations ensures that everyone is given an opportunity to be involved – whether that be through their own donations, suggesting locations for the billboards and voting for them on Twitter or even just sharing the GoFundMe to others – and finally means society can see the true extent of the suffering these people go through and just how desperate they are to get their lives back.

The name on the billboards and leaflets is Not Recovered who are an international unity of patients working together to fight for research for chronic health conditions. This is a global issue. There are millions of us needing help.

You can donate to the crowdfunding campaign here, and find out more about Not Recovered UK here.

If you wish to volunteer on the 18 March handing out Not Recovered UK leaflets, contact the team on X here for more information.

Featured image via the Canary

By Steve Topple

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 14, 2025

NHS still refusing a severe ME patient vital care – more than a year after she was hospitalised
A woman with severe myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME) has spoken out – from her hospital bed – about the NHS’s continued refusal to provide her with vital and appropriate care. She has now been in hospital now for a year and two months – and in that time, has only gotten worse. On top of this, now, the hospital is withdrawing basic accommodations her family fought for them to implement. Crucially, these are essential to reduce the impact of hospital environment on her deteriorating health.

All this is happening despite a long-running petition signed by more than 18,000 people and significant media coverage of her story. It’s yet another damning indictment of the atrocious state of NHS care for people living with ME.

Karen Gordon: severe ME patient battling for care

The Canary has previously reported on the appalling failures by the NHS to save severe ME patient Karen Gordon.

ME is a chronic systemic neuroimmune disease which affects nearly every system in the body. It causes debilitating symptoms – which you can read more about here.

At least 25% of people live with severe ME. In these cases, people living severe ME are mostly, if not entirely permanently bed-bound or hospitalised. On top of this, they are often unable to digest food, communicate, or process information and are fully dependent on others for their care.

For 28 years now, this is what Karen has lived with. As the petition her family set up for her details:

Karen is totally bed bound and cannot eat or drink.

The ME causes many symptoms including generalised pain, abdominal pain, headache, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, and hypersensitivity to sensory stimuli including, light, noise and smell. She has to keep her eyes covered.

Karen is intelligent and has many interests. She enjoys receiving cards and letters. When she is at home she loves spending time with her cat and enjoys other things including having things such as some newspaper articles and updates from some of the many animal charities that she supports read to her a bit at a time when she is able.

Karen has had ME since she was 10 years old. She has been tube fed for 20 years mostly at home. Since June 2021 her ME health has become worse, causing more severe nausea and vomiting and severe abdominal pain leading to more feeding and nutritional difficulties.

And since 2023, Karen and her family have been in a protracted battle with their local NHS trust and hospital over her care.

The NHS: failing Karen from the start

The Canary’s Steve Topple first highlighted Karen’s deteriorating condition at the hands of East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust in September 2023. At the time, he wrote how:

Currently, Karen is at home. However, in recent years she has been hospitalised because of being unable to eat or drink. She needed intravenous (IV) total parenteral nutrition (TPN). This is where doctors give patients fluids and nutrition via an IV line, directly into a large vein near their heart. However, Karen’s experience of being in the Conquest Hospital, St Leonard’s-on-Sea, has been appalling.

At first, doctors gave her a side room to herself. This was because National Institute for Clinical Excellence (NICE) guidelines, as well as Karen’s consultants, recommended it. However, the Conquest Hospital has now withdrawn the room.

This appalling care only continued, with the hospital and NHS Trust ignoring her family’s pleas for help. After initially agreeing she could be tube-fed at home, Conquest hospital then backtracked, before discharging her.

As a result, her family voiced Karen’s fear that she was dying from dehydration and malnutrition. To make matters worse, the Trust told her she would have to go 100 miles to St Mark’s Hospital in London for intravenous (IV) total parenteral nutrition (TPN) instead. However, this is entirely inappropriate for someone with severe ME and as Topple explained, brought up a number of serious problems – namely that:
- The journey would be detrimental to her health.
- St Mark’s would not give her a side room.
- The hospital wouldn’t let Karen’s mother, who is her full-time carer, stay with her 24/7.
So, Karen refused the referral – and as a result, the Conquest Hospital discharged her. It said there was “no alternative” it could “offer”.
Karen had returned to Conquest Hospital in January 2024 – where she has continued to receive inadequate and inappropriate care.

What’s more, East Sussex Healthcare Trust have repeatedly threatened Karen with legal action, and weaponisation of mental health capacity assessment, or the Court of Protection to initiate a Deprivation of Liberty order against Karen. Specifically, it has done so on a number of occasions to attempt to force her to the hospital. For instance, the Canary wrote about it doing so in April 2024.

NHS ignoring patient consent, refusing vital care

Since then, things haven’t gotten better. In all this time, the Trust still hasn’t set up IV TPN for Karen at home – and now another hospital involved in her care has also explicitly refused it.

Previously, a consultant at St Mark’s had suggested that Karen get a second opinion on having it set up at home from University College London Hospital (UCLH).

In early November 2024, Karen agreed to this, on the condition she would be given the time to read the referral and discuss adjustments to it before her consultants at Conquest Hospital sent it.

This is not what happened. Instead, on 19 November, they found out Conquest Hospital had sent the letter without her consent. They did so before she’d had the time to read it, and she and her family had had the chance to input:

The registrar said the second opinion referral has been sent to UCLH following a professionals meeting with Trust Directors etc. This was against previous agreements. The agreed things have not been done so the referral is incomplete and does not have all the information UCLH needs and not all the information is correct. Karen has not been given enough time to comment on the draft referral and to finish the letter that she wanted to send to UCLH with the referral.

Moreover, Karen and her family were wary of the second opinion referral from the start. In particular, as they noted in the petition update at the time that:

We feel that Dr Gabe has suggested the second opinion to try to get back up for his decision rather than to help Karen get home PN.

And as it turned out, they were also right to be – because now, UCLH has said they will not give her this.

Still no solution for severe ME – over a year since she was hospitalised

On 9 March, her family updated her petition again, and wrote that:

We have been told that UCLH have said they will not give Karen remote setting up of home PN (IV feeding). We are devastated and very worried.

In common with St Marks hospital Intestinal Rehabilitation Unit, UCLH are refusing to accept the harm that would be caused to Karen by her going to and being at St Marks. They are not willing to understand and believe the facts about severe ME. This information is readily available and it is unacceptable for people to ignore the effects of things on very severe ME.

It is unacceptable that these tertiary centres are refusing to adjust their usual practices for Karen with her very severe ME so that she can access home PN by being given remote setting up of home PN while she is in Conquest hospital without the ME being made worse by travelling to and being at a unit. Also, St Marks are reluctant to give Karen home PN even if she did go to the unit there. However, Karen needs PN to survive.

In other words, another NHS hospital is now unconscionably letting Karen down. Of course, she isn’t the first, or only severe ME patient that the NHS has treated in this way.

The Canary has reported on multiple women in the UK and elsewhere that healthcare systems have abysmally similarly abused and failed like this.

What’s more, her experience shows many alarming parallels with severe ME patient Maeve Boothby O’Neill who died after the NHS’s catalogue of catastrophic errors in her care.

And despite multiple media outlets spotlighting Karen’s case – including more recently, the Times and Sky News – little has changed.

In Karen’s own words…

From her hospital bed at St Mark’s, Karen has expressed the devastating impact of yet another refusal:

Video of Karen Gordon filmed on 8 Mar 2025 at Conquest Hospital Hastings UK. Please share with as many people as you can. Karen has very severe ME & has been in hospital for over a year. Please sign our petition to try to save Karen https://t.co/myZMK0Nolw
Karen Heather Michael pic.twitter.com/IV6b5Jo2Cp

— Michael Gordon (@TeamKarenGordon) March 8, 2025

Karen voiced something which too many people living with ME the world over have experienced only too personally:

They’re showing a lack of understanding, which I feel is part of a widespread problem of people refusing to understand ME.

NHS consultants and officials have been “refusing the understand” – that is, persistently withholding the necessary care for Karen for well over a year. And not only that, but they’ve also now started withdrawing even some bare minimum adjustments they’d made to make the hospital environment more suitable for her severe ME:

ESHT are making issues about things that have previously been agreed and worked well, such as the timing of the cleaning each day and about the days that Karen is unable to have cleaning done because of her ME. We are all worried about why they making issues about these reasonable adjustments that Karen needs and that are in-line with ME advice. We are worried that they are trying to make us look bad and we are worried about why they would do this.

In her video, Karen summed up the state of all this and that what it really boils down to:

People should be able to access care that they need, in a way that’s suitable for their condition.

That shouldn’t be too much to ask. However, for severe ME patients right now under the care of the NHS, it’s abundantly evident that it still very much is.

Featured image via the Canary

By Hannah Sharland

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 13, 2025

Damning new DWP research shows it is failing disabled people – just as Labour wants to cut their benefits
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has announced the redeployment of 1,000 existing work coaches to support sick and disabled claimants in 2025/26, aiming to provide “intensive voluntary support” to help 65,000 individuals transition into employment. Of course, this is far from the reality – and when viewed in tandem with the horrific £6bn of cuts that are coming, shows that the DWP is offering little more than tokenistic gestures.

DWP: more work coaches when the department is in chaos?

These coaches are expected to offer “tailored and personalised employment support,” assisting claimants with tasks such as crafting CVs and honing interview techniques.

However, this initiative raises significant concerns. As Benefits and Work reported, a new DWP survey itself reveals a profound distrust among disabled individuals:
- 44% of disabled people and those with health conditions lack trust in the DWP’s ability to help them achieve their full career potential.
- 39% do not believe the DWP considers its customers’ needs when providing services.
These statistics highlight a deep-seated skepticism about the department’s commitment and effectiveness in genuinely supporting disabled claimants.

Moreover, the DWP’s track record with similar programs is troubling. Past initiatives, such as the Work Programme and Community Work Placements, have faced substantial criticism:
- The Work Programme was deemed less effective than doing nothing, with only 2.3% of participants securing employment lasting six months or more, compared to the 5% who might have found work independently.
- The Community Work Placements scheme was criticized as “slavery by another name,” leading to its eventual discontinuation.
Additionally, the DWP’s handling of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) assessments has been fraught with issues. The DWP Work Capability Assessment (WCA) process has been labeled “not fit for purpose,” with concerns about its reliability and the undue pressure it places on claimants – including to the point where claimants have taken their own lives.

Financially motivated

All this comes amid the Labour Party government announcing £6bn of potential DWP cuts to chronically ill and disabled people’s benefits. The news has been met with fury from people – and warnings that it may results in more deaths of claimants.

The DWP’s focus on moving disabled individuals into work also appears financially motivated. The department notes a 319% increase in working-age individuals claiming health-related benefits since the pandemic, now totaling 3.1 million.

This increase has led to discussions about the “unsustainable” nature of programs like Access to Work, which provides grants averaging £5,000 to help disabled people remain employed. Such rhetoric raises concerns that the DWP’s primary goal may be to reduce benefit expenditures rather than genuinely support disabled individuals.

In light of these issues, the redeployment of DWP work coaches seems more like a superficial attempt to appear supportive while potentially pressuring vulnerable individuals into unsuitable employment.

Without addressing the systemic flaws and rebuilding trust, this initiative risks perpetuating the cycle of ineffective and damaging DWP policies that have historically failed disabled people.

Featured image via the Canary

By Steve Topple

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 13, 2025

Kim Leadbeater’s Assisted Dying Bill is now a clear and present danger to disabled people

Members of the parliamentary committee responsible for the Assisted Dying Bill have dropped the key part of the proposed law that applications for assisted dying must be approved by a High Court judge.

This development has provoked a furious reaction from many, particularly among those concerned about the implications for chronically ill and disabled people. It seems that once again, assisted suicide is being railroaded through while ignoring people’s concerns.

Assisted Dying: an even weaker piece of legislation

When the Bill was first introduced to parliament in 2024, it aimed to allow terminally ill adults in England and Wales, diagnosed with less than six months to live, the legal right to end their lives, contingent upon the approval of two doctors and a High Court judge.

However, on Wednesday 12 March, a majority of the 23-member scrutiny committee voted to eliminate the High Court clause, a component previously hailed as a cornerstone of the legislation’s promise of strict judicial oversight.

Kim Leadbeater, the Labour MP advocating for the Bill, has proposed an alternative framework in which the High Court’s role would be supplanted by a Voluntary Assisted Dying Commissioner and expert panels. These panels would consist of a senior legal professional, a psychiatrist, and a social worker tasked with evaluating applications for assisted dying.

This change has raised significant concerns among critics, including Conservative MP Danny Kruger, who described the proposed panel as “a weird creature, neither one thing nor the other,” arguing that it lacks the judicial integrity necessary for such grave decisions.

He emphasised that the alteration marks a “grave weakening of the Bill,” transforming it from a “gold-plated” safeguard to an unaccountable process.

Ignoring concerns for ideological purposes

The Daily Mail reported a joint statement from a group of 26 Labour MPs expressing their discontent with this alteration. They assert that the removal of High Court oversight undermines vital protections for vulnerable individuals, suggesting that the panel’s potential to deliberate in private could lead to hasty and potentially coerced decisions.

The MPs conveyed concerns that decision-makers might not be obligated to meet patients or consider their personal circumstances, potentially reducing the process to mere formality:

“The scrapping of High Court oversight for the assisted dying regime… fundamentally weakens the protections for the vulnerable… [and] creates an unaccountable quango and to claim otherwise misrepresents what is being proposed.” pic.twitter.com/k85xImKVaS

— Care Not Killing (@CNKAlliance) March 13, 2025

Leadbeater predictably pushed back, insisting that new amendments would enhance the Bill by providing “additional patient-centred safeguards.” She contends that involving a multidisciplinary panel would address early concerns regarding the judicial system’s capacity to handle an influx of such cases and better assess patients’ mental health and possible coercion.

However, once again people think Leadbeater is pushing through her won ideological agenda – and intentionally silencing the voices of those who disagree with her:

Leadbeater says she has “listened carefully” to the evidence. Why then has she ignored the concerns of palliative care doctors, eating disorders groups, Down’s syndrome charities, psychiatrists, the British Geriatrics Society and so many others? pic.twitter.com/1T5PysZuxH

— Right To Life UK (@RightToLifeUK) March 11, 2025

Moreover, this is not the first time Leadbeater has U-turned – and is unlikely to be the last.

Assisted dying cannot be viewed in isolation

Leadbeater and her committee’s removal of the High Court clause is symptomatic of the wider issues with the Assisted Dying Bill. That is, she and her ilk have wilfully ignored the concerns of chronically ill and disabled people throughout the process.

Of course, given that the government is about to pursue an aggressive agenda of benefit cuts that will potentially see hundreds of thousands of disabled people thrown into poverty – on top of the ones who are already there – then people are right to be concerned.

State support for chronically ill and disabled people in the UK was already dire. Now, the Labour Party government is about to make it worse. Amid a backdrop of this, the Assisted Dying Bill feels even more perverse – where the state cannot support disabled people to live, but can support them to die.

Featured image via screengrab

By Steve Topple

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 12, 2025

A very personal plea to Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer: stop the DWP cuts

The Labour-led government has announced £6bn of potential cuts to Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) benefits for chronically ill and disabled people.

Stop the DWP cuts

I push through levels of pain and sickness, just to get out of bed in the morning, that would make Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer cry like babies and flee to A&E.

Why?

I have myalgic encephalomyelitis (ME).

A devastating chronic condition, for which there is no cure.

I was a teacher of children with special educational needs and disabilities. I loved my work. Then I got Covid-19, became sick, and never recovered.

Covid caused me to develop ME which absolutely decimated my health and life. I was forced to give up my career and apply for financial support from the DWP to be able to afford a roof over my head and to eat.

I would much prefer to work and receive the healthy salary I used to earn. Before I became disabled, I was intending to climb Ben Nevis for charity. Now I cannot walk to the shop round the corner.

Life is a hard. Disabled people deserve respect and compassion. Support and care. Not this barrage of abuse from the people we voted in, thinking they would uphold the human rights of all UK citizens – not just the section of society who have had the ‘luck’ to not be disabled.

Believe me it’s a privilege to have your health. Anyone can become disabled. Tomorrow it could be you. How would you like to be treated?

Stop the cuts, Reeves.

Disabled people are human beings too and deserve to be treated as such.

Featured image via the Canary

By Rachel Curtis

This post was originally published on Canary.
March 12, 2025

Richard Burgon dismantles Keir Starmer at PMQs over £6bn DWP cuts

At Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), Richard Burgon challenged prime minister Keir Starmer on the government considering taking £6bn from disabled people via Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) cuts.

The real ‘tough choice’ is not DWP cuts

The MP for Leeds East said:

Disabled people in my constituency are frightened. And they’re frightened because they’re again hearing politicians use the language of ‘tough choices’ and they know from bitter experience… it means the easy option of making the poor and vulnerable pay. So instead of cutting benefits for disabled people, wouldn’t the moral thing to do, the courageous thing to do be to make a real tough choice and introduce a wealth tax on the very wealthiest people in our society?

There are various wealth taxes that could raise tens of billions per year, far exceeding the amount the government may take from disabled people via DWP cuts. For one, the Labour Party government could bring in a wealth tax of 1-2% on assets worth over £10m. This would rebalance society by £22bn per year.

In the October 2024 budget, chancellor Rachel Reeves did raise capital gains tax. But equalising the tax on the passive income of capital gains with the tax charged on working people’s income would rebalance society by a further £12.7bn. Research from Oxford University shows that this measure has the support of 62% of the public.

Starmer’s rationale for increasing inequality

At PMQs, Starmer responded to Burgon’s question about DWP cuts:

Mr Speaker, the party opposite left a broken welfare system… of course we need to support people who need support. We need to help those who want to work to get back into work… He talks about a wealth tax, we have raised money – the energy profits levy, taxing non doms and air passenger duty on private jets. But this isn’t a bottomless pit and we must kick start growth to get the economic stability that we need

For starters, the prime minister’s proposed DWP cuts target disabled people who cannot work and who are already on very low incomes. So how is that ‘supporting’ them or ‘helping’ them get back to work. They cannot work.

The wealth taxes Starmer talks about are also quite pitiful. Labour inherited the energy profits levy (a tax on oil and gas profits) from the Tories and have only increased it by 3%, thereby propping up fossil fuels and not establishing a publicly owned Green New Deal.

The air passenger duty on private jets won’t stop billionaires producing more carbon in 90 minutes than most people do in their entire lives. Chancellor Reeves increased taxes for private jet passengers by 50%. These fees of a few thousand are next to nothing for the super rich.

Another way Labour could rebalance an economy where the richest 1% hold more wealth than the bottom 70% is through ending corporate welfare schemes.

One example is the interest payments the Bank of England pays to private banks on the reserves they hold with it, including the billions from the bank bailout following the financial crisis. The New Economics Foundation has pointed out the Treasury is paying £150bn from 2023-2028 to fund these interest payments.

There’s plenty of ways to rejig a highly unequal society, but Starmer’s Labour are going backwards by making further cruel cuts to DWP benefits:

“Instead of cutting benefits for disabled people, wouldn’t the moral thing to do, the courageous thing to do, be to make a real tough choice and introduce a wealth tax on the very wealthiest people in our society?”@RichardBurgon #PMQs pic.twitter.com/5xKULDlBpu

— Peter Stefanovic (@PeterStefanovi2) March 12, 2025

Featured image via the House of Commons

By James Wright

This post was originally published on Canary.