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The government’s mainstream benefit sanctions regime has been discriminating against disabled people throughout nearly the whole of the last decade, according to new figures secured by Disability News Service (DNS). The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures, obtained through a […]
The minister for disabled people is refusing to apologise to MPs for misleading them about a report by a UN human rights expert on the UK’s record on causing and addressing extreme poverty. Professor Philip Alston, the UN’s special rapporteur on […]
A minister has suggested that the government would be doing a “great disservice” to disabled people if it stopped sanctioning their out-of-work benefits. The comment by Alok Sharma, the employment minister, came in correspondence with the Commons work and pensions committee […]
Imposing benefit sanctions on disabled people is counter-productive, ineffective and “probably too dangerous”, a trio of experts have told MPs. The Commons work and pensions committee also heard that the failure of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to research […]
A disabled campaigner has told MPs how she was thrown out of a shelter and forced to sleep in her college library after she was unfairly sanctioned by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Jen Fidai described yesterday (Wednesday)* how […]
Ministers have quietly dumped their promise to test a gentler approach to dealing with claimants who breach strict benefit conditions for the first time. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) agreed in October to trial handing out warnings instead of […]
Work and pensions secretary David Gauke has admitted that the system of benefit sanctions often fails to work and can instead cause harm to claimants, particularly those with mental health conditions. The long-awaited admission was yesterday described by one leading disabled […]
A Liberal Democrat government would scrap all benefit sanctions, end the benefit cap and reverse the controversial personal independence payment (PIP) “20-metre rule” that has led to tens of thousands of disabled people losing their Motability vehicles. Although the three policies […]
The government should replace its “deeply flawed and inaccurate” disability benefits assessments with an in-house system – based on the social model – that understands the barriers faced by Deaf and disabled people, according to a disabled people’s organisation. Inclusion London […]
The sister of a disabled man who died after being left destitute by having his benefits sanctioned has launched a high court legal challenge over a coroner’s refusal to hold an inquest into his death. David Clapson (pictured), who had diabetes, […]