About the PM's (Sunak's) speech: Stop demonising us

From Kier Starmers email (thanks @Catherine21)

"Dear…,

Thank you for your email to Sir Keir Starmer KC in relation to Labour’s plans for disabled people. At this point in time, Keir is receiving an extremely high volume of correspondence, so he has asked me to respond on his behalf.  I’m very sorry for any delay in getting back to you.

Your views, personal experiences and observations have been noted and shared with the relevant policy teams.

Over the last ten years, disabled people have been disproportionately impacted by the Conservative Government failure, with a broken system of social security and social care that has failed to support disabled people to live fulfilling and independent lives.

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.

Labour is committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do.

Labour will always treat disabled people with dignity and respect. Labour will protect disabled people by making all existing strands of hate crime an aggravated offence.

Labour will work with local areas to create plans to support more disabled people and those with health conditions into work. We will devolve funding so local areas can shape a joined-up work, health, and skills offer for local people.

Labour believes the Work Capability Assessment is not working and needs to be reformed or replaced, alongside a proper plan to support disabled people to work. We will tackle the backlog of Access to Work claims and give disabled people the confidence to start working without the fear of an immediate benefit reassessment if it does not work out.

Labour will improve the reasonable adjustments process so that the system works better for those that need it and will examine how to best achieve this in detail if we form the next government.

Labour will make flexible working the default from day one for all workers, with employers required to accommodate requests as far as is reasonable. Labour will ensure workers can benefit from flexible working, including opportunities for flexi-time contracts.

Labour will introduce mandatory disability pay reporting for organisations with more than 250 employees. We will act to close the employment gap and enshrine in law the full right to equal pay for disabled people.

Labour is committed to reviewing universal credit so that it makes work pay and tackles poverty.

Labour is committed to championing the rights of disabled people and to the principle of working with them, so that their views and voices will be at the heart of all we do.

Labour is the Party of change and will change the country for the better if elected on July 4.

If you have any further questions or requests please don’t hesitate to get in touch. 

Best wishes,

Alistair

Membership Services

The Labour Party"

I imagine for many as well, they've had such bad experiences asking for reasonable adjustments in previous jobs they just begin to believe there is no workplace that will accommodate what adjustments they need. I've had employers not take my requests for reasonable adjustments seriously, at least until I started at Scope 😁

Remote working really can open up a lot for many people with disabilities. But I firmly disagree with forcing people into work, instead emphasis should be put on educating employers and just people in general about adjustments and what your rights are as a disabled person in the workplace.