Labour’s Manifesto has Lightened My Heart

Our second GE2019 blog post by Rory Heap – Disability Officer, Canterbury CLP

As a disabled person myself, and as the Disability Officer for this Constituency Labour Party, I have a lot of contact with disabled people, some of whom are Labour party members, some of whom are not.

What we all have in common is a profound hatred of Tory party austerity and their systematic attacks on disabled people.

I take great delight, therefore, in summarising below just some of the brilliant policies that have

lightened my heart when reading the great ‘It’s Time for Real Change’ Labour Party manifesto.

Labour will:

• Repeal the Social Care Act 2012 – an act which has been the gateway for inequality and discriminatory treatment of those most vulnerable in our communities.
• Build a comprehensive National Care Service, and
  • provide community-based, person-centred support, underpinned by the principles of ethical care and independent living
  • provide free personal care, beginning with investments to ensure that older people have their personal care needs met, with the ambition to extend this provision to all working-age adults
• Provide additional care packages – this means support for those with Autism and people with Learning Disabilities to move out from inappropriate and often distant inpatient hospital settings and provide support in their own homes and communities
• Lead on Disability Equality by supporting the principle of ‘nothing about us without us’.
  • Champion the social model of disability throughout government
  • Ensure that disabled people can be independent and equal in society, with choice and control over their own lives
  • Transform the workplace for disabled people by requiring that all employers be trained to better support them
  • Update the Equality Act to introduce new specific duties including disability leave, separate from sick leave
• Lead on Social Security by
  • Scrapping Universal Credit
  • Design an alternative system that treats people with dignity and respect and ends poverty by guaranteeing a minimum standard of living
  • Stop the de-humanising Work Capability and PIP Assessments, which repeatedly and falsely find ill or disabled people fit to work
  • Increase Employment and Support Allowance by £30 per week for those in the work-related activity group
  • Raise the basic rate of support for children with disabilities to the level of Child Tax Credits
  • Ensure that severely disabled people without a formal carer receive extra support to enable them to meet the extra costs they inevitably face

So many disabled people will be uplifted to read these heartening additions to our manifesto.  And so many will be materially benefited when Labour are successful at the General Election and when our brilliant leadership will begin the process of transforming our society into one that really cares.  Only Labour can deliver a manifesto that promises not just to support those with disabilities and SEN but sets out plans to invest in people to give them equality of opportunity, no matter what their circumstances are.

Vote Labour on the 12^th December!

You can access Labour’s manifesto promises on Disability and Social Care in accessible format here.