(C) OpenDemocracy This story was originally published by OpenDemocracy and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Disability Action Plan: A vague set of proposals that won’t bring change [1] [] Date: 2024-02 As Disabled people, we’ve grown to expect the UK government to ignore us. Last week, ministers went a step further: insulting us with the publication of the long-awaited Disability Action Plan (DAP). You do not have to start reading the DAP to realise it will have no real impact on Disabled people’s lives. Introducing the document, the government promises only to “lay the foundations” for any meaningful long-term change. To this end, it pledges 32 “practical actions” that include promises to create an “online information hub for families with disabled members”, to form a working group that will “make recommendations” on how to improve support for people with guide and assistance dogs, and to “explore” a bid to host the 2031 Special Olympics. None will deliver any transformative policy before this year’s general election – particularly disappointing given the action plan comes after an extremely turbulent few years for Disabled people. Get our free Daily Email Get one whole story, direct to your inbox every weekday. Sign up now In 2022, the High Court ruled the National Disability Strategy unlawful for not consulting with Disabled people, the following year the official Covid-19 inquiry found that Disabled people were an “afterthought” in the UK’s pandemic response, and, most recently, the disability minister’s post was left empty for a week before being downgraded. All of these injustices were of the government’s own making. But you wouldn’t know it from ministers’ reaction to the DAP’s launch, said Kamran Mallick, the CEO of Disability Rights UK, who was in the room when the plan was unveiled last week. “It was a self-congratulatory event,” Mallick said. “The minister said how great it was and the commitment to improving Disabled people’s lives.” The government is patting itself on the back for pulling together a list of random policy ideas and research proposals, at a time when Disabled people “are being immiserated deliberately”, said Rick Burgess, the co-founder of Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts. Burgess continued: “As the UN found, the history of the last 15 years has been of systemic human rights abuses of Disabled people. This has resulted in thousands of excess deaths and in Disabled people dying during Covid at three times the rate of non-disabled people and now in 60% of food bank users being Disabled people.” Ministers would only have to speak to a Disabled person to realise that the time for research is over – we desperately need transformative changes that improve our lives. Instead, we have a plan that “feels like a lot of bluster and bragging about highlighting the issues disabled people face”, said disability rights journalist and campaigner Rachel Charlton-Dailey. “But there's no actual action in it that would make our lives easier now.” Pointing to areas the government could be taking immediate action on, Charlton-Dailey said: “Disabled people are struggling to find accessible housing, get on trains and walk down the street both accessibly and without being a victim of hate crime.” Disability rights campaigner Claire Glasman, a founder member and co-ordinator of multi-racial grassroots organisation WinVisible (Women with Visible & Invisible Disabilities), agrees, saying the DAP overlooks key findings on inequality in recent years. Glasman said: “The Disability Action Plan dismisses important problems the Disabled Mothers’ Rights Campaign and others raised: children being taken from disabled mothers – mainly single mothers – triggered by disability discrimination, racism and poverty. “[It] hides disabled people’s poverty and increasing destitution, which empowers abusers. Through Universal Credit, waiting time for money to come in, deductions and sanctions, the two-child limit and total benefit cap, the government has deliberately impoverished children.” [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/disability-action-plan-disappointing-no-real-change-government/ Published and (C) by OpenDemocracy Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons CC BY-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/opendemocracy/