Oh, Keir Starmer. The potential was always there – but what has actually been achieved? When it comes to the disabled community, not much. We have seen the biggest attack on the rights of my people.
The curb-cut effect states that changes made to help disabled people positively impact everyone: a ramp benefits not only the wheelchair user, but also the mother pushing a pram. It’s also why we have electric toothbrushes, touchscreen technology, and more staples of modern life.
With that in mind, these are the five things the next PM, almost certainly Andy Burnham, must do.
1. Pass the Hillsborough Law
Tired of multiple inquiries and nothing changing? Me too. On the subject of health alone, we have: the Lampard Inquiry, the Nottingham Inquiry, the Southport Inquiry, and two inquiries on maternity services, to report shortly.
The Hillsborough Law, with multiple organisations such as Inquest backing it, has been designed to enforce a duty of candour across public life. This has been delayed by Starmer’s government over a proposed exemption for MI5.
But if passed, ordinary folk would not have to wait years to find out why their child faced disablement when born into this world. There would be accountability from the get-go. Everyone would benefit. Time to pass the Hillsborough Law.
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2. Scrap contractors and personal independence payment reassessments
The Guardian recently reported on disabled people having unnecessary reassessments to continue to receive disability benefits. This adds thousands of pounds to the welfare bill that politicians pretend is spiralling out of control. Disability News Service has continually debunked this. Meanwhile, around half of the welfare budget goes unclaimed every year.
Worried welfare spending is reducing the money available for our defence capability? Kick out the greedy, incompetent contractors! And do something about the hostile culture that deems every disabled person a fraudster, a scrounger.
3. Implement the Lampard Inquiry final report in full
Due to report next year, the Lampard Inquiry is the result of a campaign by Melanie Leahy after the death of her son, Matthew. This has many potential implications for the state of mental health care, and care for the elderly, across the UK.
Particular disability demographics such as autistic and learning-disabled people are known to be held disproportionately in detention, sometimes unlawfully. There have been 15 years of broken political promises to do something on this. It’s time to end this failure.
4. Deal with the prison system
The prison system has a statistically high number of women with brain injuries, along with significant rates of poor literacy and neurodivergence. Concerns have been raised about prisoners using wheelchairs in the event of fires. If we truly cared about a justice system that was fit for purpose, we would care about the prison system and the welfare of prisoners.
We also have the plight of those who are languishing under the Imprisonment for Public Protection system, their freedom still limited years after their sentence should have ended.
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5. Kill off assisted dying
The bill to legalise assisted dying has been brought back to parliament; this is despite charities, leaders and campaigners warning against the framework that would potentially allow disabled people to be coerced into opting for it.
There was also concern about the fact that a coroner would not be able to examine such a death, as well as the toxicity of political rhetoric – who can forget Angela Rayner’s hashtag of #DyingToWork? This is unpopular with voters, as many polls show; disabled people are not a monolith, but we are tired of agency being taken away from us as a “kindness”.
These are the five most important things the next PM should do for disabled people; in fact, the next PM should do them for everybody.
Lydia Wilkins is a freelance journalist and editor specialising in disability and social inequality issues
