- Conference
- 2021 National Disabled Members' Conference
- Date
- 8 July 2021
- Decision
- Carried
Conference recalls the 2019 Disabled Members Conference agreed the motion “What are they hiding? Missing PIP data on the experience of Black disabled people”. The motion asked the national disabled members committee to seek data on the percentage of Black claimants turned down for Personal Independence Payments (PIP) compared to white claimants.
Conference notes that in response to requests from UNISON, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) confirmed that they do not have any data on the proportion of PIP refusals by race. This is because they do not routinely ask for ethnicity data from PIP claimants.
Conference believes that the DWP are failing to abide by the public sector equality duty (PSED) if they do not collect ethnicity data as they cannot therefore guard against a potential disproportionate impact on Black disabled people.
Conference therefore calls on the National Disabled Members Committee to work with the National Black Members Committee to:
A)Lobby for ethnicity monitoring of PIP claimants so that the proportionality of DWP’s decision making and its duties under the PSED can be assessed
B)Raise this issue with the Labour Party, via the Labour Link, and with other organisations working on welfare benefits with the aim of provoking a broader campaign on this issue
C)Continue to campaign for a fairer system of publicly delivered PIP which acknowledges fluctuating conditions, puts the needs of disabled people at its heart and does not penalise people who are in work.