Today we met the new Minister for Disabled People Penny Mordaunt, alongside other disability organisations.
The status of the role has gone back up to Minister of State (the last Minister, Justin Tomlinson, was a Parliamentary Under-Secretary). This could be helpful in increasing influence across government. We were glad to have the chance to raise several issues:
- the importance of the Government sticking to Stephen Crabb’s commitment to no further social security cuts impacting on disabled people in this Parliament
- the need for significant action and new approaches, devised with disabled people and our organisations, to halve the disability employment gap
- the need to make sure as we leave the EU that disabled people’s rights are sustained and also advance
- the importance of a cross-government agenda to make a reality of disabled people’s rights to full participation
We will be meeting with the Minister regularly and will raise issues important to our members.