the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues
Campaigners say the government’s decision to enforce a freeze on working-age benefits from April – even though older people will see their pensions increase by 2.9 per cent – will further entrench disability poverty. The annual “uprating” of working-age benefit rates […]
A disabled former Liberal Democrat MP has refused to criticise the Tory work and pensions secretary for covering up a report that linked the “fitness for work” test with a disabled man’s suicide. Stephen Lloyd, who narrowly lost his Eastbourne seat […]
Proposals by two groups of English GPs that they and their colleagues should no longer be responsible for providing “fitness to work” certificates for their patients have alarmed disabled activists. GPs from Kent’s local medical committee (LMC) have proposed in a […]
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has refused to confirm reports that it plans to force more sick and disabled people into work through its imminent shake-up of employment support. In an interview with the Daily Mail, work and pensions […]
Damning new evidence suggests that senior figures in the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) covered up a coroner’s warning about the grave dangers posed by a new disability assessment. Disability News Service (DNS) has seen a series of letters that […]
The father of a man who took his own life after being found “fit for work” believes his son would still be alive if he had not been failed by the benefits system the government and its contractor, Atos. Stephen Carre, […]
Campaigners have questioned a series of claims by the minister for disabled people that there have been substantial improvements to major government disability programmes. Justin Tomlinson, who was appointed to the post in May, spoke this afternoon (Thursday) to two separate […]
A disabled researcher and campaigner has criticised a new report by a cross-party committee of MPs for failing to acknowledge fully the “perverse contradiction” at the heart of the government’s specialist employment programme. Catherine Hale, who wrote a well-received review on the failure […]
Planned cuts to out-of-work disability benefits will lead to more “tragedies” in which disabled people will lose their lives, Labour’s new shadow minister for disabled people has told fellow MPs. Debbie Abrahams, a former public health consultant, was speaking as she […]
Work and pensions secretary Iain Duncan Smith has been accused of insulting disabled people by telling them to “work your way out of poverty”. His speech to the Conservative conference was short on policy detail but heavy with rhetoric, including a […]