Disability News Service

Four disabled Labour MPs stood up to their government’s attempts to reduce vital disability benefits, despite ministers’ chaotic last-ditch concessions to rebels that removed a significant chunk of their cuts bill. Marsha de Cordova, Marie Tidball and Emma Lewell all voted against […]

Labour’s chair has refused to answer questions about a disabled constituent whose suicide was closely linked to flaws in the personal independence payment (PIP) system, just as her government was trying to cut PIP spending by billions of pounds a year. Three […]

Four national disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) have told the Covid inquiry that people who receive care and support were “ignored by design” during the pandemic. The inquiry heard on Monday that there were more than 43,000 deaths involving COVID-19 in care homes […]

Labour MPs were given their final warning by disabled activists at a sweltering rally outside parliament on Monday that, if they vote for cuts to disability benefits, the “gloves will be off”. Ellen Clifford, one of the key organisers of the rally […]

A British news channel has said it has nothing to apologise for after a right-wing commentator and comedian suggested the best way to cut the number of disabled people claiming benefits was to starve, or even shoot, them. It is just the […]

Only one in four inspections of local services for disabled children in England last year concluded that they usually lead to “positive experiences and outcomes” for those young people, the education regulator has announced. The findings from Ofsted showed that 28 inspections […]

Disabled Labour MP Vicky Foxcroft has described how she was left with “no choice” but to resign as a whip over government plans to cut billions of pounds a year from disability benefits. In her first interview since releasing her resignation letter […]

The disabled peer who has led UK opposition to the legalisation of assisted dying for decades has pledged to work to make a bill passed by MPs so “tight” that only a very few people will be able to take advantage of […]

A minister has finally admitted that spending on working-age benefits is stable, and is not spiralling out of control, despite months of claims from his own department and fellow ministers. Sir Stephen Timms (pictured) made the admission as he told the Commons […]

Disabled people’s lives will be increasingly in danger because of MPs’ failure to understand the risks posed by the assisted dying bill, devastated activists warned on Friday after the legislation was approved by the House of Commons. Disabled activists had started gathering […]

The minister for social security and disability has insisted that billions of pounds a year of cuts to disability benefits must go ahead, despite the risk that they will once again cause countless deaths of disabled claimants. Sir Stephen Timms was giving […]

Disabled MPs have voted overwhelmingly against the assisted dying bill, and warned that it poses a clear danger to disabled people if it eventually becomes law. Although the terminally ill adults (end of life) bill was passed by the Commons by 314 […]

The social security and disability minister has misled MPs after suggesting he has ushered in a new era of openness and transparency in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Sir Stephen Timms told members of the work and pensions committee yesterday […]

The government is considering whether to strengthen disability hate crime laws even further, after ministers agreed to make a long-awaited improvement that will mean longer sentences for offenders. Home Office minister Diana Johnson announced last week that the government would act to […]

A transport minister has told peers that it would be “counter-productive” – and take too long – to draw up rules that would ensure all pilot schemes of self-driving taxis are accessible to disabled people. Labour’s rail minister Lord [Peter] Hendy was […]

There must be “meaningful participation” of disabled people in the initial stages of developing new digital assistive technology, if its potential for supporting their independence is to be realised, according to a new report. The Royal Society concluded that tech companies, researchers […]

Labour ministers are considering whether to start means-testing personal independence payment, which is likely to cut billions of pounds a year more from benefits spending, new information secured from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has revealed. The highly controversial idea […]

Disabled activists say they “will not give a single inch” in their resistance to billions of pounds of cuts confirmed yesterday by the Labour government in its new universal credit and personal independence payment bill. Other than minor concessions by work and […]

Disabled activists say vital new polling shows that it is not safe to legalise assisted suicide when the government is preparing to cut billions of pounds a year from spending on disability benefits. The findings were released yesterday (Wednesday) on the day […]

A tribunal has allowed ministers to continue to hide vital information from scores of secret reports into deaths of universal credit claimants, just as they publish a new bill that will have a major impact on the working-age benefits system. The new […]