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	TX: 22.04.05 - Disability Manifestos PRESENTER: LIZ BARCLAY听

	Downloaded from www.bbc.co.uk/radio4 THE ATTACHED TRANSCRIPT WAS TYPED FROM A RECORDING AND NOT COPIED FROM AN ORIGINAL SCRIPT. BECAUSE OF THE RISK OF MISHEARING AND THE DIFFICULTY IN SOME CASES OF IDENTIFYING INDIVIDUAL SPEAKERS, THE 麻豆约拍 CANNOT VOUCH FOR ITS COMPLETE ACCURACY. BARCLAY Crime, education, health and immigration have been the key issues of the election campaign so far but what are the political parties promising for the UK's 10 million disabled people? Today we're looking at what the leading parties have included in their election manifestos and we have reaction from comedian Steve Day, who's deaf and from Julie Newman of the British Council of Disabled People, which is about to publish its own manifesto. But first, let's hear from our reporter Carolyn Atkinson. Carolyn, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy are both hoping to snatch the top job, what are they offering disabled people if they get in? ATKINSON Well let's start with the Conservatives. They say that disabled people don't have equal opportunities and they claim that under Labour disabled people have done less well at school, they don't get jobs, they earn less money than average and they don't get access to transport, to buildings or leisure facilities. So if they get into Number 10 they promise a bigger role for voluntary organisations and charities, as they put it, helping and empowering disabled people. They promise to bring in an immediate moratorium on the closure of special schools for disabled children and they'll introduce something called an opportunity first programme, which will aim to get 200,000 people off incapacity benefit and into work during the course of one parliament. They'll also ensure that people who stop getting incapacity benefit can return to it at the same rate if the job they try out doesn't work out, which they say would also give a bit of an incentive to leave the benefit in the first place. They'll also bring in specific funding for rehabilitation and more funding, they say, for the Access to Work scheme, so that more disabled people can get help with travel to work and once they're in the office. BARCLAY And the Liberal Democrats, they published what you might call a mini manifesto specifically for people with disabilities. ATKINSON Yeah they pinpoint what they see as four top policies for people with disabilities, saying they'll support a single equality act, which is going to put disability legislation on par with race and sex discrimination. They'll bring in a New Deal to help people with disabilities find work, they'd provide 拢200 winter fuel payment for severely disabled people and they'd give free off peak local bus travel for all disabled people as well as making more rail stations accessible. Now they also say they'd consider appointing fraud investigators to tackle the issue of abuse of blue badge parking permits. In terms of housing they've set up a register of local authority homes that are adapted for disabled people. They would also end charging people for personal care in their homes and they'd bring in new legislation to protect people with mental health problems. Finally, in terms of schools, wherever possible they say they want children with special needs to be educated in the mainstream with their peers but they would keep open and give more support to existing special schools. BARCLAY And what about Labour, what if they get re-elected? ATKINSON Well if they get elected they'll build on what they say they've done already for disabled people, for example the Disability Discrimination Act 2004 or the National Service Framework for Children. Now they say children with special educational needs should be able to choose which type of school they go to and they say it's up to the local authority to decide what's provided locally - whether it's mainstream or a special school. They say they'll be radical reform of disabled children's services, so that each child is assigned a professional who takes on their case and follows them through the system. And then a tie in with the big lottery fund, they say they want more playgrounds to be made more accessible. Finally, they say they'll continue to consult on extending flexible working to carers for sick and disabled adults. BARCLAY Carolyn, let's just pause there for a minute. Comedian Steve Day is with us. Steve, what do you think so far? DAY Well the first thing I want to say is that people tend to assume that disabled people are only interested in disabled issues and they'll only cast their vote because that's not actually the case. It's a bit like people assuming that Muslims are only interested in Iraq, well that's not true. But looking at these they're all quite similar aren't they - parties don't seem terribly keen to get into this sort of debate, it doesn't really help them. Do you want me to talk about the individual bits or ... BARCLAY Yes you may. DAY Looking at the Conservatives first, only because it's the first one you said, there's something about it that scares me, I don't know why, it's just the general tone of it but to me it seems a bit like a child catcher's manifesto, out of all the groups they're going to kind of do something to. For example, it's saying they want 200,000 people off incapacity benefit, which sounds a bit scary if you're on incapacity benefit, it seems to put you in a group with gypsies, foreigners and single mothers as somebody who's going to have something done to them because we're a threat to the way of life of our society. BARLCAY But isn't it positive that they will allow people to return to that incapacity benefit at the same rate if they apply for a job, get it, and it doesn't work out? DAY Well that looks like a nice dressing for something that they're going to - all of their policies seem to be something they're going to do to you or you're going to have done to you, rather than differences that are going to be made. BARCLAY Let me bring in Julie Newman from the British Council for Disabled People. What about the Liberal Democrats then, to come on to this point they say they will support a single equality act, putting disability legislation on a par with race and sex discrimination? NEWMAN Well there has been discussion about that anyway with regards to having a single commission, so a little bit of icing on the cake perhaps. I think the 拢200 a year winter fuel payment would be really helpful ... BARCLAY That's for severely disabled people. NEWMAN Yeah, because a lot of people have impairments which are temperature specific and currently if you're under 60 you have to pay the extra fuel bill yourself. The other thing that they're saying is setting up a register of local authority homes that are adapted. It won't necessarily take us any further, I really believe there needs to be some sort of more wide reaching discussion around housing. Some people get very uptight about the abuse of blue badge parking - a most important issue at the moment is the theft of blue badges from vehicles that are parked. BARCLAY And in fact they are saying they would set up - they would set up investigators, fraud investigators, to tackle some of those issues. NEWMAN Well they're talking about abuse, they're not actually talking about crime. BARCLAY Steve, does this scare you as much as the Conservatives ideas? DAY Not quite, I think with the blue badge scheme, which used to be the orange badge scheme, you see they're a bit hung up on the colour, it used to be orange which was their colour and now it's blue and that's somebody else's colour, that's why they're focussing on that one. The other thing they talk about is transport and it's always with this proviso - off peak transport - it's almost to say oh you disabled people you don't go out till Bargain Hunt's finished. The concessionary travel scheme in London used to be off peak and it was expanded to 24 hours, I don't think any tube train ground to a half because there was so many disabled people on it, they ground to a halt but not because of that. BARCLAY Okay, come on to what the Labour Party has had to say, if they get re-elected. NEWMAN There's no mention of charging for community care, there's no mention of reviewing the criteria for people to receive community care. Currently there's a cutback of social hours for people in receipt of community care and also from the Independent Living Fund, which is fairly insidious. BARCLAY Steve, what do you think? DAY Well the Tony Blair manifesto seemed to me more of the same. We've got the DDA, which in my opinion's quite useless, so what they're saying is we've got this fig leaf but what we're going to do is make a slightly more comfortable or larger fig leaf, so we're not going to do anything, we're happy with the status quo. BARCLAY But they are talking about extending flexible working to carers of sick and disabled adults - that's got to be a positive move has it not? DAY It's a positive but it's something well if it was so good why haven't they done it before they've been in long enough? BARCLAY Well it seems so far that we're not particularly impressed by what any of the three main parties have to say. Carolyn Atkinson, what about the other parties, key parties, standing - where are Plaid Cymru and the Scottish Nationals and the Greens standing on this? ATKINSON Well Plaid Cymru would abolish the current upper age limit of 66 for those people who can get the mobility element of the Disability Living Allowance, that's an allowance for people with disabilities and it's non means tested. They'd bring in free social services home care for disabled people and they pledge to improve out of hospital care - things like physio and occupational therapy at home - to avoid people taking up hospital beds and blocking hospital beds for treatments that could be done at home. Now the Scottish National Party say one in four households in Scotland have someone with a disability, they say one of the biggest problems there is transport because of the geography and the size of Scotland they want accessible transport laws to be extended to take in ferry services. They'd abolish prescription charges for people with chronic conditions, they'd pay for central heating for families with disabled children and they'd give winter fuel payments to people on disability benefits. They'd also bring in what they call a Citizens' Income, to give a decent minimum income. Those disabled people who can't work at all, who can't work full time, will get that full Citizens' Income so they can combine work and welfare and they won't lose out financially. Now the Greens will also bring in a Citizens' Income scheme to replace existing benefits and allowances and tax credits. There'd be no means testing, no requirement to be in employment and carers of disabled people would also be eligible for that Citizens' Income. They'd also campaign for a European Disability Directive to tackle education, transport and access to services. DAY I think they're all quite - a lot more imaginative and they're actually doing something. Although you tend to think well they can afford to be because they're probably not going to get in and so they can say what they want. But the main parties seem to be who do you want to be patronised by this time and at least these people are trying empower you and do something different, which for me makes all the difference to be honest. BARCLAY Julie Newman, you - the British Council for Disabled People has its own manifesto, we've been given exclusive access to that, what would you really like to have seen the parties come up with? NEWMAN We want fully enforceable civil and human rights, especially the right to live and the right to live independently. Education, inclusive education would be the only way forward, it's unacceptable that at the moment there are over 90,000 children in special schools still. Within the area of transport about 60% of the rail network is inaccessible. Tube stations - accessible tube stations are too few and accessible buses are too few. An example being in Warwickshire there are only 30% of accessible buses available. And within social care we would very much like to see charges for community care hours done away with. BARCLAY Now of the main parties one doesn't have anything in its manifesto for disabled people does it. ATKINSON No UKIP, that's the UK Independence Party say they don't have any specific policies for people with disabilities but in an e-mail confirming this to me they did say that they question whether the vast amounts of money spent on making railway stations accessible would not be better spent on paying for the old, lame and blind to travel by taxi, many of which will take wheelchairs these days they say. BARCLAY Steve Day, you seem to have been rather taken aback by that last comment. DAY I haven't heard old, lame and blind for - it seems like they're using quite biblical language in there, I just wonder what their policy is on those possessed by demons, I don't think I'm going to vote for any of these, I'm going to vote for the none of the above party, if they're standing this year. BARLCAY Comedian Steve Day and Julie Newman from the British Council of Disabled People, thank you both. And if you have any comments on any of those proposals then please do let us know. Back to the Transcripts homepage Back to the You and Yours homepage The 麻豆约拍 is not responsible for external websites

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