by Paul Jones, Policy and Public Affairs Consultant
It is widely considered a feather in a charity’s cap to be chosen to give evidence to a parliamentary select committee: it denotes the value the committee places upon a charity’s knowledge and expertise. In turn, this opportunity allows the selected charity to highlight specific areas of concern to policymakers – helping to drive positive change to improve the lives of its membership and wider community.
The ME Association is pleased to announce that we have now experienced this honour twice in recent years. Given Russell Fleming’s oral evidence to the Work and Pensions Select Committee last year on disability employment issues, The ME Association received another invitation in April 2025: this time to provide written evidence addressing the impact of the Pathways to Work Green Paper on people with ME/CFS.
Please note the concerns the ME Association has expressed previously on the proposed social security reforms. As the committee has now published our submission, we are pleased to be able to share it with you.
Crafting a professional submission to the Work and Pension Select Committee – and responding to the Pathways to Work Green Paper consultation – was deemed to be of ‘mission critical’ importance to the ME Association. I was, consequently, delighted to have been commissioned to work alongside the MEA’s Welfare Consulatant, Ella Smith, to advise on policy and public affairs. One of the outcomes of our collaboration is our submission to the Work and Pensions Select Committee.
N.B. The Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee, Debbie Abrahams, is also an Officer of the APPG on ME. Debbie has kindly agreed to meet me next month to discuss our submission to the Work and Pensions Select Committee; including the concerns the ME Association and wider ME/CFS community has about the fairness of these reforms and the legitimacy of the consultation process. At the time of writing, the government has made notable “concessions” to the Universal Credit and Personal Independence Payment Bill – due to face a second reading on Tuesday, 1 July 2025. We will keep you updated on further developments as they become known.
The ME Association’s submission to the Work and Pension Select Committee’s Get Britain Working: Pathways to Work inquiry can be accessed below:
Paul Jones
Policy and Public Affairs Consultant,
The ME Association
