A United Nations committee has accused the UK government of demonising disabled people and treating them as “undeserving citizens” by preparing to fund tax cuts through slashing disability benefits.
Members of the UN’s committee on the rights of disabled people provided a string of examples of how the government had continued to breach its obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
They pointed to a benefits system that traumatised claimants and led to some taking their own lives; increasing rates of institutionalisation; and a disproportionate number of disabled people who were now too poor to heat their own homes or buy food.
The committee’s Australian vice-chair, Rosemary Kayess, said the social security system and rhetoric from ministers “devalues disabled people and undermines their human dignity”, and she suggested the government had breached its treaty obligations to “combat stereotypes, prejudices and harmful practices relating to disabled people”.
Kayess told a delegation of civil servants in Geneva that there was evidence of “regression” in how the UK government was meeting its obligations under the convention.
The committee was cross-examining the delegation, which included representatives from the devolved governments of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, on progress since the UK government was found guilty of grave and systematic violations of the UN convention in 2016 as a result of breaches of articles on social security, employment and independent living.
Following the session, and the “significant” amount of written and oral evidence provided by disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and allies, the committee will now prepare a report on its findings.
Kayess, a human rights lawyer and Australia’s new disability discrimination commissioner, told the UK’s delegation on Monday: “We see a reform agenda that is framed in a political narrative that demonises disabled people, including proposals to cut disability benefits to reward working people by cutting taxes, which tells disabled people they are undeserving citizens.
“And this is coupled with an onerous and complex social benefit system that is the basis for trauma and preventable mental distress.”
Kayess said the committee had found a “pervasive framework and rhetoric that devalues disabled people and undermines their human dignity” within the social security system, and she suggested the government had breached its obligations under the convention to “combat stereotypes, prejudices and harmful practices relating to disabled people”.
She said: “Reforms within social welfare benefits are premised on a notion that disabled people are undeserving and skiving off and defrauding the system.
“This has resulted in hate speech and hostility towards disabled people.”
She also pointed to “increasing rates of institutionalisation” of disabled people, including those “living in secure psychiatric facilities due to a lack of community-based support”, and others forced into residential homes because of inadequate care and support.
And she highlighted evidence of increased use of “restraints, restrictive practices and coercive measures” in institutions, and the shortage of safe, accessible housing.
She also questioned whether the government had failed to meet its obligations to “closely” and “actively” consult disabled people’s organisations when drawing up its National Disability Strategy.
Just as it did in 2016, the committee raised significant concerns about the “complex and onerous” work capability assessment process, and the use of “inexperienced and unqualified” assessors.
Another committee member, Professor Laverne Jacobs, a disability rights and human rights law expert from Canada, said there had been a “repeated pattern” of disabled people taking their own lives after being denied an adequate standard of living by the Department for Work and Pensions.
She asked the government what measures it would take to ensure that its benefit eligibility and work capability systems were “trauma informed so that they do not cause mental health crises, suicide, and death”.
But she also asked what “redress” it would offer to those who have experienced trauma caused by the social security and assessment systems, and to the families of those claimants who had lost their lives through this trauma.
Jacobs said the committee had heard of disabled people facing “intolerable situations, even death, while trying to comply with the eligibility requirements of the UK government’s benefit regimes”, including the work capability assessment process.
She said that evidence they had been given suggested a “significant and shameful gap” between the convention’s requirements and the lived experiences of disabled people in the UK.
And, she said, the evidence suggested a failure to provide an adequate standard of living for disabled people, including disabled women, girls and older people, with a “disproportionate” number of disabled people “living in poverty without the ability to heat their homes or purchase food”.
She also asked the UK government what measures it was taking to ensure that disabled people can enjoy their rights under the UN convention to live independently in the community, and to address the shortage of personal assistants.
And she asked what the government was doing to ensure that disabled refugees and asylum-seekers can enjoy their right to live independently and in the community in the UK.
She urged the UK government to “improve on its commitment” to the rights of disabled people and take “immediate steps to remedy the issues that we have highlighted today”.
A third committee member, human rights lawyer Miyeon Kim, from South Korea, asked the UK delegation about the “biggest death crisis in the history of the NHS”, after campaigners called last year for a criminal investigation into a mental health trust, following a report that found more than 8,400 deaths linked to the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust.
There was little attempt by the UK government to answer the questions asked by the committee members, with disabled people’s organisations who were present at the evidence session describing their attempts as “half-truths, untruths and smokescreen” (see separate story).
Alexandra Gowlland, deputy director of the Disability Unit, who had earlier delivered the UK government’s opening statement to the committee (see separate story), claimed it was committed to the UN convention, and pointed to the protection offered to disabled people by the Equality Act, including the public sector equality duty.
She told the committee: “Ensuring the voice of disabled people is properly heard is something which is very important to us in the UK government.”
Jennifer Heigham, DWP’s deputy director for strategy and briefing, pointed to the £105 billion in cost-of-living support the government had provided from 2022 to 2025, but failed to point out that working-age disabled people receiving non-means-tested disability benefits received just £150 a year in 2022 and another £150 in 2023-24 in disability-related cost-of-living payments.
She claimed the government was “delivering the most ambitious disability reform agenda in a generation” and was “proud to have a proven track record of increasing disability employment, and acting on disability discrimination, providing vital protections”.
And she said the government was “committed to ensuring our welfare system encourages and supports people into work, while providing a vital safety net for those who need it most”.
She added: “In the future, removing the work capability assessment will reduce the number of assessments people need to take to access benefits, give people the confidence to try work, and enable us to provide a more personalised approach.”
David Nuttall, deputy director of neurodiversity, diversity and learning disability at the Department of Health and Social Care, said the government was “investing in better training, accredited qualifications and launching a new national career structure for the adult social care workforce”.
And he said it had given new powers to the Care Quality Commission to inspect how local authorities were delivering their duties under the Care Act.
He claimed the government had “substantially invested in adult social care funding”, while the NHS long-term plan included a “long-term aim to improve community support for people with a learning disability, autistic people and those with serious mental illness”.
He said the government’s draft mental health bill – which appears to have been dumped by the government – included plans to tighten the criteria on when someone can be detained under the Mental Health Act “to ensure detention only happens where absolutely necessary”.
Apparently in response to the question from Miyeon Kim, he said the Care Quality Commission was “the independent regulator of health and social care in England and is responsible for making sure providers adhere to the fundamental standards to ensure services are safe, effective, person centred, responsive and well led”.
Picture: Rosemary Kayess (left, centre) and Laverne Jacobs (right)
A note from the editor:
Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.
Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.
Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…