Debbie Abrahams

Benefits and Poverty

Sign at entrance to Department for Work and Pensions

November 2, 2017 0

PIP investigation: Hundreds give evidence of assessment failings to MPs

Scores of disabled people and welfare advisers have told a Commons inquiry that disability benefit assessment reports completed on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions are filled with “lies and misinformation”. The work and pensions select committee is carrying out an inquiry into the assessment process for both personal independence payment (PIP)

Benefits and Poverty

October 26, 2017 0

PIP investigation: Assessment complaints rise by 880 per cent… in just one year

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Complaints about the personal independence payment (PIP) assessment process rose by nearly 900 per cent last year – from 142 to 1,391 – apparently corroborating the results of a year-long Disability News Service investigation. The Department for Work and Pensions figures also show that the number of complaints about PIP assessments that were upheld

Politics

Jared O'Mara, flanked by a woman and a man, in front of a row of houses

October 26, 2017 0

Disabled MP’s offensive remarks ‘should end his political career’

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A series of offensive remarks made by a disabled MP about other minority groups and women should end his political career, according to members of a disabled women’s collective. Sisters of Frida was among disabled groups and activists who spoke to Disability News Service (DNS) this week following revelations that Labour’s Jared O’Mara, now

Benefits and Poverty

Debbie Abrahams and two other panellists listen to a woman speaking

September 28, 2017 0

Labour conference: Benefit assessment nurses must be held to account, says Abrahams

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Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary has called for nurses and other healthcare professionals who write misleading benefit assessment reports to be “held to account”. Debbie Abrahams said there had been “too many times” when healthcare professionals had written reports that did not “marry” with the evidence they had been given by disabled benefit

Employment

Frank Field speaking at a session of the work and pensions committee

September 28, 2017 0

Labour conference: Shock and outrage over Field’s minimum wage comments

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Disabled party activists have expressed shock and outrage after the Labour chair of the Commons work and pensions committee suggested that employers should be allowed to pay some disabled people less than the minimum wage. Among the critics were two disabled Labour MPs, Jared O’Mara and Marsha de Cordova, who joined many other disabled

Benefits and Poverty

Debbie Abrahams speaking at a podium watched by panel members

September 28, 2017 0

Labour conference: Abrahams pledges ‘supportive and enabling’ social security system

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Labour’s shadow work and pensions secretary has pledged to transform the social security system from one that “demonises” benefit claimants to one that is “supportive and enabling”. Debbie Abrahams told Labour’s annual conference in Brighton that the social security system was failing sick and disabled people, and she reminded her party that the UN’s

Human Rights

Stig Langvad sits with headphones on in UN debating chamber

September 7, 2017 0

UK is going backwards on independent living, says UN committee

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A UN committee has told the UK government to make more than 80 improvements to the ways its laws and policies affect disabled people’s human rights. In its “concluding observations” on the progress the UK has made in implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), the committee raised concerns

Politics

June 7, 2017 0

Labour pledges ‘transformation’ of social security as it fleshes out disability policies

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Labour has pledged to “transform” the social security system and to set out a bill to repeal cuts to disabled people’s benefits within a year, in one of the headline measures of a mini-manifesto devoted solely to disability issues. The document, Nothing About You, Without You, was launched last weekend in Manchester, and expands

Politics

May 18, 2017

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Election 2017: Labour’s rights pledges suggest vindication for Abrahams

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Labour’s general election manifesto includes a string of policies aimed at improving the rights of disabled people, including a commitment to incorporate the UN disability convention into UK law for the first time. The manifesto appears to be a vindication of the efforts of shadow work and pensions secretary Debbie Abrahams (pictured), who headed

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