DRUK’s Sue Bott has called the election of so few disabled MPs “disappointing”. We know of just five MPs who were previously in office who identify as disabled who were elected. In a post-election statement, she said: “We will be arguing for disabled candidates to have their support needs met at elections, which was not the case for this General Election.
“The level of debate about disability rights was minimal during the election campaign and even when hustings were organised to give disabled people an opportunity to question the political parties, they were cancelled because of the failure of most of them to engage.
“With disabled people making up one-fifth of the population, clearly some of us voted for the government of the day. The Conservatives made some limited pledges in their manifesto including working to deal with the social care crisis through a cross-party approach, halving the disability employment gap and ending the need for repeat assessments for benefits. We will be holding them to these commitments and arguing for them to go much further to secure our rights.”
“DRUK will continue to fight for the rights of disabled people by working with all political parties to bring about a positive narrative about disabled people that recognises our right to be equal citizens and will argue for policies that will achieve that such as having our support needs met, giving us choice and control over how we live our lives.”