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Article InformationAuthors: Beth Rose and Kate LambleRole: Access All and More or Less
2 hours ago
There are 16 million disabled people in the UK – almost a quarter of the population – but many said they felt “invisible” during the election campaign.
The BBC podcast Access All questioned the major parties about their policies on disability, social care and mental health, and Radio 4’s More or Less examined what they said.
conservatives
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Image caption: Mims Davis with her dog TJ
The Conservatives want to “reform disability pay” and crack down on so-called “sick pay culture”, which they say makes people three times more likely to be deemed unable to work than ten years ago.
The party’s manifesto says it will create 60,000 new schools and 15 new specialist academies for pupils with special educational needs (SEND).
The ministry says “mental health should be respected on the same level as physical health” and plans to add 140,000 clinical training places for people with severe mental illnesses.
The Conservatives want to cut £12 billion of the UK’s £69 billion welfare spending. Disability benefits alone are expected to rise from £39 billion to £58 billion in 2028/29.
Of this, around £14 billion will come from increased costs for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), which is paid to people with long-term physical or mental health problems who need help with everyday life.
The manifesto gives few details about what changes would be made, beyond promising “more objective” assessments and limits on claims from people with mental illness.
There is currently a 12-week consultation on changes to PIP, proposing to use medical diagnostics rather than assessments and replace PIP cash payments with vouchers and catalogues.
The measure, which began April 29, will end on July 4 no matter what, but any changes would require legislation to be passed by the next administration.
Minister for Disability, Health and Work, Mims Davis said: “When you see spending increasing by two thirds post-Covid, I think it’s very reasonable to look back at what has happened. We all have a responsibility to make sure taxpayers’ money is spent well.”
In general: Davies says spending has increased by two-thirds since the pandemic, but if you look at disability allowance, carer’s allowance and housing support in real terms for 2019/20, compared with current spending on the same things in 2024/25, the increase is actually around 40% – not more than 60%.
Labor
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Image caption: Angela Rayner, Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, speaking at the Labour general election manifesto launch
Labour wants to improve access to mental health care by putting specialists in every school and recruiting 8,500 extra NHS mental health staff, and it also wants expertise in special educational needs (SEN) in mainstream schools.
The party wants to promote employment for people with disabilities by reforming the work ability assessment system and making pay gap reporting mandatory, without giving details.
Deputy leader Angela Rayner said: “Small changes in the workplace actually mean you have a bigger asset – your people working for you and benefiting you.”
“Making it mandatory for employers to report the disability pay gap should narrow the gap, as we have seen with the gender pay gap.”
According to the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS), the pay gap between disabled and non-disabled employees is 13.8%.
The manifesto contains strong statements such as “those who do not fulfill their obligations will be punished.”
Rayner says the focus is on people “able to work” and “helping people realise their full potential”.
More or less: In 2017, mandatory gender pay gap reporting was introduced for employers with 250 or more employees. Employers must submit the difference between the average hourly wages of men and women. Since then, this gap has decreased from 9.1% in 2017 to 7.7% by 2023.
While this may seem like a success, a closer look at the ONS figures shows that inequality had already narrowed significantly before the restrictions were introduced, raising questions about just how important the policy has been.
Look and Listen
Image caption: Access All presenter Emma Tracey in studio with a BSL interpreter on screen
BBC Access All is a podcast about disability and mental health.
LDP
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Image caption: Sir Ed Davey campaigning during the general election
Social care is at the heart of leader Sir Ed Davey’s plans, with the Liberal Democrats wanting to reform PIPs to end “unnecessary reassessments” and give disabled people the right to work from home.
The group wants every school to have a mental health professional, an end to “out-of-area” mental health placements so people can receive treatment closer to home, and a target for police to refer anyone in a mental crisis to relevant services within the hour.
Many disabled people have care packages but report a shortage of carers to employ, with the King’s Fund think tank reporting 152,000 vacancies in 2022/23, representing 9.9% of available roles.
As well as providing free personal care (as is already the case in Scotland), the Liberal Democrats want to introduce a minimum wage for carers that is £2 an hour above the national minimum wage and set up a Royal Institute of Carers.
Sir Ed says this would cost around £3.7bn a year, and he will pay for it by promising to revoke the tax cuts the Conservatives have given to the big banks since 2016.
In general: Sir Edward’s plans include spending an extra £2.7 billion a year on free personal care by 2028/29. This sounds like a lot of money, but the Health Foundation, an independent charity, estimates that the cost will more than double.
The party pointed to the Conservatives’ delayed plans to introduce an £86,000 lifetime cap on personal care payments, due to be introduced next year, and said other funding within the system would also be taken into account.
But that hasn’t stopped the Liberal Democrats from using it as the basis for their own reform proposals, suggesting they will provide £3.6bn a year for the scheme.
The Conservatives remain committed to the cap, but the Institute for Fiscal Studies says the money set aside for it is already absorbed into the current care system.
Scottish National Party
Image caption: Marion Fellowes is the SNP’s disabled people spokesperson.
The SNP manifesto includes a sentence on disability: “We will repeal punitive welfare reforms for sick and disabled people”.
This is probably linked to the Conservative plans to tighten the Work Ability Assessment, which looks at how well people are able to work – they want to cut the number of people assessed by 424,000 by 2028/29.
Some benefits, including child and adult disability allowance, will be devolved to Scotland.
“We see benefits as something that people are entitled to,” said Marion Fellowes, the party’s spokesman for disabled people.
“We’ve also funded free prescriptions and introduced child benefit for poor families, lifting 100,000 children out of poverty.
“The only way to get anything done in the UK Parliament, if you’re not in power, is to work with other parties to advance your agenda.”
Roughly: Fellowes said that the Scottish Child Payment has lifted 100,000 children out of poverty. This claim comes from a Scottish Government report, which predicts the future impact of the policy and what would have happened without it. What we’re interested in is the difference figure.
The report acknowledges it is based on a number of assumptions and predicts that Scottish Government policies overall would lift 100,000 children out of relative poverty, but the Scottish Child Payment relates to 60,000 children.
Green Party
Image caption: Mags Lewis is the Green Party’s disability spokesperson
The Greens want to put mental health care “on a truly equal footing with physical health” by offering treatment within 28 days and putting trained counsellors in every school and secondary school.
The party wants to create a “career structure for carers” and invest £20 billion a year in providing free personal care.
The Green Party’s Mags Lewis has said she wants to “immediately” increase disability benefits by 5% to “restore value”, funded in part by a temporary tax on fossil fuels and a “tax on millionaires”.
The Greens also want an extra 150,000 social homes to be delivered per year, with a “significant proportion” of them ready to move.
In general: The current administration has consistently failed to meet its target of building 300,000 housing units per year since 2019.
The Greens are not promising to build 150,000 social housing units a year, just delivering them. They are proposing that local authorities buy or renovate older housing stock, likely built before accessibility regulations were introduced.
Plaid Camry
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Image caption: Liz Saville-Roberts, Leader of Plaid Cymru in Westminster
Plaid wants the UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, which protects the right to live independently, adopted into UK law and mental health law reformed.
The party’s Westminster leader, Liz Saville-Roberts, wants to reduce waiting times for people waiting for neurodiversity assessments such as for autism and ADHD, but says Wales needs more funding.
“They always say Wales has more funding per head than England, which is true, but Wales doesn’t have more funding than England. [per head] As expensive as London, for example.”
She wants to give patients more control and access to their personal information, putting them at the heart of their care.
More or less: According to government figures, Wales receives £13,967 per head, less than Scotland and Northern Ireland but 11% above the UK average. London receives £14,486 per head.
One reason for London’s high figures is that the capital receives the highest capital spending in the UK, with the majority of that going to transport for Londoners and tourists.
If you exclude that and look only at current service spending, Wales has more funding per resident than London.
Reform Britain
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Image caption: Nigel Farage, leader of the Reform UK Party
The reformers’ manifesto states that the “entitlement system is broken” and will change it within 100 days.
PIP and work capacity assessments are conducted in person and include an independent medical evaluation to “certify eligibility for payment.”
People with severe disabilities or serious long-term illnesses are exempt from regular reassessment.
Reform UK declined to take part in an election interview with Access All, but in a recent BBC Question Time leader special, Nigel Farage said that 9.2 million people of working age are unemployed, adding: “They’re not all lazy. There are a lot of them. I’m sure we all know people on welfare who would like to get back to work.”
Roughly: The latest figures show that the economic shutdown has actually risen to 9.4 million people, of which 27% are students, 18% are caring for relatives, and 30% have long-term illnesses – that’s 2.8 million people. This figure has risen substantially since the pandemic, up 33%, far outpacing the growth in the working-age population, which rose by just 2% over the same period.