the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
The equality watchdog has rejected calls for it to investigate deaths linked to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), more than a year after an MP asked it to launch an inquiry. Labour’s Debbie Abrahams, a former shadow work and […]
The government’s continuing failure to allow benefit appeals to be heard via video conferencing is discriminating against disabled claimants, say welfare rights experts. Many disabled people are being forced to ask for their tribunals to be postponed, because they are only […]
Labour’s new shadow work and pensions secretary is facing anger from disabled activists and politicians after he said that people who “put more in” to the social security system should “get more out of it” if they lose their jobs. Among […]
The government’s own benefits advisers have told ministers that it is “increasingly untenable” for them to refuse to pay those on out-of-work disability benefits the temporary increase of £20 a week being paid to claimants of universal credit. The increase in […]
Trying to force disabled people into work by threatening to sanction their benefits is ineffective and likely to harm their health, and even put their lives at risk, according to research co-produced with a disabled people’s organisation. The fear instilled by […]
The government is facing calls to publish two coroners’ reports that link the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) with the deaths of benefit claimants. New information shows that the missing reports were written by coroners in 2015 and 2016, but […]
A new legal challenge by the family of a man who starved to death after his out-of-work disability benefits were wrongly removed has exposed years of dishonesty, failings and broken promises by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). The family […]
Disabled people have told MPs how they have been hit particularly hard by the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on the benefits system. The Commons work and pensions committee carried out a survey of benefit claimants as part of an inquiry […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has been refusing to allow many staff to work from home during the coronavirus crisis, even if they live with people with long-term health conditions, or must travel to work on public transport. One […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to say whether it could strip out-of-work benefits from disabled people who are fighting coronavirus while trying to meet strict deadlines for assessment of their eligibility. DWP’s refusal to clarify the situation […]