Crippen Cartoons cartoons at the cutting edge of disability

Disabled activists from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and Not Dead Yet UK have spoken of their horror at the government releasing new plans to cut disability benefits on the same day MPs were debating the idea of legalising assisted suicide.

Protesting outside of parliament, just yards from a larger rival action by those pushing for legalisation, they expressed fears that yet more cuts to the support disabled people rely on to live independently will only exert more pressure on them to take their own lives if assisted suicide is legalised.

Disabled activist and actor Liz Carr was one of the disabled activists raising concerns about the apparent political momentum enjoyed by those seeking new laws. She told Disability News Service (DNS) that she was terrified by the government’s latest personal independence payment (PIP) proposals:

She said:

“We know disabled people have killed themselves because of DWP reforms in the past. That’s what terrifies me: the kind of thing happening in Canada where people for socio-economic reasons are choosing to end their lives through euthanasia.”

She added:

“On the same day that we are listening about PIP reform and about disabled people being labelled as scroungers, it’s more important than ever to say let’s give disabled people support in life and choice over their life.”

Andy Greene, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said the decision to publish the PIP proposals on the same day as the assisted suicide debate was “not so subtle”.

He told DNS:

“We are an easy target in terms of political targeting. We are the go-to group for cuts to services, for cuts to income, for building a narrative around, because we are seen as an easy target. It’s a message and not so subtle a message to the public and to disabled people about where the direction of travel is.”

He believed the momentum towards legislation appeared to be “unstoppable, inevitable” which had left him “genuinely horrified”. He had seen the “slippery slope” in other countries where assisted suicide has been legalised and has gradually been extended to more and more groups of disabled people.

He added:

“We are the people who have the most at stake here and, as history has shown us, we have the most to lose”.

Nick Saunders, a member of the Disabled People’s Direct Action Network (DAN), said:

“We want help to live, not to die. It’s a matter of life and death, nothing more, nothing less. We fought for public transport, for independent living; now we are fighting for our own lives.”

Paula Peters, another member of DPAC’s national steering group, said the government’s move to publish its plans for further cuts to support on the day of the assisted suicide debate made her want to “throw rocks” at parliament, and had caused her “anger and huge anxiety”.

She added:

“To launch a consultation on PIP the day of the assisted dying debate is rubbing salt in the wounds. Disabled people will feel they are better off dead because they can’t afford to live … we need assistance to live, not to die”.

Read the full story in Disability News Service.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Liz Carr and a disabled colleague are facing prime minister Rishi Sunak and Mel Stride of the department of work and pensions. Liz has ‘not dead yet’ printed upon her t-shirt. Sunak is holding a card with ‘legalising assisted suicide’ printed on it whilst Stride is holding a card with ‘cuts to disability benefits’. Stride is saying to Liz: “What ever gave you the idea that there’s a link between these two issues?!”

I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised when I read that Scope, formerly The Spastic Society, has partnered with a “scaremongering” national newspaper notorious for its hostile coverage of disabled people and other marginalised groups.

The Daily Express has been listed as the official partner for Scope’s second Disability Equality Awards, which took place in London recently. This came just days after the right-wing newspaper horrified many disabled people with its front-page headline: “PM tells sick note Britain: Get a grip and a job.”

The Express was a particular focus for anger during the early austerity years, with headlines such as “Sick benefits: 75 per cent are faking”, and the impact of its disablist coverage was highlighted in reports published by disabled people’s organisations such as Disability Rights UK and Inclusion London.

Yen Godden, a disability advocate, commented:

“I am shocked that Scope has chosen to partner with the Daily Express … Scope has a section on their website about reporting disability hate crimes and incidents yet seems to miss the glaringly obvious fact that the Daily Express has consistently stirred up hatred and mistrust towards disabled people and continues to do so.”

Disability advocate Sara Westrop added that, as a disabled non-binary person, they were surprised to hear of the partnership:

“Considering the numerous ways they have contributed towards the increasingly hostile environment in the UK directed towards disabled people and trans people. The Express also regularly shares articles painting disabled people as drains on society, resources and money … also showing support for Sunak’s barbaric reformation of disability benefits.”

Accessibility consultant Julia Peyser Gutiérrez Anstey was also critical of the partnership. They said:

“The Daily Express has and continues to directly harm the disabled community by framing us as benefit scroungers and wasters of NHS money. The fact that they are partnering with Scope does not take back any of the immense harm they have done to disabled people.”

Asked why the charity thought it was appropriate to partner with the Express when it had a long history of discriminatory, hostile and disablist coverage, a Scope spokesperson said:

“We work with journalists from across the political spectrum … because of the influence they have on our society. Having the Express spotlight stories from our nominees allows us to reach new audiences, and bring positive messages about disability to people that we would otherwise be unable to reach.”

Makes you wonder if the people at Scope have actually read the Daily Express?!

For the full story please read the Disability News Service report.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

Two faceless, white males in grey suits and with ‘Daily Express’ name badges around their necks, are standing either side of a smiling white woman who is typing at a computer wearing a Scope name badge. The two men are also holding pieces of paper with ‘75% of disabled are fakes’ and ‘Disabled are all work-shy scroungers’ on them. On the floor at their feet is a copy of Disability News Service with the headline: ‘Scope partner up with hostile Daily Express’. The first man is saying: “So that’s agreed – we portray Scope as the real voice of disability …”. The second man adds: “And we continue to rubbish those so-called disabled activists!” In the background is one of Scope’s old plaster collection figures – a young girl wearing a leg brace and a collection box with ‘Help the Spastics’ printed upon it. She is thinking: “And just as I thought that we were making some progress!”.

At an online emergency meeting organised by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), there was a call to fight the government’s “fundamental” assaults on disabled people’s rights.

At the meeting, over a hundred “determined and angry” disabled activists pledged to use direct action protests to “put a stake through the heart” of the idea that disabled people can be used as scapegoats in the run-up to general elections.

The meeting was called after the prime minister announced a series of reforms that are set to weaken the social security safety net, with his speech described by one disabled writer as designed to “drip feed a nation with an extremely ableist rhetoric intended to radicalise, scapegoat and ostracise”.

Rishi Sunak announced plans for new cuts to personal independence payment, a faster rollout of universal credit to disabled people – despite serious concerns about the potential threat to the “safety and well-being” of disabled people – and an end to what he called a “sicknote culture”, as well as other reforms (see previous blog post).

Disabled activists, including DAN, DPAC and other grassroots groups of disabled people, have been fighting successive Conservative-led governments over repeated austerity cuts for the last 14 years, vowed to continue that fight, particularly with a general election imminent.

Andy Greene, a member of DPAC’s national steering group, said:

“When it comes to direct action, I think we really need to start upping our game. I think we need to put a stake through the heart of this idea that you can constantly come back to us as the ‘whipping boy’ and talk about us as a vote-winner … Direct Action needs to drive these arguments back into the dark … We are re-emerging as a mass movement, and Direct Action has always been the cutting edge of our movement.”

Ellen Clifford, another member of DPAC’s national steering group and award-winning author of The War on Disabled People, told the meeting:

“What we really need is some direct action … Conservative politicians are trying to win the next election by directly attacking disabled people … We need to show them what we think of them.”

John McDonnell, Labour’s former shadow chancellor and a long-standing DPAC member, also spoke at the meeting:

“I think the scale of this attack is worse than in 2010 now. I think it has gone beyond that because this is much more fundamental an assault on basic rights for disabled people, and that’s why DPAC was founded [in 2010].

“We are a resistance movement, and we resist attacks, and in resisting those attacks we give a vision and hope for the future. I am worried about people being scared and anxious about this attack, because of the scale of it, but to balance that out we are within six months maximum of a general election.

“We have to get back to Direct Action as well. We have to get back onto the streets!”

McDonnell added that he did not believe many people – particularly within parliament – realised the scale of the attack on disabled people. He committed himself and his staff to supporting efforts to oppose the reforms, including through parliamentary questions, early day motions, debates and events within parliament.

As well as DPAC activists, others at the meeting included representatives from the disabled women’s organisation WinVisible, Inclusion London, and DPAC Northern Ireland, and union activists from PCS, Unite Community and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ).

Natasha Hirst, NUJ president and a long-standing disabled activist, told the meeting that she was leading on the union’s work to support journalists to improve how they report on disability and social policy. She said:

“I know that there’s an awful lot of reporting at the moment that is absolutely abhorrent, that is appalling, and I’m working really hard with my colleagues to try to educate journalists.”

She said she was also keen to put together information that would show activists how to challenge poor reporting.

The meeting also heard of other ways that disabled people could fight back against the government’s reforms, including writing to MPs and mainstream media, contributing to local radio discussions, and posting on social media.

Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, who also attended, said the meeting showed that “everyone is determined to resist this attack on our benefit rights”. She added:

“In WinVisible, many of us are living with mental distress due to abuse, rape, war and other trauma. We are asylum-seekers, refugee, immigrant and UK-born women, and some of us are LGBTQI+. In the face of Rishi Sunak scapegoating sick and disabled people; the government wanting to give the DWP surveillance powers on the bank accounts of 22 million claimants, including pensioners; and the passing of the Rwanda bill, effectively ending the right to seek asylum and protection in the UK, we are more determined than ever to fight for our survival.”

She also said there were concerns that the government planned to privatise the fit note system, and she called on the British Medical Association to oppose any such plans, which would lead to “profiteer companies” making decisions, as with the “brutal disability benefit assessments” that have been carried out by Maximus, Atos and Capita.

*Anyone who wishes to be involved in DPAC’s work to oppose the government’s attacks on disabled people should email them.

Read more about DPAC’s emergency meeting in Disability News Service (DNS)

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A large crowd of angry disabled activists are gathered to protest over the plans outlined by Rishi Sunak. These involve more changes to the benefits systems, the privatisation of the ‘sick note’ system, and more penalties aimed at people experiencing mental illness. The protestors are carrying banners with an image of Sunak on them, along with a large red cross across his face. Slogans include ‘Don’t vote for this man’, No 1 Enemy of disabled people and ‘Guilty of removing our safety net’. On the ground are copies of Disability News Service with ‘Direct action planned to confront Sunak’ and ‘Tory’s plan to privatise sick note system’. Large pictures of Sunak are piled in the centre and have been set alight as part of the protest.

Describing it as a “moral mission” Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has unveiled his plans to impose fresh curbs on benefits.

Apart from proposing a new consultation on Personal Independent Payment (PIP), a non-means-tested benefit that helps with extra costs caused by long-term disability or ill health, he has vowed to significantly reform the benefits system.

Based upon an expected rise in benefits spending which includes an increasing number of people who are claiming PIP for anxiety and depression, Sunak stated that it is no longer sustainable. He therefore intends to introduce a more “rigorous” approach with “greater medical evidence” being required to substantiate a claim.

Mr Sunak also claimed that Britain is suffering from a “sick-note culture” and warned against “over-medicalising the everyday challenges and worries of life”. He revealed new trials will be under way that will put an end to GPs being allowed to sign patients off sick, with the responsibility shifting to “work and health professionals” instead.

Along with this he pledged to “tighten” the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) so that “hundreds of thousands of benefit recipients with less severe conditions will now be expected to engage in the world of work.” He added that if the Tories were to win the election, people who were still out of work after 12 months will have “their benefits removed entirely”. He also spoke about benefits being sanctioned if someone does not comply with conditions set by a work coach.

Disability Rights UK’s head of policy Fazilet Hadi accused the government of targeting disabled people for a failing economy. She said:

“The Prime Minister’s approach to systemic inequalities caused by government policies and underfunding of public services, is to further penalise, punish and threaten disabled people living on inadequate benefits.”

Mind chief executive Dr Sarah Hughes said that with mental health services at breaking point after years of underinvestment …

“[It is] insulting to the 1.9 million people on a waiting list to get mental health support, and to the GPs whose expert judgment is being called into question.”

Dr Katie Bramall-Stainer, chairwoman of the BMA’s GP committee, accused Mr Sunak of pushing “a hostile rhetoric,” with Unison general secretary Christina McAnea stating:

“Lengthy waits for NHS operations and treatment have left people languishing at home, too sick or injured to work. Threatening to remove benefits and forcing sick and disabled people further into poverty is most definitely not the way to increase the health of our sick nation.”

Note: Government figures show that £69 billion is currently being spent on benefits, however a Policy in Practice report released last week found that over £23bn worth went unclaimed in the last year, excluding disability benefits.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

An Asian male in a self propelled wheelchair is sat facing two large dogs. The dogs are snarling with one of them having a ripped piece of the disabled man’s suit in it’s mouth. He has also torn a chunk out of the wheel of the wheelchair and left the man covered in cuts and bruises. A PIP application form and a medical sick note lay ripped apart on the floor. Around the dogs neck’s are two discs. One carries the initials ‘DWP’ whilst the other reads ‘Sanctions’. Standing behind the dogs is the PM Rishi Sunak who is saying to the disabled man: “You won’t be needing benefits – with the system we’ve created there’s now every incentive for you to seek work!”

Our friends at Inclusion London have launched a a #NoMoreNoShows campaign to ensure that candidates for the upcoming general election attend disability hustings, rather than sending replacements or not turn up at all!

This followed an event when three candidates to be the next mayor of London refused to explain why they failed to turn up to a packed hustings event that would have allowed disabled people from across the capital to question them on their policies.

Just one of the four candidates invited, Zoë Garbett, for the Green Party, turned up to answer questions at the sold-out event, with more than 100 people attending, and about another 100 watching or listening online.

Svetlana Kotova, Inclusion London’s director of campaigns and justice, told the event as it began that she and her colleagues were “deeply disappointed” at the failure of the three candidates to attend. She said:

“We did everything we could to convince them to come … we’re really, really concerning for the democratic process; we think it’s really important that candidates talk to disabled people and hear from disabled people.”

Inclusion London’s co-chair, Adam Gabsi, who was chairing the hustings event, told Disability News Service (DNS) afterwards that Hall, Khan and Blackie had been invited in “numerous ways” but had still not attended. He said:

“Hustings are an integral part of the democratic process and ignoring disabled people gives us the impression that our concerns are not worthy of being listened to and our votes are not important. This is an election year and disabled people deserve better treatment.”

Laura Vicinanza, policy and stakeholder engagement manager for Inclusion London, added:

“We are deeply disappointed that of the four parties represented at hustings, only the Green Party sent their mayoral candidate … our rights as disabled people must be valued and upheld by all our elected representatives.

Read the full story on the Disability News Service website.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A corpulant white man in a grey suit is standing holding a glass of wine and an invitation from Inclusion London to attend a disability led hustings. He is also sporting a blue rosette with ‘Vote for me’ printed upon it. Opposite him is an older white woman wearing a purple top and dress with matching beads, earings and handbag. She is also holding a glass of wine. The man is saying: “Why would we like to attend a disability led hustings?”. The woman replies: “Quite right dear – you might catch something!”

The Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill has moved to the House of Lords for scrutiny following completion of the Report stage and third reading in the House of Commons.

Various Civil Rights groups, including the Public Law Project have been briefing MPs that the Bill will weaken important data protection rights and safeguards, reducing transparency and putting individuals at greater risk of unfairness and discrimination. The main cause for concern is Clause 34 which will give the government the right to inspect the bank account of anyone who claims or who is connected to someone who claims ‘social security benefits’.

The Open Rights Group (ORG) claim that the new welfare surveillance powers were slipped into the DPDI Bill by stealth to circumvent Parliamentary scrutiny:

“They treat vulnerable populations as potential criminals rather than individuals in need of support. In combination with weakened protections against faulty automated decision-making and curtailed rights to access our data, the DPDI Bill is an injustice waiting to happen.”

ORG’s Legal and Policy Officer, Mariano delli Santi added:

“Welfare surveillance further stigmatises people who receive benefits, many of whom already face discrimination and negative stereotyping. It could lead to some of the most vulnerable people facing unjust accusations of fraud, and potentially having their benefits removed and their lives destroyed.”

ORG explains that we currently have protections against solely automated decision-making when there are life-changing or significant consequences:

“The DPDI Bill weakens those safeguards, exposing more areas of our lives to algorithms and all their associated biases, except where it involves special category data.

“People who claim benefits will have fewer financial freedoms and will be over-exposed to algorithmic injustice. This isn’t a theoretical possibility. The DWP has been criticised already for using AI secretively to target welfare fraud “despite warnings of algorithmic bias against groups of vulnerable claimants.” With the DWP algorithm already being challenged for discriminating against people with disabilities, these new welfare surveillance powers are primed for disastrous consequences.

“The government is opening up financial information of benefit claimants to an expanding use of AI, while weakening the rights of individuals to challenge how those decisions are being made. The lack of transparency over the algorithm used in the DWP’s Integrated Risk and Intelligence Service only serves to leave vulnerable people overexposed to harms. And it’s not like the public sector is renowned for having robust and effective IT systems – over 200,000 pensioners were underpaid by the DWP last year as a result of computer errors.”

You can read the fuller analysis by the ORG on their web site.

BTW: Did you realise that the Tory’s are pushing through a section of the Bill that will allow the Secretary of State broad powers to amend our data protection laws via statutory instrument, without adequate scrutiny by Parliament. The wide powers given to the Secretary of State in Clauses 5, 6, 12 and 114 should be removed or narrowed.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A white female wheelchair user is sat at a table with a small amount of money in front of her. She is holding a series of final demands for gas, electric whilst a tear glistened on her cheek. A small children peer across the table at her. A wall mounted television has on its screen ‘DWP to employ more fraud investigators to curb disabled scroungers’. A sinister figure wearing a dark hat with a card reading DWP inserted in the hat band looms over her shoulder. He is peering through a magnifying glass at her and is holding copies of her bank statements. In his pocket is a copy of the Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill. He is saying: “Hmm … now let’s see what I can find to justify my nice fat salary!”.

Not content with spreading malicious lies that thousands of disabled people are fraudulently claiming benefits, the DWP is now spending more money hiring ‘covert surveillance officers’ to work within 20 locations around the UK to crack down on these so-called fraudulent claims.

I’ve lost count of the number of times that John Pring from Disability News Service, Mo Stewart Research Lead on the Preventable Harm Project and myself have published corroborated facts that contradict this harmful rhetoric that the DWP continue to pump out to a gullible public through the national press.

One such article in the Torygraph [sic] included using the ‘welfare calculator’ to “reveal how much of your salary bankrolls the welfare state” whilst also claiming that millions, including disabled people were claiming benefits “without ever having to look for work”.

Disability Rights UK describing its coverage as “an incitement of hatred” towards disabled people and claiming the aim was “to vilify people who are too sick to work by angering those who are paying taxes that go towards Disability benefits”.

This rhetoric, which will be familiar to those who remember the propaganda used by the German Nazi Party back in the 1930 – 40’s when thousands of disabled people were identified as ‘useless eaters’ and exterminated, has created a massive increase in disability hate crime in the UK.

New stats from the Home Office reveals that disability hate crime has more than doubled in the last four years. In the last year alone, disability hate crime has risen by 43%. It doesn’t take much of a leap to connect this to the vitriol being pumped out by the DWP.

Even the United Nations have stated that:

“Reforms within social welfare benefits in the UK 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.”

Another voice from the international community has spoken out in defence of disabled benefit claimants in the UK. Rosemary Kayess, Australia’s new disability discrimination commissioner, stated recently:

“We see a reform agenda [in the UK] 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.”

I recently ran an article which claimed that the DWP were deliberately feeding false information to the mainstream press. Again, Disability News Service was instrumental in bringing in the Information Commissioner John Edwards around to their belief that that DWP were “engaged in a campaign to stir up hostility towards disabled claimants of benefits” to act as cover for its planned cuts and reforms which had recently been announced, which “could have fatal consequences”.

I could go on, but returning to this latest ploy by the DWP who are now claiming to need more ‘covert surveillance officers’ to stem this flood of non-existent benefit fraud, it’s just another part of this concentrated attack against disabled people in the UK.

To conclude, Scottish Greens MSP Maggie Chapman has joined the ranks of those speaking out against the DWP and its policies. She is reported as stating:

“It is as if the DWP is desperate to cement its reputation as one of the harshest, cruellest and most punishing government departments. The sanctions regime it oversees has ruined lives and hounded people to early graves. It’s rotten to the core and has no place in the compassionate society we want to build.”

Well said Maggie.

The government’s own accounting system Hansard – Fraud and Error National Statistics state that the annual statistics for fraud and error in the benefit system for the financial year ending 2023 confirm that fraud and error in 2022-23 fell to 3.6% of welfare expenditure.

Description of cartoon for those people using screen reading software

This Crippen cartoon is a complex panorama showing the chain of hate that originates from a group of DWP officials and government ministers on the right to a group of disabled people on the left. Large red arrows between the four groups portrayed provide the direction that the chain is progressing (from right to left). The DWP/Gov representatives are handing to a group of newspaper owners’ misinformation about disability benefits fraud. The press in turn are handing out newspapers with anti-disability slogans printed on them, blaming disabled people etc. A third group representing the general public are reading the newspapers and pointing at the final group of disabled people on the left of the picture whilst shouting “They’re taking our taxes” and “They don’t even try to find work” and “They’re all scroungers” and “they’re the ones to blame”. Between the group of disabled people and the group of the general public is a large card with ‘Disability Hate Crime up by 43%’. The disabled people are looking on with fearful expressions on their faces whilst behind them lurks a covert DWP benefits officer holding a copy of the proposed Data Protection and Digital Information (DPDI) Bill.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is again facing cover-up allegations after suggesting that it has destroyed reports showing why it weakened guidance on when to investigate suicides of benefit claimants.

Once again, our friends over at Disability News Service (DNS) have been successful with a freedom of information request and have discovered that DWP have once more attempted to wriggle out of their obligations. The department said:

“As discussions around Internal Process Reviews, their management and the criteria that relate to them, are operational in nature as opposed to policy based, there is no requirement for the Department to retain any such reports.”

It was revealed last month that DWP had weakened the rules on when to carry out an internal process review (IPR) in April 2021. Although, the previous year it had told the National Audit Office it would always carry out one of its secret reviews when it heard of a claimant’s death if they had died by suicide, even if there were no allegations that DWP’s actions had contributed to that death.

However, figures obtained through another freedom of information request have shown that on at least four occasions in 2022-23 – as a result of the new rules – the department failed to carry out an IPR when told of the suicide of a claimant.

For more than a decade, DNS has been revealing how DWP has covered-up evidence of links between its actions and the deaths of claimants, and how it has repeatedly tried to delay evidence of those links being released.

Read the full DNS report here.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A sign upon the wall identifies the location as being a room within the DWP. A white male in a grey suit is throwing documents headed ‘claimants suicide report’ into a burning container. Alongside of him is an Asian woman sat at a computer. She is looking back at the man who is saying to her: “And once you’ve scrubbed the hard drive it’ll be a case of reports – what reports!”

Disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) from across the UK have described the government’s evidence to a United Nations disability rights committee last month as “an insult to disabled people” and full of “half-truths, untruths” and “empty assertions”.

Following on from my last blog, representatives from more than ten DPOs were in Geneva to witness the evidence given by the UK government as it attempted to persuade the committee it had made progress since being found guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2016.

In an initial statement Alexandra Gowland, deputy director of the Disability Unit, pointed to a string of recent government policies across disability strategy, social security, housing, social care and employment – nearly all of which have been widely discredited. She and fellow civil servants were also asked to respond to concerns and questions raised by members of the committee.

But representatives of the DPOs that had travelled to Geneva to brief the committee and watch the session say they were appalled at the evidence given by the UK government’s delegation.

Ellen Clifford, who coordinates the coalition of DPOs that monitors the implementation of the convention in the UK, told Disability News Service (DNS) that:

“The UK government’s representatives had avoided all of the substantive issues with which the special inquiry is concerned and failed to answer any of the committee’s questions. They chose instead to talk out their time on issues not relevant to the inquiry and in a misleadingly positive light. We felt their approach was disrespectful to the committee and showed how little they value the lives of Deaf and disabled people.”

She said the questions and comments from the UN rapporteurs – the committee members who have led investigations into the UK’s progress showed how well they understand the true picture of what is happening and that “they had really listened to and valued the evidence we submitted and the testimonies that were shared with them by Deaf and disabled people”.

John McArdle of Black Triangle told DNS that the UK government was guilty of “whitewashing and ignoring the rock-solid evidence” and that its delegation had kept trying to “dodge the bullets” by not addressing the issues raised by committee members. He added that the failure of the UK delegation to address the issues raised by the committee was “insulting, not only to us, but to the United Nations, the rapporteurs and the institution itself”.

Kamran Mallick, of Disability Rights UK, said:

“Although we are not surprised by the UK government’s response today, we still feel that their refusal to properly engage with this process is an insult to all disabled people whose experiences are reflected in the evidence we’ve provided to the UN.

“Despite requesting a delay last year, they have provided us with no new evidence – instead signposting to plans and policies that create no transformative change … but they know, just as we do, that no progress has been made. In fact, we have gone backwards.”

Read the full report in Disability News Service.

————————————————-

The representatives from the 10 UK DPOs included Svetlana Kotova, director of
campaigns and justice at Inclusion London ; Kamran Mallick, chief executive of Disability
Rights UK ; Natasha Hirst, president of the National Union of Journalists and the
disability representative on its national executive; Rhian Davies, chief
executive of Disability Wales ; Mark Harrison,
a member of the steering group of the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance ; Tony
O’Reilly, from Northern Ireland’s Northwest Forum of People with
Disabilities; Ellen Clifford who is a member of the national steering committee of Disabled People Against Cuts and John McArdle, co-founder of the Scottish-based grassroots
group Black Triangle.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

A UN representative is stood talking to a group of disabled people from the UK. In the background are two UK government representatives who are hauling on a rope attached to the arm of a large clock face. The clock face represents ‘progress’ and they are dragging the indicator arm back from 2024. The UN rep is asking the disabled people: “So it’s not just us that thinks that your government is trying to turn back the clock?” One of them replies: “No, they’d take us back to the time when we had no rights if they could!”

A United Nation’s committee vice-chair told a delegation of civil servants in Geneva that “Reforms within social welfare benefits in the UK 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.”

The UN’s committee on the rights of disabled people Australian vice-chair, Rosemary Kayess, said the UK 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”.

The committee had previously accused the UK government of demonising disabled people and treating them as “undeserving citizens” by preparing to fund tax cuts through slashing disability benefits. They had also found the government 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.

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. They added that there was also evidence of “regression” in how the UK government was meeting its obligations under the convention.

Rosemary Kayess, a human rights lawyer and Australia’s new disability discrimination commissioner, told the UK’s delegation: “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.”

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.

Following the session and absorbing 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.

Read John Pring’s full report of the UN session in Disability News Service.

Description of cartoon for those using screen reading software

The scene is at a village pond where a wheelchair user, holding a ‘disability benefit claim form’ is suspended over the water. Standing at the side of the pond next to a large winching system are Rishi Sunak and Sir Iain Duncan-Smith who is dressed in a Puritan costume. A sign at their feet carries the message ‘Crip Finder General – Sir Iain Duncan-Smith’. On the floor alongside the sign is a copy of Disability News Service with headlines ‘UN accuse UK government of grave and systematic violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities’. Sunak is saying: “We’ve developed this fool-proof method of identifying if a person is really disabled or not …”. Duncan-Smith adds: “Yes – if they swim then they’re faking it … If they drown then they really are a genuine disabled person!”