Disability

All of the manifestos acknowledge disabled people, and their concerns and aspirations are addressed to varying degrees across policy areas. Investment in addressing health inequalities, educational disadvantage and forms of poverty more generally will benefit disabled people. Our focus is on those policies and commitments that name disabled people as their intended recipients or targets.

 

Education

There are increasing numbers of children assessed as having the highest levels of need and receiving an Education, Health and Care Plan (EHCP) and inadequate funding and resources to meet this need. The Conservatives, Greens, Lib Dems and Labour all make pledges to improve provision for children with special educational needs, while the Greens and Plaid promise consistency of education and support for all children.

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Employment

The Greens, Lib Dems and Labour seek to reduce the disability pay gap and commit to more support to help disabled people into (waged) work, while the Conservatives focus on people with ‘moderate mental health problems or mobility issues’. Labour and the Lib Dems pledge to address problems with Access to Work.

 

Health and social care

The Lib Dems and Greens promise free personal care, with Labour and Plaid creating national care services, and Labour and the Lib Dems committing to ‘home first’ care. The Lib Dems, Labour and Reform will all set up some form of commission on the long-term funding of social care. Labour and the Greens pledge parity for mental and physical health. All parties make some commitment to addressing workforce issues and to improving support for mental health, albeit with different priorities and level of detail.

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Social security

Reform pledges a benefit system that helps ‘genuinely’ disabled people, while the Conservatives intend to tackle ‘the unsustainable rise in benefit claims’ by working age disabled people. The Lib Dems will make the benefit system ‘work better’ for disabled people and give them a ‘stronger voice’ in shaping benefit policy. The Conservatives, Greens, Lib Dems and Reform will all reform the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) and the Conservatives, Lib Dems, Labour and Plaid address differing concerns with the work capability assessment. The Greens (5% increase on disability benefits and 10% increase on carer’s allowance), Plaid (Universal Credit increases and removal of the benefit cap and two-child limit) and Lib Dems (carer’s allowance) pledge increases and changes to various benefits.

 

Equity, rights and justice

The Lib Dems and Plaid are committed to adopting the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) into UK law, while Labour will champion the rights of disabled people and ensure ‘their views and voices will be at the heart’ of all it does, and Plaid and the Lib Dems make specific commitments to disabled people’s involvement. The Greens focus on their commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention and Court on Human Rights (which Reform pledges to leave).

 

Manifesto accessibility

Plaid had the highest proportion of accessible formats at launch (pdf, BSL, large print and easy read) and added audio within two days. Labour launched with pdf, hard copy, braille and large print with easy read, easy read colours, BSL, audio and screen reader versions ‘coming soon’. The Lib Dems launched with pdf, hard copy, braille and easy read versions, with clear print, plain test, audio and BSL coming soon. The Conservative manifesto is only available as a standard pdf or print copy. Reform’s draft ‘contract’ only appeared at launch in pdf.

 

Summary

The Lib Dems and Greens have the most comprehensive package of commitments grounded in the language of rights, independent living and dignity. They commit to bringing the UN CRPD into UK law. Labour also frame disability as an equality issue. Plaid, the Lib Dems and Labour all pledge to better include disabled people and their organisations.

 

The commitment to free personal care by Lib Dems, Greens and Plaid would make a significant contribution to the flourishing of disabled people, as would the positive reform of benefits like PIP.

 

The Conservatives’ ambition to make the UK ‘the most accessible place in the world for people with disabilities to live, work and thrive’ sits uncomfortably with the centring of reducing disabled people’s access to benefits and the tone of the Conservatives and Reform on benefit reform and equality and diversity. Reform makes scant mention of disabled people or of policies that would enable their flourishing. Their commitment to replace the Equality Act and ‘scrap’ all Diversity, Equality and Inclusion roles creates a worrying context for the flourishing of disabled people.

 

All of the manifestos make specific disability pledges, many of which are focused on particular groups, for example, veterans (Reform), neurodiversity (Lib Dems, Plaid), BSL users (Lib Dems), accessibility of public spaces (Lib Dems) and railway travel (Lib Dems, Conservatives).

 

Overall, those parties who frame disability in terms of rights and independent living have a strong focus on disabled people and on enacting policies that will best enable them to flourish. This also requires a redistribution of resources that goes beyond tropes related to ‘deservingness’ and waged work.

 

 

Icon credit: M. Adebadal/The Noun Project