Casey refuses to apologise after ‘harmful’ comments stir up more hostility towards disabled benefit claimants

The former civil servant leading a commission on adult social care in England has refused to apologise after making “uninformed” and “harmful” comments in two radio interviews that fuelled hostility towards disabled people who receive benefits.

Baroness [Louise] Casey was being interviewed last week before and after she attended a speech by the new prime minister, Andy Burnham, in which he pledged to fix the “broken” social care system.

She was also launching the The Big Conversation on Care – part of the Independent Commission on Adult Social Care she is leading for the government – which will allow people across England to say what they want and expect from a future national care service.

But her comments in interviews on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, and later on LBC, stirred up yet more hostility across mainstream media aimed at disabled claimants, particularly those who are neurodivergent or experience mental distress.

Some of her claims later had to be corrected by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The crossbench peer first cast doubt on the department’s Family Resources Survey, which found that about 17 million people are viewed as disabled under the Equality Act*.

Without any evidence to back up her claim, she told interviewer Amol Rajan: “I don’t buy it.

“I would qualify, and I’m sitting here right now. I’m not disabled but I could qualify if I answered those questions based on my medical records. It’s as simple as.”

She then tried to contrast many of these disabled people with others with “very significant disabilities” and said that the “help they are getting is not enough” and called on the country to “take a breath for a minute”.

She then appeared to suggest that too many people with lower support needs were receiving support from the state, telling Rajan that “who should we be looking after and how” was “the most important question facing the British welfare state in the 21^st century”.

Baroness Casey – whose brief is to examine the social care system rather than disability benefits – was later asked about those comments by LBC’s Aasmah Mir.

She told her: “We’ve got to come back to the fact there are some people that are severely disabled that aren’t getting enough help and we’ve got to take a look at other people who perhaps with the right help and support could work and don’t need to be in the disability system, in my view.”

When pushed further, Baroness Casey said that “if people are getting the right support then they don’t necessary need benefits, and at the moment a lot of people are just being offered benefits and not being offered the right help”.

She said that “some of those are people that would be in adult social care as well” and that the growth in disability benefits among young people was among those with mental distress and “neurodiversity and those sorts of disorders and they are very serious in many cases and do change people’s lives”.

But she added: “I met people this morning who are profoundly disabled and in wheelchairs, they work every day of the week, they are able to hold down a job very well, they do that job better than many other people, and their disability doesn’t change that.”

Asked about the peer’s comments, DWP made it clear that the Family Resources Survey was not a benefits assessment, did not reflect DWP eligibility criteria for disability benefits, and did not affect or reflect entitlement to any DWP benefit.

A DWP spokesperson said: “The 16.8 million figure refers to self-reported disability under the Equality Act 2010.

“This is a self-reported question in a voluntary survey. It is not the same as the definition applied to eligibility for DWP disability benefits.”

One disabled campaigner said on X that Baroness Casey’s comments made her position as chair of the commission “untenable”, while another said they demonstrated “astonishing ignorance” and added: “How can we have any faith in her review of social care.”

Svetlana Kotova, director of campaigns and justice at Inclusion London, which campaigns on independent living and for an end to care charges, said: “We are disappointed that Baroness Casey is reinforcing the idea of deserving and undeserving disabled people, considering her position in reforming social care.

“We hope that she can meet with disabled people and the organisations we run to find out our experiences of the barriers that stop us living good lives.”

She added: “Instead of the government demonising people based on their diagnosis or condition, it should prioritise making sure healthcare and support services are there when we need them, and make workplaces inclusive for those of us who can work, instead of focusing on removing people’s essential benefits.”

Mark Harrison, a member of the steering group of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA), said: “It is not helpful for the person charged with reviewing social care and recommending reform to show ignorance of the subject and basic misinterpretation of figures.

“This does not fill disabled people with confidence.

“It would be much better if the review was based on the articles and implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the UK government negotiated with disabled people, signed and ratified.

“Under the last Labour government, we were making progress towards this, but this administration talks coproduction with disabled people but does something very different.”

He added: “If Andy Burnham is serious about fixing social care he and the Casey commission would work in true coproduction with DDPOs** and learn lessons where we have worked with local authorities and government to achieve improvements and change.

“However, they are not engaging in meaningful coproduction. This window dressing has to stop, otherwise the reforms will fail.”

Polina Sparks, a disabled campaigner and advocate on disability employment, said she was concerned by Baroness Casey’s comments, which were “uninformed and feed into a hostile narrative that’s harmful both to disabled people and to this review into social care”.

She said: “The UK disability rate is in line with the EU average (24 per cent), partly reflecting that people are living longer in poor health.

“The DWP was right to correct Baroness Casey and to point out that this figure does not reflect eligibility for welfare.

“Most disabled people don’t claim any disability support. When they do, receiving it is far from ‘as simple as’.

“It involves 30-40 page forms, reams of medical evidence, capability assessments, a high rate of rejections.

“Reporting a disability in a voluntary survey confers no advantage or benefit, the only reason to report it is being honest.

“The rise in disability, in the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, does, however, highlight why attitudes to disability need to change, why rights need to be strengthened and why social care matters.”

It is not the first time Baroness Casey has frustrated disabled campaigners.

Three years ago, her review of culture and standards in the Metropolitan police failed to conclude that the force was institutionally disablist, even though she found that it was institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic.

She came to that conclusion even though she found one in three (33 per cent) disabled members of staff had experienced bullying, while there had been 358 employment tribunal claims related to disability discrimination brought against the Met between 2017-18 and 2021-22.

This week, Baroness Casey has refused to apologise for her comments; refused to explain how disabled people in need of state support can now trust her if they respond to the Big Care Conversation; and refused to point to any evidence that there are far fewer than 17 million disabled people and that too many disabled people are receiving benefits and other support.

Instead, her commission released a statement that focused on the launch of the Big Conversation on Care.

A spokesperson for the commission said: “Too many disabled people, older people and families are struggling to get the care and help they need.

“Too often, people are being let down by systems that are meant to be there for them.

“There are important questions about how we support people in a changing society, but what is beyond doubt is that the public has never really been asked what a fair and sustainable settlement for care and support should look like in the twenty-first century.

“That’s why we have launched the Big Conversation on Care.

“We want to hear from disabled people, carers, families and the wider public about who social care should be for, what support people need to live good lives, and how we build a sustainable system which is fit for the country we are today.

“The voices, experiences and ideas of disabled people will be central to that conversation and to the commission’s work.”

*The Equality Act 2010 states that a person is considered to be disabled if they have a physical or mental impairment that has a “substantial” and “long term” negative effect on their ability to carry out normal daily activities

**Deaf and disabled people’s organisations