This week’s update from Disability News Service is given below with all the articles in a single post, however if you would prefer to view them as separate articles, you can do that on the DNS Website
Election post-mortem: Disabled activists ‘will regroup and fight on’
Disabled campaigners and their organisations have sent a strong message to the new Conservative government that they will regroup and find new ways to fight for their rights.
Grassroots groups and user-led organisations this week suggested ways in which disabled people could “protect and advance” their rights and equality, despite an election result that left many alarmed at the possibility of further cuts and attacks on their rights and support.
The groups were responding to questions from Disability News Service about the future direction of the disabled people’s movement, following nearly a decade of Tory-led governments that have been repeatedly and heavily criticised for serious breaches of their international disability rights obligations.
Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said the Tory government could expect DPAC to “continue the resistance against them” and to be “visible on the streets fighting back”.
She said it was “really important that DPAC remains a ray of hope in this dark political time, that we regroup after this horrendous general election result and come together to continue to fight.”
Peters said: “We must build our campaigns in our communities, support one another [and] give vital assistance to disabled people to fight for the support they need.
“So here’s a message to Boris Johnson: We will not bow down to you. We will take the fight to you. Expect to see DPAC out on the streets in 2020.”
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said the disabled people’s movement needed to build on its work to protect and advance rights and equality “using all the tools in our toolbox”.
She said: “We know Deaf and disabled people have been disproportionately impacted by government policies over the last decade, and considering that Boris Johnson is insistent that he will reach out to ‘left behind communities’, it is essential that his new government understands Deaf and disabled people make up a significant part of the left behind communities he must reach out to and start supporting”.
George Ayres, from Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL), said disabled people’s groups needed to work with migrant and refugee rights organisations, homeless and travellers’ rights groups, trade unions and others.
He said: “The Tory strategy is divide and conquer: we must counter this strategy.”
BRIL will be hosting a meeting of disabled people and allies in Bristol on 25 January, which will aim to build a “broader movement of solidarity in the light of the new government”*.
Activists are also planning a relaunch of the mental health survivor movement group Mad Pride, and a fresh emphasis on Mad Culture.
Denise McKenna, co-founder of the Mental Health Resistance Network, which grew out of Mad Pride, said there would be “proper anti-stigma campaigns” that would emphasise that “anti-stigma is being able to accept people whoever and however they present to the world” and was not about forcing people with mental health problems to “conform to the free market demands made on us”.
Michelle Maher, from WOWcampaign, said disabled people would need to “fight back” and “hound” their MPs, and join forces with other groups, including charities, and “make ourselves as visible as possible even if that means direct action… we have nothing to lose”.
Laura Stringhetti, also from WOW, said there was a need to build a coalition “of all people affected by all hostile environments”.
She said: “Fighting our little corner, whatever it is, is no longer effective. We need to expand and fight for social justice, inclusion, diversity and a country that works for all people.”
Disabled activist Dennis Queen said she believed that disabled people needed to “stop waiting for somebody else to hand us our rights” and “stop pumping energy into other well-resourced movements and non-DPOs” who do not return those “precious work hours”.
She said disabled people should “redirect our energies into community organising to create the world we want regardless of government”.
Queen said there was a need to strengthen disabled people’s organisations, grow a peer advocacy network “so that more of us can support each other to speak up for ourselves and fight back”, and continue to “learn and make connections with other grassroots movements and campaigns who are dealing with the same or related issues”.
Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self Advocacy), said the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) was “so important for people with learning difficulties”, even though the UN “seems like a dirty word” to the UK government.
He said politicians needed to listen to disabled people, and suggested that a campaign to help disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) learn how parliament works would be “a good place to start”, while disabled people should challenge MPs on how they engage with their constituents and “ask them how they are going to stand up for people with learning difficulties and disabilities”.
He also called for new laws to ensure there is a self-advocacy organisation that is recognised and core-funded by the local authority in every town and city.
Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of Shaping Our Lives, said many user-led groups might have to return to working without funding, and that this could have a “liberatory effect” because they would “no longer be tied to funders’ agendas and pressures”, despite the extra burden.
Simone Aspis, policy and campaigns coordinator for The Alliance for Inclusive Education, said there was a need to create space and opportunities for the voices of disabled children and young people, who are “the future of the movement”.
She also called for more focus on opposition political parties as well as the government, and for those parties “to get better in engaging with disabled people on policy at a strategic level”.
Sue Bott, head of policy and research at Disability Rights UK, said her organisation would work “with all political parties to bring about a positive narrative about disabled people that recognises our right to be equal citizens and will argue for policies that will achieve that” and would “continue to remind the government of its treaty obligations, including the UNCRPD”.
Mel Close, chief executive of Disability Equality North West, said that DPOs like hers would “do what they’ve always tried to do” and “try to get disabled people’s voices heard at every opportunity”, using the “strength in numbers” they have from working with other DPOs across the region.
*For more details of the meeting, email bristol.ilag@gmail.com
19 December 2019
Election post-mortem: Activists pledge to continue austerity fight
Grassroots groups of disabled people have promised to continue the fight against austerity, and to launch a new campaign to secure justice for those who have died as a result of Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failings.
But they have also stressed the need to support those left distressed and fearful of the impact on their lives of another five years of Conservative rule.
The groups were responding to questions from Disability News Service about the future direction of the disabled people’s movement, following last week’s election result.
Denise McKenna, co-founder of the Mental Health Resistance Network (MHRN), said there were plans for a new campaign to secure justice for those who have died at the hands of DWP.
She said: “I think that will be a campaign that will make its way into mainstream media, even though we are still in the midst of the hostile environment. I call it persecution.”
Earlier this month, Disability News Service published a 12,000-word article that built an argument for a criminal investigation into former ministers and senior civil servants, whose decisions to ignore fatal flaws in the work capability assessment system led to the deaths of disabled benefit claimants.
McKenna said there were also plans to relaunch the campaigning mental health survivor organisation Mad Pride, which would work to “build up the Mad community again” and challenge the lie that people with mental health problems are worthless and have no value.
She said disabled people needed to set up their own co-operatives and support networks, which she hopes will include those with professional expertise who can offer practical advice and help to rebuild a “really strong community”.
Paula Peters, a member of the national steering group of Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), said DPAC had been at the forefront of the resistance against austerity since 2010 and would “take the fight” to Boris Johnson.
She said: “For the past nine years we have fought back against the brutal austerity agenda that subsequent coalition and Tory governments have implemented against disabled people.
“It’s important to stress that the UK government is guilty of grave and systemic human rights violations towards disabled people and that the cuts have been a human catastrophe on disabled people’s lives.
“We need to continue to hammer that home in our communities.
“We remember with deep sadness every disabled person who has died as a result of austerity due to social care cuts, mental health funding cuts, the heinous process of employment and support allowance, personal independence payment, benefit sanctions and universal credit.”
She added: “Boris Johnson and his Tory government can expect us to continue the resistance against them. We will be visible on the streets fighting back.
“it is really important that DPAC remains a ray of hope in this dark political time. That we regroup after this horrendous general election result and come together to continue to fight.
“We must build our campaigns in our communities, support one another, give vital assistance to disabled people to fight for the support they need.”
Professor Peter Beresford, co-chair of Shaping Our Lives, said disabled people would “just have to try and keep going and support each other, in informal as well as formal ways”.
He said: “I think that this government will rebadge its policies to give the appearance of austerity being a thing of the past.
“Meanwhile, negative redistribution, poverty and powerlessness will rise. We must develop strategies to respond to and challenge this hidden agenda.”
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “As a movement, we need to stand firm on our values and principles and continue to speak truth to power.
“We have done so much to raise understanding about the impact of discrimination and austerity on our communities and we must continue to do so: gathering evidence, speaking up and holding the government to account on its commitments to invest in public services, solve the social care crisis and work to win the trust of new voters.
“We must also continue our proud track record of developing positive and innovative solutions to the issues that affect us, like the now widely-supported national independent living service, and we must continue to self-organise at a local level, creating inclusive and safe spaces for our communities to share support and maintain strength and resilience.”
Disabled activist Dennis Queen said there was a need to fight the re-institutionalisation of disabled people.
She called for activists to “bring their campaigning efforts back from large, well-resourced political parties and into community organising”.
And she said there was a need to strengthen disabled people’s organisations, grow a peer advocacy network “so that more of us can support each other to speak up for ourselves and fight back”, and continue to “learn and make connections with other grassroots movements and campaigns who are dealing with the same or related issues”.
Mark Williams, from Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living (BRIL), said: “We need to support all disabled people who feel down at the moment by letting them know the movement is there for them. We survived Margaret Thatcher and we have to come back fighting.”
Mike Steel, also from BRIL, said many people were “justifiably worried about what is to come, after 10 years of austerity, cuts to services and the impact of ‘welfare reform’ on the Deaf community, disabled adults and children, lone parents, people in precarious work, migrants and people using/surviving the mental health system”.
But he said that, despite this despair, there was “cause for hope”.
He said: “There is a strong sense of people wanting to come together, to work across communities and to continue to support each other.”
He said disabled people should get involved in their local disabled people’s organisations (DPOs), and community and peer-led groups.
Carole Ford, from WOWcampaign, said she believed disabled anti-cuts activists should choose a single issue – universal credit – to focus on.
She said: “Universal credit affects the greatest number of people. We should show its deficiencies, leading to reliance on food banks and hidden cuts.
“The five-week wait results in debt, homelessness as well as use of foodbanks – all measurable social ills, not mitigated by advanced repayments.
“It is unlikely that the government will scrap it, but we should campaign to mitigate its effects.”
Mel Close, chief executive of Disability Equality North West, said: “I really hope we can get the government to listen to disabled people and DPOs and that they hear the case studies, real life stories of what’s happening on the ground and look at where and how it’s going wrong – which it is for many people.”
Sue Bott, head of policy and research at Disability Rights UK, said: “With disabled people making up one-fifth of the population, clearly some of them, for whatever reason, voted for the government of the day.
“The Conservatives made some limited pledges in their manifesto, including working to deal with the social care crisis through a cross-party approach, halving the disability employment gap and ending the need for repeat assessments for benefits.
“We will be holding them to these commitments and arguing for them to go much further to secure our rights.”
Simone Aspis, policy and campaigns coordinator for The Alliance for Inclusive Education, said she believed the cuts that were driving the attack on disabled people’s rights were “ideological” and “malicious”, with cuts to support for inclusive education but more money for segregated schools, and cuts to social care budgets but investment in institutional care settings.
She said: “It’s about taking resources out of oppressive and damaging, segregated services and moving it into resourcing fantastic infrastructural support systems for disabled people that includes the provision of inclusive education provision.
“The government talks about being a One Nation and a People’s Government.
“It can only be that if there is a big shift towards the development of an infrastructural support system that supports our right to independent living, including inclusive education, whilst having a deadline (just like Brexit) to get us out of institutionalised and segregated settings, and which is co-produced.”
19 December 2019
Election post-mortem: Number of disabled MPs may have fallen to just five
Disabled campaigners have called for action after last week’s general election appears to have left the House of Commons with just five disabled MPs.
Before the election, there were only seven MPs who have at some point self-described as disabled people, but one of them – Liberal Democrat Stephen Lloyd – lost his seat, while another – Jared O’Mara – did not stand again.
It appears to leave parliament with just five disabled MPs – Labour’s Marsha de Cordova, Emma Lewell-Buck and Marie Rimmer, and Conservatives Robert Halfon and Paul Maynard – although it may emerge that some of the many new MPs also self-describe as disabled people.
Disabled campaigners were responding to questions from Disability News Service about the future direction of the disabled people’s movement, following last week’s election result.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “The lack of representation of our communities in parliament is shocking but not a surprise – it’s another symptom of our continued marginalisation and exclusion.
“We begin to change this by removing the barriers and addressing the material factors that stop Deaf and disabled candidates being able to stand for selection and campaign during election periods.”
This can include the extra impairment-related costs faced by disabled candidates, such as British Sign Language interpreters, personal assistants and taxis.
Lazard said a first and “crucial” step was for the government to reopen the Access to Elected Office Fund (AEOF).
AEOF was set up in 2012, and funded disability-related costs for parliamentary and other elections, but it was closed by the Conservatives after the 2015 general election.
In response to a legal case brought by three disabled politicians, the government was forced to set up a temporary, partial replacement, the EnAble fund, but that runs out in March, and it was not open to disabled candidates standing in the general election (see separate story).
Mark Williams, from Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living, called for training for potential disabled MPs.
He said: “Over the next few years we will have to train disabled people on how to become MPs and at the same time try to knock down barriers within the system, to make it more accessible for disabled people to be in parliament. This will take quite a lot of training.”
Sue Bott, head of policy and research at Disability Rights UK, said: “We will have to wait for the details, but on the face of it, it is disappointing to see so few disabled MPs.
“We will be arguing for disabled candidates to have their support needs met at elections, which was not the case for this general election.”
Deborah King, co-founder of Disability Politics UK, called for a change in the law to allow MPs to job share, which should make it easier for many disabled people to consider becoming MPs.
She said: “The House of Commons needs to examine the terms and conditions for standing as an MP.
“Many disabled people cannot meet the requirement to work as an MP on a full-time basis. Neither can many women, carers or entrepreneurs.
“The tiny number of disabled MPs in the Commons means that disability issues are not given proper consideration, so changing the law to enable MPs to job share is a way of making the Commons more democratic and effective.”
Mel Close, chief executive of Disability Equality North West, said that – in addition to programmes to support disabled people to become MPs – the entire political structure needed to become more accessible, or disabled MPs would “fail when they get there”.
Simone Aspis, policy and campaigns coordinator for The Alliance for Inclusive Education, said the number of disabled MPs in the new parliament was “very disappointing”.
But she said it was also crucial to have disabled MPs who “support the values and aims and honour the commitments of the [disabled people’s] movement”.
She said: “Sadly, from ALLFIE’s perspective, our experience – other than with Marsha – has been there has been no difference around promoting inclusive education as a result of disabled MPs.
“All the ones we have engaged with, other than Marsha, have supported segregated education.”
19 December 2019
Election post-mortem: Frustration over campaign failure to focus on disability
The media and political parties are to blame for the failure of disability issues to feature prominently in the lead-up to the general election, disabled campaigners have suggested.
Issues like independent living, the accessible housing crisis, inclusive education and the disability benefit assessment process featured only rarely in election debates, discussions, and the national media.
Campaigners were responding to questions from Disability News Service about the future direction of the disabled people’s movement, following last week’s election result.
Denise McKenna, co-founder of the Mental Health Resistance Network, said: “We now have to be challenging the media far more strongly than we have been, and demanding that they give us space to be heard.”
But she also called for less focus by disabled activists on the “echo chamber” of social media, which she said resulted in “preaching to the converted”.
She added: “We will have to think about different ways of getting the message out and reduce our total reliance on social media, strengthening our community and finding ways of getting into mainstream media.”
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said: “Inclusion London has been dismayed and disappointed by the lack of coverage and conversation about disabled people’s rights and issues during the election campaign.”
She said this meant it was now “more urgent than ever” that the government, across all departments, committed to “working strategically and in partnership” with disabled people’s organisations.
She said this would be vital in the development of the Conservative manifesto pledge to produce a national strategy for disabled people by the end of 2020, and the work to build a consensus on the future of long-term social care and independent living.
Sue Bott, head of policy and research at Disability Rights UK, said: “The level of debate about disability rights was minimal during the election campaign and even when hustings were organised to give disabled people an opportunity to question the political parties, they were cancelled because of the failure of most them to engage.
“We need to work in a non-party political way to raise awareness and understanding of the general public of our human and political rights.”
Mark Williams, from Bristol Reclaiming Independent Living, said: “We have to start now to educate all political parties on our needs and make sure we are in the planning process right from day one when political parties are thinking about ideas.”
Mel Close, chief executive of Disability Equality North West, said disabled people had to keep pushing their agenda.
She said: “We keep going, keep fighting, keep working alongside whoever will listen and we challenge when they don’t.”
Andrew Lee, director of People First (Self Advocacy), said: “We need to ask questions. We should write to our MPs and ask them to question parliament about how they will speak up for people with disabilities.
“Constituents in self-advocacy groups could meet their MPs and ask the questions.”
19 December 2019
DWP silence after PIP success rate plunges by a fifth in just a year
The likelihood of being awarded the government’s new disability benefit has plunged by more than a fifth in just a year, official figures have revealed.
The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) figures, released the day after the election, show that new claimants are 21 per cent less likely to be awarded personal independence (PIP) than they were last year.
They show that 42 per cent of new claims that were cleared in October 2018 were awarded some level of PIP, but that fell to just 33 per cent of new PIP claims cleared in October 2019.
The figures also show a sharp drop over the latest three months of this year, from 41 per cent of new claims cleared in July 2019 to 39 per cent in August, 35 per cent in September, and 33 per cent in October 2019*.
It is not clear why the award rate has fallen so sharply, although the suspicion is likely to be that it is just the latest attempt by government ministers to clamp down on spending on disabled people’s support.
The fall was not mirrored by the award rates for claimants of disability living allowance who have been reassessed for PIP.
Those figures showed that 69 per cent of reassessments that were cleared in October 2019 resulted in a PIP award of some kind, compared with 67 per cent in October 2018 and 70 per cent in October 2017.
The award rate figures have been overlooked this week by the media and disability charities, which focused instead on overall reassessment figures showing how more than 650,000 DLA recipients have either lost eligibility for all support, or had their benefits reduced, after being reassessed for PIP since DWP began rolling out the new benefit in 2013.
This added up to 46 per cent of the 1.4 million DLA reassessment claims that had been cleared by the end of October 2019 resulting in the disabled person having their benefits removed or cut.
Of those 1.4 million, about 25 per cent had their benefits stopped, with about 21 per cent having them cut.
Another 39 per cent had their benefits increased as a result of the PIP reassessment process.
The figures also showed that 29 per cent of former DLA cases registered were awarded PIP at the highest rate (enhanced daily living and enhanced mobility), compared with 16 per cent under DLA.
A DWP spokesperson refused to say whether the minister for disabled people, Justin Tomlinson, was concerned about the new award rate figures; whether he could explain why the award rate had plunged; and whether he would take any action to address this.
He also refused to say if Tomlinson was concerned about the overall number of people who had lost their support after being reassessed since 2013.
Instead, the spokesperson said in a statement: “The government now spends more than £55 billion every year to support disabled people, more than at any time under the DLA system; with more people benefitting from support through PIP than did under DLA.
“Most people get PIP after being reassessed from DLA. More than half have their award maintained or increased, with 29 per cent receiving the highest level of support compared to 16 per cent under DLA.”
Last month, Disability News Service (DNS) revealed that more than 100,000 disabled people receiving DLA had lost their Motability vehicles after being reassessed for PIP in the last six years.
DNS spent months investigating allegations of dishonesty by PIP assessors in late 2016 and throughout 2017, hearing eventually from more than 250 disabled people in less than a year about how they had been unfairly deprived of their benefits, with such cases still continuing to come in three years after that investigation began.
And in September, DNS revealed that PIP claimants are now almost twice as likely to win their tribunal appeal than DLA claimants were almost a decade ago.
*The figures show initial outcomes of claims before any mandatory reconsiderations or tribunal appeals
19 December 2019
Deaf election candidate plans legal action over government’s access costs refusal
A Deaf candidate in last week’s general election is planning to take legal action against the government after he had to raise thousands of pounds to cover the cost of sign language interpreters during the campaign.
Liberal Democrat David Buxton, who came second to Tory Damian Hinds in East Hampshire, believes he faced discrimination because of the government’s refusal to meet the impairment-related costs of disabled election candidates.
He also believes that this failure was a breach of his rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD).
Buxton calculated that he would have needed about £20,000 to pay for all the British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters he needed for a full election campaign, and to challenge his Tory opponent on a level playing-field.
But he was only able to raise about £5,000 and so had to cut back on his campaign plans, restricting his ability to meet and communicate with local voters.
Because of the government’s refusal to ensure this level playing-field, disabled parliamentary candidates like Buxton were forced to pay for costs such as BSL interpreters, personal assistants, assistive technology and taxi fares.
Although the Liberal Democrats were able to provide some financial support for Buxton, he had to meet most of the costs himself and through contributions from family and friends.
He told Disability News Service this week that he now planned to take legal action against the government.
He has contacted the same legal team that represented him and two other disabled politicians in their successful case against the government’s decision to close the Access to Election Office Fund (AEOF) in 2015.
They forced the government to set up the temporary EnAble fund after their lawyers warned that its failure to reopen AEOF breached the Equality Act.
AEOF was set up in 2012, following Liberal Democrat pressure on their Tory coalition partners, and it funded disability-related costs for candidates in parliamentary and other elections, before it was closed by the Conservatives after they won an overall majority at the 2015 general election.
The EnAble fund, which runs out in March, was not open to candidates standing in last week’s general election.
Buxton, who has been campaigning for a fund to support candidates with disability-related costs since 1990, said this week: “I have the right to campaign to be a Member of Parliament without oppression or restriction, without being forced to feel humiliated, the same as any other non-disabled candidate.
“I do not feel I was able to achieve my potential due to the lack of financial support and understanding.”
Another Deaf candidate, Labour’s Kerena Marchant, is also likely to be left thousands of pounds out of pocket after coming second to Tory Maria Miller – a former minister for disabled people – in Basingstoke.
Marchant received some financial support from a Labour party bursary, but the campaign is still likely to have cost her thousands of pounds in payments to BSL interpreters, while the funding uncertainty restricted her campaigning.
She backed Buxton’s decision to take legal action, although she said she could not afford to do so herself.
She said she believed the government had discriminated against her and other disabled candidates, although she was still determined to run again at the next election.
Marchant said: “My other worry is that this will prevent disabled people running for parliament and other public offices and force disabled people out of public life at a time when they most need this.”
Deborah King, co-founder of Disability Politics UK, said: “Disability Politics UK strongly supports legal action to ensure the government complies with the UNCRPD.
“Disabled people’s access to elected office is vital to make sure that politics is truly representative. I hope the courts will grant an effective remedy in this case.”
A Government Equalities Office spokesperson said: “We do not accept that the UK government is in breach of the UNCRPD or the Equality Act in its management of the EnAble Fund.
“We have always been clear that this is an interim fund, intended to give political parties room to establish their own processes.
“They were fully informed that the fund was for a limited period, and strongly encouraged to put support for their candidates in place.”
GEO said political parties were told this more than a year ago and that in April 2019 the then minister for women and equalities, Penny Mordaunt, wrote to them asking what processes they had put in place.
19 December 2019
Ministers allow transport industry to break access laws… again
The government has given the transport industry permission to breach disability access laws for the second time in a month.
A letter sent to rail companies last week by the Department for Transport (DfT) will allow them to continue using inaccessible rail replacement vehicles.
The deadline for providers to stop using older vehicles that do not comply with the Public Service Vehicle Accessibility Regulations 2000 (PSVAR) falls at the end of this month.
Accessible transport experts have criticised the industry for failing to prepare for the deadline, despite having 20 years to do so.
But they also say that rail companies have been ignoring their legal duties to provide accessible rail replacement vehicles for years.
Now DfT has written to the rail industry to provide a one-month exemption from PSVAR for buses and coaches used as rail replacement services when train companies need to scrap services because of engineering works or other disruption.
It says in the letter: “We have become aware that there is a significant shortage of PSVAR-compliant vehicles for [train operating companies] to procure in order to provide rail replacement services currently, or from 1st January 2020 onwards.
“In order to address this issue, the Department has decided to offer all operators of public service vehicles for the purposes of carrying out rail replacement services, whether due to planned or unplanned disruption, a temporary exemption from PSVAR.”
The companies will still have to provide accessible and “readily available” alternative transport, such as taxis, if they have to take advantage of the exemption, to “avoid unnecessary and extended waiting periods for passengers who require such alternative accessible transport”.
Campaigners have pointed out previously that offering an accessible taxi is often not an appropriate alternative because of their shortage in most parts of the country.
It is the second time DfT has granted an exemption from PSVAR to the transport industry in less than a month.
During the general election campaign, ministers gave permission to providers of home-to-school services to continue running inaccessible buses and coaches for at least two years, and possibly up to four.
The rail replacement concerns were highlighted earlier this year by accessible transport campaigner Doug Paulley, who forced the rail regulator to take legal advice on whether rail replacement vehicles had to be accessible to disabled people.
That advice stated that, with a few minor exceptions, all rail replacement vehicles must be accessible, and the train companies, and their bus or coach providers, were at risk of criminal prosecution if they were not.
But Paulley said he doubted if there would be enough accessible buses or coaches for rail companies to hire, which would put them at risk of prosecution.
He said this week: “I have been made aware by several small public transport operators of this decision by the DfT.
“The DfT didn’t see fit to tell me, even though it was through me pursuing the issue of accessibility of rail replacement buses that it has come to a head, and even though I have been in active dialogue with the DfT on it over the last several weeks.
“It seems to me extraordinary and utterly unacceptable that they have made the decision in such a manner.
“Rail replacement services should be accessible to everybody. The law is clear that rail replacement services are covered by the regulations; but even if it wasn’t, it is an obvious moral, social model obligation to make services accessible to disabled people – as backed up by statutory guidance specifically requiring the industry work towards such.
“It is a scandal that the industry has been caught with its pants down in this regard, and is now facing a massive scramble to avoid being punished for failure to prepare for this criminal law duty.
“It is even more scandalous that the DfT are bending over backwards to allow this to happen.
“I am concerned what other measures the DfT may be considering, given that the exemption only lasts for one month.
“I am in active conversation with my legal advisors on the issue, considering what actions to take to combat this shameful failure to uphold disabled people’s legal and moral right to the same miserable rail disruption experiences as every other passenger.”
DfT was not able to comment by 1pm today (Thursday).
19 December 2019
Iconic activist warns of threats to rights after ‘horrific’ election result
One of the leading figures in the history of the disabled people’s movement has called on activists to “shout their outrage from the rooftops” after last week’s “horrific” general election result.
Maggie Davis says she believes the result will lead to further attacks on rights and increased pressure on disabled people to be forced to move into segregated institutions.
She was speaking on the publication of a new book, To and From Grove Road, which describes her key role in some of the most significant moments in the movement’s history.
While setting up the ground-breaking Grove Road accessible housing project in Nottinghamshire in the 1970s, and living in accommodation in nearby Derbyshire, she and her husband Ken also came up with the idea for DIAL – the first telephone advice and information line provided by and for disabled people – as a result of the problems they had had searching for disability-related information.
They set up DIAL in an unused cloakroom, with a single telephone, both provided by Derbyshire County Council, and with help from disabled colleagues.
DIAL also laid the foundations for the country’s first coalition of disabled people, Derbyshire Coalition of Disabled People, again with support from Derbyshire County Council, and Derbyshire Centre for Integrated Living.
Maggie and Ken Davis also helped set up the pioneering Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation (UPIAS) in the early 1970s.
She told Disability News Service this week that she feared much of what they helped to achieve could now be at risk, following successive Conservative-led governments.
She said: “I think we all feel very proud of what we did but we are desolate about what we think we know is going to happen and that they will destroy it all.”
At the time they were working on Grove Road, though, there was no time for pride, she said. “There was no time for self congratulations, and there was no place for it, it was just something that needed to be done.
“If we didn’t do it, nobody would. It was just hard work. It was a struggle for everybody, but it was galvanising at the time. “
Davis says she has seen many of the achievements of the disabled people’s movement being “devastated” by the austerity policies of successive Conservative-led governments, which she says have seen disabled and older people as just a drain on resources.
She said: “If no action is taken, then we could quite easily end up where we began, being incarcerated away from society out of sight and out of the public mind.”
She says she can see herself “cornered and frightened like a rabbit in the headlights”, and she says she believes they “just don’t want disabled people around”.
To and From Grove Road describes how Maggie and Ken Davis finally moved into the independent living housing project in 1976 after designing it from scratch and fighting to complete it for over four years.
Grove Road was a new building with three ground-floor flats designed for wheelchair-users, and three flats on the first floor for volunteer non-disabled tenants who would provide personal assistance support on a rota basis for the disabled people living on the ground floor.
It was not a complicated idea, she says. “As there was no support in society, our concept for Grove Road was simple: specially-designed flats with good technical aids and able-bodied people for extra support as and when needed.”
This was years before the introduction of the Independent Living Fund, direct payments and other funding mechanisms that would in the future allow many disabled people to live in their own homes with personal assistance.
The book also describes how Maggie Davis struggled for nearly a decade to escape from a series of segregated residential units and care homes – which she describes as “tarted-up Poor Law institutions” – after becoming disabled in 1967, including one in which she experienced and witnessed physical and emotional abuse.
In an article she wrote in 1983, reproduced in the book, the former nurse said: “Society had incarcerated me because they thought and still do – that institutions were the right places for people like me.
“For me the natural place was out there in society playing an active part, as I had always done, in the community.”
She says now: “I had not realised that people were shut away and incarcerated into institutions until it happened to me.”
She also wrote in that article: “We are social beings, it is offensive and wrong to remove us from society and treat us as sub-humans.”
A quarter of a century later, she describes this segregation and treatment of disabled people as “criminal”.
She wrote in 1983 that “integrated” living was the way that disabled people could rejoin society, with “real control” over their lives, and see “segregated residential institutions… thrown into the garbage can of history”.
After Grove Road, the couple secured a mortgage and a grant to buy and adapt – including installing a through-ceiling lift – a semi-detached home of their own in Derbyshire, where Maggie Davis still lives, despite Ken’s death in 2008, with funding that enables her to continue to live independently in her own home.
But she looks at the last decade of government austerity and is “terrified” about whether she will continue to receive the funding she needs for 24-7 support.
“With the constant eroding of funding, I am in constant fear of this being removed and me being forced back into institutional care, which I would not allow,” she says.
“It’s just horrendous. I can see it being taken away from me and being taken away from us. Every time they come to do an assessment, they try to take a bit more off me.
“With the result of the election, the feeling of impending doom has become more of a reality. The terror has been unleashed.”
She sees this as partly the result of years of government rhetoric which has suggested that disabled people are a drain on society’s resources, while charities continue to push the idea of segregated institutions, while “feeding off the public” with their charity shops.
She says: “I just think they want to put people in old people’s homes because they think it’s cheaper, when we all know that it’s not cheaper.”
Now she is appealing to disabled activists to “shout their outrage from the rooftops” about the government’s austerity policies and the creeping return to segregated, institutional living, and find a way to overturn the “internalised disablism” of the mainstream media and convince it to publicise their fight for rights.
To and From Grove Road is the first time that Davis’s own accounts of how she became disabled, the 10 years she spent in institutions, and how she and her husband eventually set up the Grove Road project, have been published.
The book also includes a series of photographs and extracts from key documents.
Davis said she agreed to the book being published because she did not want the history of the disabled people’s movement to be lost or forgotten, particularly by younger disabled people.
The book has been published by Tony Baldwinson, a long-time ally of the disabled people’s movement, through the same TBR imprint that published Judy Hunt’s radical history of the disabled people’s movement, No Limits, in July.
*For details on how to order the book, which costs £4.99 for a paperback or is free via a PDF download, visit Tony Baldwinson’s website
19 December 2019
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
Too exhausted, depressed, angry & more to respond in detail. But the one thing I do want to add, is that most of the electorate don’t care about many things, except Brexit & this isn’t new to this election we’ve just had. But disability, long term illness is so far down their agenda, thoughts, despite all the great work DPAC & other groups, supporters/allies have done in the last few years. Sadly, many people are selfish & in their own bubble, after decades of neoliberal policies.
I watched some pre & post election coverage from youtube, online, independent media, including Novara Media. All of these programmes & debates covered many topics, but don’t recall disability, social care for under age 65 groups, discrimination, hate crime, hostile environment, being on any of these. The thousands of deaths, sanctioning by DWP, bedroom tax & more. They talked about renting property, BAEM groups , but not us. How can we fight the establishment, if even left leaning, independent media doesn’t even consider us?