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The government is facing growing pressure to scrap “wholly unacceptable” and “discriminatory” emergency powers that have allowed public bodies to suspend disabled people’s rights during the coronavirus pandemic. More than 60 disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and their allies this week signed […]
The minister for disabled people is facing fresh criticism for failing to carry out “meaningful” engagement with disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) during the coronavirus pandemic. Three DPOs have this week criticised the failure of Justin Tomlinson and his new Disability Unit […]
Councils and other public bodies across England are failing to consult disabled people before approving “discriminatory” measures designed to aid social distancing and encourage cyclists and pedestrians, say campaigners. They have warned that public bodies are ignoring their duties under the […]
Disabled people who have been shielding from coronavirus since March are expressing significant doubts about government advice that says that – from Saturday (1 August) – they will no longer need to do so. The government announced on 22 June that […]
A group of academics have called on the government to launch an immediate inquiry into why so many disabled people have died during the COVID-19 pandemic. The call came in a new report by Oxford University’s Disability Law and Policy Project […]
Work and pensions ministers are refusing to release key details of the panel they set up last year to examine deaths linked to the actions of their own department. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was forced to admit in […]
Disabled campaigners have described the government’s decision to reintroduce benefit sanctions – in the middle of a pandemic – as “barbaric” and “life threatening”. The decision meant an end to the three-month suspension of benefit sanctions and conditionality* in England, Scotland […]
The equality watchdog failed to consult its own committee of disabled advisers before deciding not to investigate deaths of benefit claimants that have been linked to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). It came as disabled activists and relatives of […]
Disabled people’s organisations have demanded an inquiry into the reasons behind the disproportionately high number of deaths of disabled people during the pandemic, following the publication of “shocking” and long-overdue official figures. They have also called on the government to take […]
The government’s decision to further ease measures that have been protecting hundreds of thousands of disabled people from coronavirus since late March has left many of them “stunned and anxious”, say campaigners. The 2.2 million people currently described as “clinically extremely […]