The Disability Scorecard is a tool to grade the major political parties on their policies for the upcoming General Election based on the Disabled People’s Manifesto. The Disability Scorecard allows disabled people to judge each party on what issues matters most to them before casting a vote in the General Election UK 2024.
The Labour Party returned their answers to the scorecard (albeit a day after the extended deadline). Labour did not answer our scorecard questions but opted to send paragraphs on each topic which our team analysed and deciphered. Where they provided no clarity or vague answers, the answer was graded a no.
Some of the yeses we gleaned from the Labour Party include:
- Education: will you ensure all mainstream settings are accessible and inclusive?
- Employment: will you commit to closing the disability employment gap by providing disability-responsive employment support?
- Health: will you stop non-consensual “do not resuscitate” notices for disabled people, and ensure accountability when this happens?
- Housing: will you introduce enforceable standards to ensure decent quality, well-insulated housing in private and social rented sectors?
- Rights: will you make Disability Hate Crime a criminal offence?
Overall, the Labour Party scored mostly noes on the Disability Scorecard including on Representation and Voice, Social Care and Transport. This is not to say Labour are not on the right track in other areas of their manifesto. Their commitment to mental health is to be lauded including their plan to recruit 8,500 mental health staff. In their own words: “Mental health legislation is woefully out of date - the treatment of people with autism and learning difficulties is a disgrace. Labour will modernise legislation to give patients greater choice, autonomy, enhanced rights, and support, and ensure everyone is treated with dignity and respect throughout treatment.” On the full implementation of the BSL Act, Labour promised to ensure that all communications from the Prime Minister and Number 10 are delivered in BSL.
On other asks, the Labour Party did not make any financial promises, for example, committing £8 billion extra per year for social care. However, the Labour Party advised they would invest an extra £6.6 billion over the next parliament on housing and would work with disability groups to ensure new homes are accessible. “Labour is committed to the social model of disability and the principle of working with Disabled people, so their views and voices are at the heart of all we do.”
Too many of Labour’s answers to the scorecard were vague (when the scorecard asked yes/no questions) including those on codesigning and coproducing with the Disability community. If Labour wants to truly put disabled people at the heart of what they do, they need to make firm commitments to our asks in the Disability Scorecard and to the Disabled People’s Manifesto it was based on.
Read the full Disabled Peoples Manifesto here.