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A Tory election promise to “dismantle” the work capability assessment (WCA) through new legislation appears to have been abandoned, with the Queen’s speech containing no mention of any new social security bill. The speech contains brief details of all planned legislation […]
A coroner has declined to explain why he failed to take evidence on the apparent links between the government’s “fitness for work” test and the death of a disabled north London man. An inquest into the death of 56-year-old Lawrence Bond […]
UKIP’s disability spokeswoman has refused to explain both how the party has managed to confuse two key disability benefits in its election manifesto, and – for the second election running – which parts of the UN disability convention it supports. UKIP’s […]
“Very dangerous” rules are forcing severely-ill people applying for the government’s new universal credit to look for jobs and take part in training, even though their GPs have said they are not fit for work, “horrified” disabled activists have warned. The […]
Disabled activists have called on disability charities to boycott any further co-operation with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), after it wrongly claimed that disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) had helped draw up its punitive new work scheme. DWP claimed that […]
The government failed for more than three years to keep a record of what actions it took – if any – after carrying out secret reviews into the suicides of benefit claimants, Disability News Service (DNS) can reveal. The Department for […]
The minister for disabled people has been accused of making “false promises” that she would reduce the living costs of people facing cuts of nearly £30 a week to their out-of-work disability benefits. From this week, new employment and support […]
Ministers have been accused of ignoring a public consultation and ploughing ahead with plans that will make their “fitness for work” testing regime even more stressful and unfair for sick and disabled people. A presentation delivered by two senior Department for […]
Ministers have been forced to scrap a drastic change to benefit rules that meant seriously ill claimants found unfairly “fit for work” were no longer allowed to take an extended period of sickness absence, even if they had a sicknote from […]
One of the outsourcing giants paid to assess disabled people for their eligibility for benefits appears to have admitted that it is standard practice – approved by the government – to ask claimants with mental health conditions why they failed to […]