https://www.bigissue.com/news/social-justice/dwp-disability-benefits-reforms-consultation-ruling/

Tory ministers presented reforms to disability benefits as a way to support disabled people into work – and they would have seen many worse off by at least £416.19 per month

The Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP) consultation into plans to slash billions of pounds from disability benefits has been ruled unlawful in a damning High Court judgement.

In a judgment published this morning (16 January), Mr Justice Calver said that the judicial review, brought by disability activist Ellen Clifford, had “surmounted the substantial hurdle of establishing that the consultation was so unfair as to be unlawful”.

Repeatedly describing the DWP consultation in autumn 2023 as “misleading”, “rushed” and “unfair”, he said:

• The consultation documents failed to highlight the “substantial” loss of benefits facing those affected by the proposals.

• The consultation gave the “misleading impression” that changes were required to ensure deaf and disabled people could access employment support, when they could already choose to access this voluntarily.

• Despite the consultation presenting the changes as being solely about helping disabled people into work, in reality “costs savings was at least one of the two bases, if not the central basis, on which decisions would be taken on which policies would be taken forward by the government”.

• The eight-week consultation was unlawfully short in the circumstances.

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