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Activists hope an historic House of Commons debate will prove a significant step towards forcing the government to assess the overall impact of its welfare reforms on disabled people, and to scrap the hated “fitness for work” test. Backbench MPs agreed […]
MPs have backed demands for the government to assess the true damage caused by its welfare reforms to the lives of disabled people, after an historic debate in the House of Commons. The debate was secured by the Labour MP John […]
A peer is to ask the public spending watchdog why a long-awaited probe into the government’s new disability benefit ignored serious concerns over the award of a £184 million assessment contract. A National Audit Office (NAO) director told Lord [David] Alton […]
The government’s “fitness for work” contractor has failed to produce a single piece of evidence to back up its claim that it is withdrawing from the contract because of “death threats” against its staff. The claims were first reported by the […]
Scrapping disability living allowance (DLA) and replacing it with the new personal independence payment (PIP) could affect access to more than 100 local authority services, according to the disabled councillor who leads on equality for the capital’s councils. London Councils has […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was yet again mired in confusion today (27 February) after the minister for disabled people failed to tell MPs that he had called a halt to most repeat “fitness for work” tests. The decision […]
Five disabled people who face losing their homes because of the much-criticised “bedroom tax” have vowed to fight on, after a “baffling” court of appeal ruling that the new housing benefit regulations are lawful. The court ruled today (21 February) that […]
New official figures show that the government contractor Atos Healthcare is 50 times more likely to recommend wrongly that someone is “fit for work” than it is to make an error in finding someone not fit for work. The government statistics […]
More than 100,000 disabled people had their unemployment benefits removed in just one year as a punishment for not complying with strict new government rules, according to official figures. The figures show that 104,200 disabled claimants of jobseeker’s allowance (JSA) were […]
Staff working for the outsourcing giant Atos refused to comment this week as disabled activists protested outside their head office about the company’s involvement with the government’s “fitness for work” test. The protest near Euston station in London was one of […]