Thanks to L S McKnight in the comments for pointing us to this report from Third Force News on the Scottish disability charities who boycotted a meeting with disability minister Maria Miller after she falsely claimed to have previously met them.

“[She] said in an interview with a national newspaper that she had personally met with 60 disability organisations to discuss reform of the benefits system for disabled people.

“When campaign group Disabled People Against Cuts asked the DWP for a list of the organisations Miller was referring to, it included a number of Scottish groups who are campaigning against the changes and have never met Miller.”

In addition, the charities felt their presence at previous meetings with DWP officials had been misrepresented.

“Florence Garabedian, chief executive for Lothian Inclusive Living Centre, also said she was not comfortable attending the meeting, which went ahead with a DWP official.

““We’ve previously attended meetings, and it was implied by the minister that we agreed with these reforms and that is not the case,” she explained. “We were not confident therefore that if we attended this meeting, the same thing would happen again.””