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You are here: Home / Archives for Therese Coffey

Therese Coffey

DWP’s unlawful silence on ‘critical friend’ report raises questions over minister’s transparency pledge

By John Pring on 22nd May 2025 Category: Benefits and Poverty

DWP’s unlawful silence on ‘critical friend’ report raises questions over minister’s transparency pledge
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The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) has unlawfully failed to respond to a request to see a secret paper on the department’s safeguarding failures, casting doubt on a minister’s pledge to open DWP to “public scrutiny”. The “critical friend” paper […]

Research that ministers sat on for three years shows no evidence to support call for PIP cuts

By John Pring on 27th February 2025 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Research that ministers sat on for three years shows no evidence to support call for PIP cuts
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Ministers have sat on research for three years that linked the sharp increase in claims for disability benefits with a deterioration in disabled people’s health, an increase in the financial hardship they were facing, and their need for independence. Successive governments […]

Tory ministers blocked ‘unique’ research on ESA claimants from inclusion in benefit cuts green paper

By John Pring on 16th January 2025 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Tory ministers blocked ‘unique’ research on ESA claimants from inclusion in benefit cuts green paper
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Conservative ministers prevented research that showed disabled people on out-of-work benefits were subject to high levels of stress, debt and isolation from being included in a controversial policy paper that called for cuts to spending on those benefits. The research had […]

Tories silent on why their ministers ‘sat on’ DWP research for six years

By John Pring on 10th October 2024 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Tories silent on why their ministers ‘sat on’ DWP research for six years
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The Conservative party has refused to explain why its former ministers “sat on” vital research papers for up to six years while running the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). Labour’s new work and pensions secretary, Liz Kendall, this week published […]

Campaigners welcome election defeats for DWP ministers, but frustration as key trio survive

By John Pring on 11th July 2024 Category: Politics

Campaigners welcome election defeats for DWP ministers, but frustration as key trio survive
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Campaigners have welcomed election defeats for a series of former Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) ministers, while also expressing disappointment that three of the most unpopular figures from the last 14 years managed to survive the Labour landslide. There was […]

Focus group questions suggest means-testing PIP is back on the Tory agenda

By John Pring on 29th June 2023 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Focus group questions suggest means-testing PIP is back on the Tory agenda
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The Conservative party appears to be considering highly-controversial plans to means-test disability benefits as a way of cutting spending. Disability News Service (DNS) has been told that participants in focus groups have been asked questions about which people “deserve” various benefits […]

Disability strategy court case ‘will force government to act on consultations’

By John Pring on 29th June 2023 Category: Activism and Campaigning

Disability strategy court case ‘will force government to act on consultations’
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A long-running legal case that reached the Court of Appeal this week will force the government to take its duty to consult with disabled people more seriously, according to one of the three disabled campaigners who have brought the case. The […]

Disabled Tory peer tells MPs: DWP is ‘stuck in a time warp’

By John Pring on 30th March 2023 Category: Politics

Disabled Tory peer tells MPs: DWP is ‘stuck in a time warp’
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A disabled Conservative peer has told MPs that the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is “stuck in a time warp” and has a “culture of low aspiration”. Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin (pictured) said he believed DWP treated disabled people “as maybe […]

Coffey scrapped plan for independent review of sanctions, DWP admits

By John Pring on 26th January 2023 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Coffey scrapped plan for independent review of sanctions, DWP admits
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The government abandoned proposals for an independent review of its much-criticised sanctions policy, the latest example of how a minister watered down plans to prevent suicides and learn lessons from the deaths of benefit claimants. The decision to further limit the […]

Shock and anger over DWP’s ‘despicable’ decision to abandon work on deaths plan

By John Pring on 15th December 2022 Category: Benefits and Poverty

Shock and anger over DWP’s ‘despicable’ decision to abandon work on deaths plan
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Disabled campaigners have expressed shock and anger after learning how the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) secretly abandoned work on a £106 million plan that was supposed to help it prevent further deaths of benefit claimants. The plan was draw […]

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‘Disastrous’ cuts bill that leaves legacy of distrust and distress ‘must be dropped’

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Disabled activists warn Labour MPs who vote for cuts: ‘The gloves will be off’

GB News says it has nothing to apologise for, after guest suggests starving disabled benefit claimants

SEND inspections find services in just one in four areas usually lead to ‘positive’ outcomes for disabled children

Disabled MP who quit government over benefit cuts tells DNS: ‘The consequences will be devastating’

Disabled peers plan to ‘amend, amend, amend, amend, amend’ after assisted dying bill reaches Lords

Minister finally admits that working-age benefits spending is stable, despite months of ‘spiralling’ claims

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