Saturday 27 August 2016

UK Disability inequality enquiry required

I've just written a quick letter to my MP asking that Theresa May conduct an enquiry into the inequalities disabled people face.

This is the text of my letter - I'd encourage you to write to your MPs also, feel free to use my letter as a guide, but it's not particularly great so it's probably better if you write your own.

Dear My MP

I'm glad to see Theresa May announce plans to examine racial inequality within the UK. 

I'd also like to see her looking at how disabled people fare in the UK currently, would she consider a similar process to look at the impacts of government policies on disabled people?

I understand the UN is currently examining the government's treatment of disabled people as potentially breaching their human rights obligations, so it may feel like overkill for the government to also conduct research into the same area. However, the government has persistently refused to acknowledge how much damage their policies has done to disabled people.

Disabled people are most likely to be living under the poverty line, to be digitally excluded, to be under-employed, to be struggling to participate in society. The only line we get from the current government is that they seek to improve the potential for disabled people to get into work. This ignores those for whom work is unrealistic, those who can only work part time so will always have a limited income, those disabled people who have caring responsibilities, and the fact that not all problems disabled people have will be fixed by getting a job! 

Please could you ask Theresa May if she would look at researching inequalities faced by disabled people in the realms of social inclusion, education including further and higher education, access to public services, access to healthcare, access to employment, the effects of central government cuts to council funding on social care, and access to housing? And if she isn't willing to open such an enquiry, given the level of inequality disabled people experience, how can she justify not doing so? 

Yours sincerely etc

Editing to add:

You can find your MP via http://www.parliament.uk/get-involved/contact-your-mp/

The reason I suggest this rather than set up a government petition is, petitions asking for government action on disability inequality have in the past struggled to get signatures. If you ask your MP to ask a specific question of another MP, they're obliged to do so.

Petitions are great for popular issues, but, here's the irony of the whole thing, disability inequality isn't a popular issue - yet another inequality disabled people face! So I need you to make the effort to write to your MP personally.

You don't have to support them, you don't have to have voted for them, you just need to live in their constituency.

Thanks for your time,

Robin