UN calls for human rights assessment of government’s benefit cuts bill and mental health reforms

Disabled experts from the United Nations have told the UK government to carry out a “comprehensive” assessment of the human rights impact of its universal credit cuts bill, further plans to reform disability benefits, and its mental health reforms.

The UN’s committee on the rights of persons with disabilities (CRPD) had previously raised concerns about the impact on disabled people of the Universal Credit Act, the mental health bill, and further reforms laid out in March’s Pathways to Work green paper.

It wrote to the government after being alerted to the implications of its plans by DPO Forum England and the user-led, rights-based organisation Liberation.

Now, after assessing the government’s response, and evidence provided by disabled people’s organisations, the committee has called on the UK government to act.

It says it should assess the impact of its reforms, and ensure – in “close consultation” with disabled people – that its future plans do not cause any further “retrogression” in their rights, following years of attacks by successive governments.

The UN committee calls for a comprehensive human rights assessment of both the Universal Credit Act and Pathways to Work, before implementing the cuts and reforms to disability benefits expected in this autumn’s white paper.

And it calls on work and pensions ministers to take measures to “eliminate and reduce” the negative impact of the Universal Credit Act on disabled people, and to carry out a full assessment of its impact after its measures have been implemented.

It should then – again, in close consultation with disabled people – set out a plan to mitigate the impact of the act to ensure disabled people have access to the support they need to fulfil their rights to live independently, be included in the community, obtain work and have an adequate standard of living.

And it says that government plans to scrap the work capability assessment must be “designed and implemented” with the “close consultation and active involvement” of disabled people, and that they should not lead to any further assault on disabled people’s rights.

It calls for action to ensure, after months of concerns about Labour’s plans to force banks to carry out mass surveillance of claimants through its “Orwellian” public authorities (fraud, error and recovery) bill – currently approaching its final parliamentary stages – that those banks are not able to access claimants’ personal and private information.

The committee also calls for a comprehensive human rights assessment of the government’s mental health bill, which has been approved by the House of Lords and reaches the report stage in the Commons on 14 October, to ensure it is “fully aligned” with the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).

And it says the government should improve its procedures for measuring the impact of new laws on the rights of disabled people.

Rick Burgess, co-chair of DPO Forum England, said: “We are grateful to the UN for recommending the UK government make a full human rights assessment of the impact of its social security policies, introduce mitigations to protect us from further harm, protect us from bank spying, and remind the government they should be consulting closely with disabled people and our organisations.

“It illustrates again that the UK government remains hostile to disabled people, and evades its treaty and legal obligations, but we will not relent in defending our rights and lives.”

Dorothy Gould, Liberation’s founder, said she was “absolutely delighted” that the committee’s response “cuts right through” the government’s attempts to justify its mental health bill, and she praised its “vital” intervention and “refutation of the government’s stance”.

She said the government’s earlier response to the committee had “utterly failed either to acknowledge the continuing, highly discriminatory nature of this bill, or to set out any plans for the fundamental changes that are needed” and had “misleadingly claimed” the bill was compatible with UNCRPD.

And she said it was a “complete disgrace” that the government had “yet again tried to justify the bill’s continuing treatment of people in acute mental distress and people with learning difficulties, or autistic people, as second-class citizens”, and had “again tried to argue that involuntary hospitalisation and forced treatment are not disability-based discrimination”.

Gould said the government was also still failing to make the committee’s Deinstitutionalisation Guidelines “its baseline for ensuring that we can instead live independently in the community, just like anyone else”, while also claiming it was making good use of consultation with user-led groups and individuals with lived experience “in the teeth of contrary evidence”.

Asked if the UK government accepted the committee’s recommendations, and if it would act on them, a DWP spokesperson failed to mention the recommendations in its statement, although it insisted the government was committed to implementing the convention.

In its statement, DWP said: “We’re changing the welfare system so sick or disabled people have the opportunities to move into good, secure work and out of poverty as part of our Plan for Change.

“The views of disabled people remain at the heart of our decision making, including through the consultation earlier this year and the Timms Review, which will be co-produced with disabled people and their organisations.

“Our reforms will rebalance the rates of universal credit to reduce the perverse incentives that trap people out of work, while giving people the genuine support they need through our £3.8 billion employment support package.”

Asked if the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) accepted the committee’s recommendations, and if it would act on them, a DHSC spokesperson also failed to mention the committee in its statement.

Instead, it said: “The Mental Health Act is there to protect people when they are at their most vulnerable, and in many cases, it has saved lives.

“But it is hugely outdated and has not kept pace with evolving understanding of mental health, learning disability and autism.

“Through our mental health bill, this government is now one step closer to bringing forward the essential reforms that will transform the care of some of our most vulnerable people, providing them with more dignity, choice and voice.

“The 10 Year Health Plan sets out ambitious plans to boost mental health support across the country so people can access the right support at the right time in the right place.

“This includes ensuring more people get the support they need in the community, closer to where they live.”

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