UN slams DWP welfare reforms in shameful open letter

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, a United Nations (UN) sub-committee, has released a blistering open letter for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). They’ve requested further information from the Labour government on the Universal Credit (UC) and Personal Independent Payments (PIP) bill. They’re also concerned with the green paper Pathways to Work which claims to reform how benefits work.

The open letter signals potential further intervention from the UN in what is yet another embarrassing warning over welfare reforms from Keir Starmer. Disabled organisations, activists, and medical professionals have repeatedly warned the government that their reforms will make disabled people’s lives much harder.

UN warning for DWP

The group of UN experts requested more information from the DWP on the following topics:

• whether an impact assessment on the consequences of the cuts had been carried out
• the specific impact the bill will have on new claimants, young people, disabled women, disabled people with high needs, and people with psychosocial disabilities
• clarification on the changes to eligibility for PIP
• limitations to UC that are to be introduced.

In particular, the group warn that the government must:

Ensure that any intended measure of the welfare reform is rights-based, upholds the human rights model of disability and does not disproportionately and/or adversely affect the rights of persons with disabilities to independent living, to an adequate standard of living and to employment.

They continue to recommend that the government must:

Actively consult and engage with persons with disabilities through their representative organizations and give due consideration to their views in the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of any legislation, policy or programme related to the rights addressed in the present report.

Of course, the government has done no such thing. It’s repeatedly ignored warnings from both disability organisations and communities. The committee requests that the government respond to their requests by 11 August. After that date, the group are due to hold a session in Switzerland to examine the rights of disabled people in the UK, amongst other areas.

We may well save them a job by pointing them towards our repeated coverage that demonstrates just how the government have ignored disability communities.

‘No significant progress’

The UN experts repeatedly called for the DWP to ensure that the implementation of the bill will consider:

persons with disabilities living on a low income or in poverty and to persons with disabilities at higher risk of exclusion.

They ask for the government to:

take all the legislative and administrative measures necessary to ensure a nationally consistent framework for implementing and monitoring obligations

as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The internationally applicable human rights treaty is designed to protect disabled people across member states. Of course, the UN’s warnings to the DWP are yet another indication that the proposed reforms are attracting attention of which the government should be deeply embarrassed.

In fact, the group also note that their previous recommendations to the UK government made in 2024 with regards to disabled people have gone unheeded:

The Committee notes that while some measures have been taken to address its recommendations…there are also signs of regression in relation to the standards and principles enshrined in the Convention.

Damningly, the UN open letter concludes regarding the DWP that:

The Committee has received credible information indicating that if approved, the Universal Credit and Personal Independent Payment Bill will deepen the signs of regression that the Committee indicated in its 2024 Report.

Hostility

Once again, Amnesty International UK have expressed their concern over the impact of DWP cuts on disabled people. Richard Burgess, co-chair of The Disabled Persons Organisations Forum England (DPOFE) said:

Disabled People’s Organisations faced such hostility from our government that we reached out for help to the UN. They have now answered our call and it is clear that Keir Starmer risks further destroying disabled people’s human rights if his government carries on with its Bills and does not change ableist assumptions about us.

It is utterly shameful we have to yet again appeal for international help to defend us against our own government.

In partnership with TDPOFE, Amnesty’s social and cultural rights lead, Jen Clark, said:

It should shame the Government that the UN has felt the need to intervene over their brutal cuts to Universal Credit and wider social security reform.

Together, Amnesty and TDPOFE are calling for the government to scrap the UC and PIP bill. Clark also added:

Following the pause on the cuts to PIP, the bill should now be fully scrapped. It is unforgivable that the Government is choosing to balance the books by impoverishing some of the most vulnerable people in our society, instead of asking the very wealthiest to pay more.

Burgess is correct. It’s an absolute disgrace that disabled organisations and communities have been so thoroughly ignored by the government during the course of this bill. It should be an utter humiliation for Keir Starmer and Liz Kendall that such organisations have had to turn to the UN for support. But, it’s hardly the first time the UN has had to intervene over plans from the DWP.

Never again – if it ever has been before – can this country be considered a global leader in human rights.

Featured image via the Canary