Labour ignored safety concerns ‘for two years’ before near-miss on conference ramp
A wheelchair-user could easily have lost his life in front of hundreds of delegates to the Labour conference, after the party ignored years of safety warnings about the ramp used to access the speakers’ platform, say disabled activists.
There was an audible gasp in the auditorium on Sunday afternoon as powerchair-user James Driver nearly toppled off the narrow ramp as he tried to leave the platform, following a short speech opposing changes to the party’s constitution (see separate story).
Labour is now facing questions over its commitment to the safety of disabled members, following years of concerns raised about its attitude to disability equality within the party.
Less than 12 months ago, Labour was warned that it faced possible legal action over years of disability discrimination within the party, after reneging on plans to hold a national disability conference and set up a committee of disabled members.
Disability News Service (DNS) has been told that Disability Labour first raised concerns about the safety of the ramp – and the need for a barrier and handrail on both sides – at the 2021 conference in Brighton, and again at last year’s conference in Liverpool.
It also brought the issue to the attention of party chair Anneliese Dodds two months before this year’s conference, and again last week with the team organising the conference.
Emily Pomroy-Smith, who fought South-West Wiltshire for Labour at the 2019 general election and is herself a wheelchair-user, raised the issue as a point of order the morning after the incident.
She told delegates that she was again “calling out the disgraceful disregard for disabled members at this conference”.
She said: “Disability Labour have asked the conference arrangements committee for a barrier and a rail on the ramp multiple times.
“Please can you confirm that you will finally listen to us. We were lucky this time. I don’t want us to be lucky, I want us to be safe.”
She told DNS later: “He could have been killed.
“We knew this was an accident waiting to happen and it wasn’t dealt with.”
Jonathan Farr, treasurer of Disability Labour, said the incident should have been logged as a “near miss” under RIDDOR health and safety regulations.
RIDDOR requires employers and “other people in charge of work premises” to “report and keep records of incidents with the potential to cause harm”.
Farr agreed with Pomroy-Smith that Driver “could have been killed”.
He said: “Disability Labour have been telling the party about this since at least the last Brighton conference two years ago.”
But he said the party had been insisting that the ramp met the relevant “regulations”.
DNS has been unable to contact Driver this week.
Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, told DNS there would be meetings about the ramp issue after the conference.
The party had failed by noon today (Thursday) to explain why it repeatedly failed to listen to Disability Labour about the ramp safety concerns, whether the incident on Sunday had been reported under the RIDDOR regulations, and whether the concerns would now be acted on.
12 October 2023
Ministers ignored Covid care home warning at start of pandemic, inquiry hears
Two ministers failed to respond when a disabled people’s organisation warned at the start of the pandemic that new government guidance would not be enough to protect care home residents, the Covid public inquiry has heard.
Disability Rights UK (DR UK) warned the ministers that the government’s advice “does not take full account of the ease of transmission of this virus within confined communities”.
The inquiry heard this week that Disability Rights UK (DR UK) had written on 16 March 2020 to Justin Tomlinson, the minister for disabled people, and social care minister Helen Whately, with a series of concerns.
They warned that the guidance for the care sector in England was not strong enough to protect disabled people in care homes or those disabled people receiving care and support in their own homes.
But a civil servant who responded to the letter – on behalf of Tomlinson and Whately – failed to respond to those concerns.
A month after the DR UK letter, reports began to emerge that thousands of care home residents in England had died after being infected with Covid.
By then, the government had decided to discharge 25,000 NHS patients into care homes without first testing them for coronavirus – in the period up to 15 April – a decision described three months later by the Commons public accounts committee as an “appalling error”.
Between 9 March and 17 May, around 5,900 care homes, more than a third of those across England, reported at least one outbreak of coronavirus.
Kamran Mallick, DR UK’s chief executive, told the inquiry on Monday that his organisation had been “extremely worried” about the impact of the government’s plans and told Tomlinson and Whately in the letter that they needed to do much more to stop the virus spreading.
DR UK also called for funding for isolation areas, advice to protect people giving and receiving care, and the training of new care workers, while also raising concerns about benefits.
When the government responded (PDF) to the letter – through a civil servant – the reply only discussed the benefits issue, other than promising the government would “do whatever it takes to support people affected by coronavirus” and would “keep the situation under review” and “keep Parliament updated”.
Mallick told the inquiry that the government’s response had been “incredibly disappointing”.
On the day he gave evidence this week, disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) and activists were outside the inquiry to protest about the government’s handling of the pandemic and its impact on older and disabled people.
They included representatives from WinVisible, Inclusion London, Disabled People Against Cuts and DR UK.
Claire Glasman, from WinVisible, said it had been “absolutely shocking” to see how the government had “completely dismissed” Mallick’s letter.
Rensa Gaunt, from Inclusion London, told the protest: “Many of us died not because of COVID but because our essential care and treatment was withdrawn without consideration.
“Unless lessons are learned, this will happen again.”
Paula Peters, from DPAC, said that thousands of disabled people did not have the internet access they needed to request support during the pandemic “and they were abandoned, left to isolate at home.
“We want justice for every single disabled person and older person left to die as a result of government policies.”
Mallick had also told the inquiry how Tomlinson set up a new forum of DPOs, which he called the DPO Forum, in the summer of 2020.
But the forum only met twice, in July and August, with further monthly meetings that had been planned for the next six months never taking place.
The DPOs didn’t meet Tomlinson again until May 2022.
In a written statement to the inquiry, Mallick said: “As a result, there was no line of communication between the DPO Forum and central government for around 18 months, which left a vacuum at a time of national crisis when ongoing consultation and engagement was vital.”
He told the inquiry that he had suggested to Tomlinson that DR UK’s Our Voices group of DPOs could meet the Disability Unit every two months, but that offer was rejected.
Instead, the government suggested that a planned meeting of the forum due to take place in February 2021 would be replaced with individual and small group meetings with forum members, but Mallick said in his written statement: “This did not happen.”
His statement added: “From the statements, decisions and actions of the UK Government throughout the crisis, considerations relating to Disabled people appeared to be largely disregarded.
“There were no consultation arrangements which allowed for the views of Disabled people or our organisations to be properly heard before decisions were made.”
The inquiry also heard on Monday from two disabled academics, Professor Tom Shakespeare, professor of disability research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Professor Nick Watson, professor of disability research at the University of Glasgow and director of the university’s Centre for Disability Research.
They have produced a joint report for the inquiry on structural inequalities and disability.
The two academics told the inquiry that government decision-making and the measures it imposed had a direct impact on the day-to-day lives of disabled people, who were disproportionately affected by that impact.
Professor Shakespeare said disabled people were “an afterthought in many of the provisions”.
He said: “They were not centrally thought about, and therefore they were excluded from measures that were taken to protect the general population.”
He agreed that government measures such as social restrictions, lockdown orders, stay-at-home orders and social distancing did not appear to have paid any regard to disabled people.
12 October 2023
Labour pledges to scrap Tory plans to tighten ‘fitness for work’ test
Labour has pledged to scrap Conservative plans to tighten the work capability assessment – reforms described by disabled activists as “cynical” and “horrendously dangerous” – if it wins power at the next election.
Although Labour offered almost no information at its party conference this week about its plans to reform social security if it wins the next general election, Disability News Service (DNS) has been told that it has ruled out proposals announced last month by work and pensions secretary Mel Stride.
Under his plans, currently out for consultation, the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) would no longer take any account of whether a disabled person has a mobility impairment when deciding if they were fit for work through a work capability assessment (WCA).
Ministers also want to remove the absence of bowel or bladder control, the inability to cope with social interaction, and the inability to access a location outside the claimant’s home from the list of activities and “descriptors” used in the WCA.
And Stride is considering removing protective guidance which currently states that a claimant should be found eligible for the highest rate of support – with no conditions or potential sanctions – if work or work-related activity would create a substantial risk to their health.
But Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, told DNS this week in Liverpool: “We won’t be following through on that. No.”
Labour’s position on other Conservative proposals, announced earlier this year in its Transforming Support white paper, is less clear, with Liz Kendall only appointed shadow work and pensions secretary little over a month ago.
Foxcroft said that Stride’s plans to scrap the WCA and instead use the much-criticised personal independence payment assessment system to decide eligibility for out-of-work disability benefits was not Labour policy, or at least “not in that way”.
She said Labour had not yet decided if it would follow the Tories and scrap the WCA and rely on PIP assessments.
But Foxcroft did say that she did not like the Conservative plan for jobcentre work coaches with no healthcare experience to decide whether a disabled person was able to carry out work-related activity.
She said Labour’s plans for social security were partly on hold because they wanted to wait until they met senior DWP civil servants for confidential briefings (PDF), roughly six months before the next general election.
She said Labour did not yet know “what the universal credit computer systems can do and what they have got the potential to do”, and they would not find out until they have these meetings.
She stressed again that Labour wanted “a fairer system, we want one that’s more compassionate, we don’t want one where disabled people feel fear of the DWP in terms of any interaction.
“We need to get rid of that culture of fear, but it won’t happen overnight, and it won’t happen if we don’t do this by working with disabled people about how we do that, because there’s already a complete lack of trust [in DWP].”
Foxcroft said a Labour government would reform the assessment process and would do it in co-production with disabled people “because otherwise we’re not going to get it right”.
Kendall’s speech to the annual conference contained almost no social security policy detail, with vague pledges to “transform employment support so it’s tailored to individual and local needs”, make “sweeping changes to jobcentres”, “reform universal credit” and “champion equality for disabled people”.
Foxcroft defended the lack of policy detail in her new boss’s speech, saying she “didn’t have very long to speak”.
Foxcroft was also unable to say whether a Labour government would order a public inquiry into deaths linked to DWP’s actions.
Evidence stretching back more than a decade has shown how DWP repeatedly ignored recommendations to improve the safety of its disability benefits assessment system, leading to hundreds, and probably thousands, of avoidable deaths of disabled claimants.
It also shows how DWP ensured that key evidence linking its actions with those deaths was not considered by the independent reviews it commissioned into the assessments.
Disabled activists and relatives of those who have died – backed by DNS – have repeatedly called for a statutory public inquiry into the deaths.
But although Labour shadow ministers have met with relatives, the party has refused to promise a public inquiry if it wins power, although it did do so under the previous leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.
A report by Labour’s National Policy Forum, which will form the basis for its general election manifesto and was approved by conference delegates this week, includes no mention of an inquiry.
Asked how a party committed to social justice could refuse to hold an inquiry, Foxcroft said the decision would be “one for Liz” and that as she was new in post it might be a few months before she could make a decision.
She said: “A big inquiry like that… I think we need to keep the dialogue going with the families.”
12 October 2023
Labour admits dropping disability rights pledge from policy plan
Labour has finally admitted that it is not currently planning to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) into UK law if it wins power at the next general election.
The admission was made by the party’s shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft, after concerns over Labour’s failure to include the pledge in an influential policy document.
Activists from Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) were outside the Labour conference in Liverpool this week to raise awareness of the issue among party members and to call on a Labour government to “make UNCRPD law”, a policy that is part of the new Disabled People’s Manifesto.
Disability News Service (DNS) reported last month that Labour policy documents failed to include its previous pledge to incorporate the convention into UK law.
Instead, the National Policy Forum (NPF) report, which will form the basis for Labour’s general election manifesto and was approved by delegates this week, refers only to the party honouring its “commitments” to the convention and ensuring that its “principles are reflected across government”.
There is no mention in the report of implementing the convention into UK law, which disabled activists believe would have a transformative impact on disabled people’s rights, for example by providing rights to independent living, inclusive education, an adequate standard of living, and freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, who has repeated the pledge to implement the convention into UK law at least twice in the last 12 months, would only tell a Disability Labour fringe event this week that the party would “honour our commitments” to the UN convention.
She later told DNS that “the wording in the NPF is the wording at the moment.”
That wording is: “We will honour our commitments to the United Nations’ Convention for the Rights of Disabled People and ensure its principles are reflected across government to create policies which remove barriers to equality and focus on disabled people’s representation at all levels of government.”
Foxcroft then added: “We’ve still got time until the next [election].
“I think it’s one of those where in government you have to hold us to account in terms of whether we are actually committed to it.”
When DNS asked for a definitive position on whether a Labour government would – currently – implement the convention into UK law, she admitted: “It doesn’t say that at the moment.”
Rick Burgess, from Manchester DPAC, one of those protesting outside the conference on Tuesday, said the current situation, without UNCRPD implemented in UK law, means that “ultimately, our rights remain negotiable on a case-by-case basis”.
If the convention was incorporated into UK law, disabled people would be able to use the legal system to defend their rights, and policy-making processes would have to pay regard to the convention.
He said: “It lifts everything to a higher level of rights-based policy-making.”
Burgess said DPAC was “calling for the UNCRPD to be brought into law by whoever wins the general election”.
He said: “It’s particularly important with Labour because they did have a commitment to bring it into law and they seem to have dropped that.
“Between now and the election we have to try and get a promise that we can hold them to, that they will bring it into law.”
He said there was now a “window of opportunity” because it was always harder to extract such promises from parties once they are elected.
He said: “Disabled people will support them if they make it law.”
Another DPAC activist at the protest, Rhi, from Liverpool, said attention had rightly been focused on the Conservatives in government but it was also important to push Labour because it had “back-stepped on commitments they have made”.
She said the convention had a vital role in areas such as accessible housing – which she said was a “real problem” – and social care.
12 October 2023
Labour still ‘not sure’ on care charges, 12 months after ‘working on it’ pledge
Labour has dodged a promise made 12 months ago that it would produce a policy on whether it would reduce or scrap care charges if it wins power at the next general election.
Shadow health and social care secretary Wes Streeting promised the party was “working on it”, when asked by Disability News Service (DNS) 12 months ago what a Labour government would promise on care charges during its first term in government.
But – a year on – there was no mention of care charges in Streeting’s speech to conference yesterday (Wednesday).
Instead, he said a Labour government would “grip the immediate crisis in social care, starting with the workforce”, providing a “New Deal for Care Workers” as the “first step on our 10-year plan for a National Care Service”.
When DNS asked the new shadow social care minister Andrew Gwynne earlier in the week what progress had been made in the last 12 months, he said he had only been in the job for four weeks and still needed a “handover” on policy from his predecessor, Liz Kendall, who has been promoted to shadow work and pensions secretary.
Only minutes earlier, Gwynne had been telling an enthusiastic fringe meeting – organised by the Future Social Care Coalition – that he wanted to be remembered by Labour party members as “the Nye Bevan of the 21st century” for building a new National Care Service if Labour wins power.
But Gwynne made no mention of care charges in his speech – focusing instead on “professionalising” social care and supporting carers – even though the party has been told repeatedly that tens of thousands of disabled people every year are having debt collection action taken against them over unpaid care charges, and that disabled people view charges as “a tax on disability”.
Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham – who has supported the disabled people’s campaign to abolish care charges, part of the new Disabled People’s Manifesto – told the meeting that social care should be provided “free at the point of use”.
He said: “I think it’s absolutely an abomination actually that any disabled person has to pay charges for the support that they receive.
“Let’s take away the fear of that cost from social care.”
When told by DNS after his speech that disabled people view care charges as a tax on disability and that the issue was causing widespread concern, Gwynne said: “I get that. It’s something I am acutely aware of as being an issue.”
Speaking just yards from where Streeting made his promise to DNS 12 months ago, on Liverpool’s Mann Island dockside area, he said the issue had been raised with him by Vicky Foxcroft, the shadow minister for disabled people, “about how we get some kind of recognition of this issue into the policy-making process ahead of the manifesto”.
He said: “I’m aware of it and I will look at it. In terms of where Liz left off on this, I’m not sure yet.
“I’ve got to sit down with Liz, she’s doing a handover with me on a whole range of policies.”
His failure to offer any progress since last year’s pledge by Streeting follows a report by DNS which revealed that documents that will form the basis of the party’s next general election manifesto included no reference to scrapping care charges.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats have promised to introduce free personal care for all adults if they win power at the next general election, although there are question-marks over key details of their pledge.
When DNS suggested that the care charges issue did not seem to be a priority for the party, Gwynne said: “Disabled people will always be a priority.
“What I’ve got to do is work out how the policy has been developed since you spoke to Wes and what steps I need to do to take that policy forward.”
He added: “You’ve caught me on the hoof about a specific issue.
“I need to sit down with Liz and go through all the policy handover and work out where the policy’s at and it may well be that there has to be discussions with the shadow Treasury team.
“I can’t make spending commitments on a dockside.”
12 October 2023
‘Shocking’ disability hate crime figures, a year on from police and CPS promises
The number of prosecutions of disability hate crime offences has slumped yet again, despite both the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and police chiefs admitting last year that their performance was not good enough and must improve.
Last year, CPS hate crime lead Lionel Idan told Disability News Service (DNS) that figures on disability hate crime prosecutions made for “woeful reading”, and he pledged to “move every stone I can” to improve them.
Mark Hamilton, hate crime lead for the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), told DNS last year that the performance of police forces across the country in providing justice for victims of disability hate crime was “not good enough” and needed to improve.
And yet the latest figures show that the number of prosecutions and convictions has continued to slide.
Following the release of annual figures from the Home Office, which show the number of recorded hate crime offences for 2022-23, DNS has analysed CPS figures to show how its performance for 2022-23 – and that of police forces – compares with 2021-22.
DNS has now been raising concerns for five years about the plummeting number of cases being passed to CPS by police, and the falling number of disability hate crime prosecutions.
Home Office statistics for police forces across England and Wales* show that the number of disability hate crimes recorded fell slightly in 2022-23, compared with 2021-22, from 13,905 to 13,777, the first recorded fall since the data series began in 2011-12.
But figures from 30 of the police forces also show that the percentage of offences that led to a charge or summons was far lower for those cases flagged as disability hate crimes than for those seen as non-hate crime offences.
With offences of “violence against the person”, just one per cent of those flagged as a disability hate crime led to a charge or summons, compared with five per cent of non-hate crime cases.
With public order offences, just two per cent of those flagged as a disability hate crime led to a charge or summons, compared with six per cent of non-hate crime cases, and 14 per cent of those that were flagged as sexual orientation hate crimes.
But CPS figures also show that the number of prosecutions of disability hate crime offences fell by about 10 per cent in the year to 2022-23, from 345 to just 311, with successful convictions falling from 273 to 245, also about 10 per cent.
This will have been heavily influenced by how few cases are passed to CPS by police, with forces passing on only 269 disability hate crime cases last year, although that was an increase on the 243 passed on in 2021-22.
As recently as 2016-17, CPS was completing 1,009 prosecutions of disability hate crimes, more than three times as many as there were last year, while police were passing on nearly 1,000 disability hate crime cases to CPS.
But these figures have been falling sharply in recent years.
By 2018-19 the number of cases passed to CPS had plunged to 367, and it kept dropping, to 320 in 2019-20, to 298 in 2020-21 and to just 243 across the whole of England and Wales in 2021-22, before rising last year to just 269.
The CPS figures mean that prosecutions as a proportion of total disability hate crimes recorded by police in 2022-23 was just 2.26 per cent, even without figures for Devon and Cornwall police.
That means that in 2016-17, there were about 5,400 disability hate crime offences recorded by police and 1,009 prosecutions, compared with 13,777 disability hate crimes recorded by police and only 311 prosecutions in 2022-23.
Tracey Lazard, chief executive of Inclusion London, said the figures were “shocking but not surprising” and yet again revealed “the depth and extent of disablism within our police forces and wider criminal justice system”.
She said: “We are rightly at a crossroads in policing and the criminal justice system in relation to racism, misogyny and homophobia.
“Disablism must be understood and explicitly addressed alongside these other institutional forms of oppression and discrimination.
“The barriers that prevent victims of disability hate crime getting justice are institutional, systemic and complex.
“We need root and branch reform to dismantle these barriers and tackle disablism, so we can better prevent and respond to disability hate crime.”
She added: “Action must be strategic and systems wide, including mandatory disability equality training for police forces and the CPS, re-instatement and roll out of initiatives such as Disability Hate Crime Matters that directly lead to improved recording of disability hate crime and in-depth engagement and co-production with DDPOs**.
“Equally important is long-term investment in DDPO/community-based work to tackle the chronic under-reporting of DHC and ensure adequate provision of hate crime advocacy services to support victims of DHC.”
Dr David Wilkin, a disabled activist, researcher, author and support worker for victims of disability hate crime, said the number of cases referred to CPS by police “remains an unacceptably poor rate” and appeared “inexplicable”.
He said there was an urgent need to investigate the causes of the figures.
Asked why police forces were still passing so few disability hate crime cases to CPS when there were so many recorded offences, the National Police Chiefs’ Council said it would not have time to comment, despite being given three days to do so.
CPS declined to explain why it thought its figures had continued to worsen, despite its past promise to try to improve.
But Lionel Idan, chief crown prosecutor for London South and CPS hate crime lead, said in a statement: “Hate crime directed at people with disabilities is abhorrent and we recognise the wider corrosive impact they have on our communities.
“Our commitment to tackling disability hate crime remains unwavering and there is more that needs to be done to drive up the number of referrals and prosecutions.
“This year, our joint National Hate Crime Conference focused on disability hate crime and we have also held a national scrutiny panel on disability hate crime, with academics in attendance, to help inform our joint approach to improving outcomes for disabled victims of hate crime.
“Our local involvement and scrutiny panels and external consultation group on hate crime continue to enable us to review how we prosecute cases of disability hate crime and to identify future learning and best practice.
“In cases where our legal test is met, we have issued a charge in more than 80 per cent of these and have secured a conviction in 78.8 per cent of all cases.
“We will continue to work closely with police, third sector organisations and communities to build confidence, increase the number of these cases going to court and deliver justice for more victims.”
*The latest Home Office figures do not include statistics for Devon and Cornwall police, which has had problems with a new IT system
**Deaf and disabled people’s organisations
12 October 2023
Labour rule change further marginalises disabled people, activists warn
Changes voted through by Labour at its annual conference this week have further marginalised disabled people within the party, activists have warned.
Because of the changes to the party’s constitution, constituency Labour parties (CLPs) now need to have permission from the party’s national executive committee (NEC) to create a disability officer role with a vote on how the local party is run.
The changes – which also apply to some other equality groups – were designed by the party to cut the number of executives with voting rights in each CLP, in most cases to just six.
The changes have delivered a further blow to disabled people’s voice in the party, less than a year after the party went back on plans to hold a national disability conference and set up a national committee of disabled members.
The NEC decided last year that it would be too expensive to set up national and regional committees for its disabled members and hold the disabled members’ conference, and it decided instead to focus funding on winning the next general election.
Two members of Disability Labour this week spoke out against the changes to the constitution.
Emily Pomroy-Smith told Disability News Service (DNS): “It’s marginalising us even more.”
She said the six CLP voting roles – such as chair, treasurer and vice-chair – are usually taken by non-disabled people.
She said: “It’s another roll back on inclusion for disabled people.
“It’s frustrating – if we can’t get it right internally, then how are we going to deliver it in government?”
She said the rule change on disability officers was added to other proposed changes and grouped under the heading “getting CLPs election ready”, which meant anyone voting against it appeared to be opposed to the idea of preparing for the general election.
Jonathan Farr, treasurer of Disability Labour, told DNS: “It means that disabled people don’t have any positions in the party that carry a vote and therefore any meaningful say in what happens in the party, except for the ability to vote for one person on NEC.
“I feel that as a disabled person and someone who has been active in the party, I am actually not welcome in the party.
“I found it triggering. The party doesn’t care about me.”
After hearing how Farr felt about the party’s move, Vicky Foxcroft, Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, told DNS: “I don’t think it’s nice if people feel like that. We need to do better.”
Some delegates spoke in favour of the changes when they were debated at the conference in Liverpool on Sunday.
Peter Swallow, chair of Ealing Central and Acton CLP, said: “Right now, too many CLPs are over-encumbered or have half-empty executive committees.”
He said that his CLP had almost 1,500 members but “even we can’t fill our exec committee”.
He said the “top priority” was “winning the next general election”, and he added: “This isn’t factional, it’s functional.”
Cllr Birgit Miller, from Hove and Portslade CLP, a newly-elected councillor on Brighton and Hove City Council, also said the focus needed to be on winning the next election.
She said: “I am a neurodiverse person. It doesn’t help to have a disability officer who struggles to make meetings. It doesn’t help to be a token person.
“I want people with disabilities, people who are LGBTQ+, people who are BAME, I want them in the centre, and I want them in those six important roles.”
But Miller’s comment about having a disability officer “who struggles to make meetings” was criticised the following day from the platform by disabled delegate Emily Pomroy-Smith, who told the conference: “If your disabled members struggle to make meetings, then you need to fix that, not use it as an excuse to deny us voting rights on executive committees.
“The very fact that this went unchallenged by the chair, as they should call out any discrimination on this stage, demonstrates why it is so important that disabled people always have a seat at the table.
“And I can tell you, from experience, that if that space isn’t mandated, then it is very rarely available to us.”
Wheelchair-user James Driver told delegates that “removing minorities’ voting rights on execs… removes the standard of inclusion at the highest level”.
He said: “I simply do not believe this is true to the Labour party’s most central values.”
Tommy Edwin Kirkwood, from Blackpool South CLP, who is dyslexic, said the changes represented a “blatant disregard for equalities”.
He said: “We think that people deserve a voice in this society… disabled and LGBT and young people like myself need to be listened to.”
Summarising the changes, NEC member Cllr Nesil Caliskan said: “We need to be election ready, an operational focus which means swift, agile, decision-making executive committees will be critical across the country.
“Very big executive committees are just not practical.
“These proposals are about functionality and reflect the NEC’s commitment to make sure every aspect of our party machine is election ready.”
She said CLPs could still choose to have equality officers, but they would not have votes.
12 October 2023
All our ministers will be ministers for disabled people, Labour pledges
Labour has promised to govern by co-producing its policies with disabled people, if it wins the next general election.
Following criticism of the party’s decision to leave out key disability rights policies from the report that will form the core of its next general election manifesto, it repeatedly stressed its commitment to co-production at its annual conference in Liverpool this week.
At a fringe event hosted by Disability Labour, the party’s shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft, sat alongside three other shadow ministers to demonstrate the party’s commitment to listening to disabled people and working with them on policy.
She said all four of them were committed to working with disabled people in co-production, and she added: “We are committed because we know that this will ensure that we get our policies right, not just for disabled people but actually for everybody.”
Anneliese Dodds, Labour’s chair and shadow women and equalities secretary, later told the conference that the party was “determined to break down barriers to opportunity for disabled people.
“That’s why we are committed to the social model of disability and the principles of co-production and independent living.”
Abena Oppong-Asare, the shadow minister for women’s health and mental health, told Sunday’s fringe meeting that she was keen to hear from disabled people and their organisations on how to improve women’s health.
She said she was concerned that disabled people and other equality groups “will be used as part of the culture war” by the Conservative government in the run-up to the next election.
She said: “I am concerned about the language and the narrative that will be used.”
Lilian Greenwood, the shadow minister for arts, heritage and civil society, told the meeting: “Disabled people have just as much right to enjoy the arts, music, theatre, film, sports, and not just to enjoy those things… we want to see more disabled people being able to participate in the workforce.”
Stephen Morgan, the shadow rail minister, spoke of the planned closures of nearly 1,000 rail ticket offices, and said the government needed to “see sense, come clean on the damage that their plans will do, and rethink the decision”.
Kathy Bole, chair of Disability Labour, told the meeting it was not good enough for policy-makers to say they were “in consultation” with disabled people.
She said: “Things have to be co-designed, co-produced.”
She said the impact assessments on policy proposals that are carried out by public bodies “do not have any teeth”, and she called for legislation that “puts teeth” into them.
She also told the shadow ministers: “It’s not corporations’ and charities’ voices you need to hear, you need to hear disabled voices, not the voices of people who are not disabled people themselves.”
Foxcroft told the meeting: “I hope you’ve heard how committed we are across the Labour party in terms of co-production.
“You’ve got many shadow ministers here at the moment who are talking about it and want to engage and make sure that they get it right.
“If Labour get into government, you won’t just have the minister for disabled people.
“Every single one of our ministers will be ministers for disabled people.”
Emily Pomroy-Smith, a leading disabled party member, who fought the South-West Wiltshire seat for Labour at the 2019 general election, said the appearance of four shadow ministers at the fringe event was “really positive”.
She said: “I was really pleased to see shadow ministers attending, really showing a commitment to understanding the challenges that disabled people face.
“‘Every minister will be a minister for disabled people’; that for me felt like a step in the right direction.
“Obviously it has to be delivered. If they don’t, we can definitely hold them to account, because they will be in government.”
12 October 2023
Deaf student could be forced out of UK after university’s interpreter refusal
A Deaf student could be forced to leave the country and return to the United States after a university refused to provide them with the sign language interpreters they need for their course.
The University of Brighton has told postgraduate student Chelsea Reinschmidt that it will only be able to fund interpreters for about a quarter of the lectures, seminars and work placements that make up the two-year course.
When they were being interviewed for the course, they made it clear that they would need interpreters.
But it was only after they had paid their fees of £16,200 and arrived in Brighton to start the masters in occupational therapy that the university announced it would not be able to provide sign language interpreters for all the sessions.
This would have meant about 15 hours of support a week.
They told Disability News Service they had been left “traumatized” by their treatment.
They said: “Every session has to be interpreted, because I’m Deaf.
“It can be argued that we can get by with a few assistive tech options for a few things but basically every session needs interpreters for access.
“I contacted loads of different resources in the UK and every single one said the university is required to pay.”
Reinschmidt even offered to pay for some of the extra interpreting, and suggested other options, but the university refused to consider the solutions Reinschmidt offered, or to fund anything more than £26,000 a year.
Because their visa depends on being enrolled on a university course, they are now at risk of being forced to return to the US.
They said: “Had I known that that was the figure they had and there was no way to get funding from the NHS for my placements or any other option I would not likely have enrolled, because this is clearly a systemic problem that means no Deaf sign language-user, from the UK or otherwise, will be able to access their course.
“It’s impossible. No person can fund £100,000 for interpreters.”
The stress caused by the way they have been treated by the university has affected them so significantly that they have now withdrawn from the course, a month after it started.
Reinschmidt is convinced that the university is breaching its duty to make reasonable adjustments for Deaf students under the Equality Act.
The university’s actions come despite promising disabled people’s organisations (DPOs) that the mass job cuts to academic staff it announced earlier this year would not impact on disabled students’ access to education.
Members of the University and College Union are currently in the 15th week of an indefinite strike at the university over the redundancies.
Reinschmidt had moved to the UK from the US to train as an occupational therapist and then hoped to support Deaf people in hospices, palliative care and mental health services.
They said there are very few occupational therapists in the UK who can sign and work with Deaf patients, while there is also an overall shortage of trained occupational therapists.
Reinschmidt said they were “absolutely heartbroken” by the way they had been treated.
They said: “The problem is bigger than me. I just know I have to do something. I can’t let it go on like this.”
A University of Brighton spokesperson said: “Almost one-third of our students have a registered disability, and we provide support to them all, wherever in the world they come from.
“We discuss reasonable adjustments during the university application process and appoint a learning disability coordinator to refine the support each student requires.
“The applicant is always involved in agreeing this prior to the start of a course.
“We are still working with Chelsea on assessing whether reasonable adjustments can be put in place.
“They have not been removed from their course and we will continue to support them through this process.”
But Luke Beesley, a disabled PhD student at the University of Brighton and one of the organisers of its Interventions in Disability Politics seminar series, said: “The way Chelsea has been treated is appalling.
“Brighton’s claim that they are not being kicked off the course is laughable.
“Deaf and disabled students need adaptations to study; if those aren’t provided, the student can’t do the course. It’s as simple as that.
“This puts the bow on a long list of complaints disabled students have about the university, ranging from poor physical access to lecture halls and accommodation, lack of induction loops in teaching spaces, and the university’s inaccessible communications style.
“Until now, we’ve relied on teaching staff to make the best of a bad job, and design adaptations with us around these problems.
“With the ongoing redundancies, many of us fear the access situation will get dramatically worse.
“When DPOs raised their concerns about this with the vice chancellor, Debra Humphris, she told them that disabled students’ access would not be impacted.
“That promise now looks worthless.”
12 October 2023
Other disability-related stories covered by mainstream media this week
The mum of an autistic boy has won a landmark legal battle for his right to have free school meals at his home. Jennifer Dunstan fought for over a year to prove her son Rio, 12, is entitled to help from his school to feed and educate him at home. The youngster has not been in school or had access to education for over a year after a traumatic incident put him in hospital for two months: https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/mum-wins-year-long-fight-31139531
12 October 2023
News provided by John Pring at www.disabilitynewsservice.com
