• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Politics / Election 2017: Conservatives promise more emphasis on accessible housing
Theresa May speaking at a lectern

Election 2017: Conservatives promise more emphasis on accessible housing

By John Pring on 25th May 2017 Category: Politics

Listen

The Conservative party has promised to force local authorities to plan for the provision of accessible housing for disabled and older people, if it retains power in next month’s general election.

The party also announced that employers who recruit disabled people – and employees from other groups, such as care-leavers – would be given a year’s “holiday” on their national insurance contributions for that member of staff.

On social security, the manifesto says the party has “no plans for further radical welfare reform in this parliament”, but it stops short of promising there will be no more reforms at all or ruling out any further cuts to disability benefits.

Instead, it warns that a Conservative government would continue to ensure a “sustainable” welfare system, with help “targeted at those who need it most”.

The manifesto also shows that the Conservatives have dumped their target of halving the disability employment gap in five years – which it made little progress in achieving over the two years of the last parliament – in favour of a new target of finding jobs for one million more disabled people over the next 10 years.

It promises to “harness the opportunities of flexible working and the digital economy to generate jobs for those whose disabilities make traditional work difficult”, and to provide “advice and support” for employers in hiring and retaining disabled employees.

It also says the party will “push ahead” with its plans for tackling hate crime, including disability hate crime, even though the four-year action plan the Conservative government published last summer was condemned for its “totally disrespectful” failure to address problems around disability-related hostility.

There are also promises that a Conservative government would “review” regulations – and amend them “if necessary” – on access to licensed premises such as pubs and restaurants, blue parking badges and housing.

This includes a commitment to review building regulations on the accessibility of new homes.

These pledges suggest the party may have been listening to some of the concerns raised by a major report by a House of Lords committee last year on the impact of the Equality Act on disabled people, and last month’s report on disability and the built environment by the Commons women and equalities committee.

The manifesto says it will support the provision of “specialist housing where it is needed, like multigenerational homes and housing for older people, including by helping housing associations increase their specialist housing stock”.

This would ensure government-supported housing programmes include suitable provision of housing for older and disabled people, and that councils plan for such provision in their own local planning policies and local housing programmes.

There are 18 mentions of “disabled”, “disability” and “disabilities” in the 88-page Conservative manifesto, although all but five are contained in a three-paragraph section on disability policies.

The party had previously announced plans to replace the “anachronistic” Mental Health Act and address the increasing numbers of people in mental distress who are detained under the act.

The party has promised that the new mental health treatment bill will include “revised thresholds for detention”, and new codes of practice to “reduce the disproportionate use of mental health detention for minority groups, especially black men”.

Prime minister Theresa May (pictured) has also promised further powers to protect people from discrimination in the workplace through “sweeping changes” to the Equality Act – offering more protection to those with fluctuating mental health conditions – and to fund an extra 10,000 mental health staff working in the NHS by 2020, although the manifesto now promises “up to” 10,000 more mental health professionals.

Labour has pointed out that the number of mental health nurses and doctors working in the NHS in England has fallen by more than 6,600 since 2010.

The party’s mental health announcements were greeted with accusations of “hypocrisy”, after user-led groups pointed out that Conservative social security policies, including the coercion and bullying of benefit claimants, had created and worsened mental distress.

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: accessible housing Conservatives Disability employment gap General election Theresa May welfare reform

Related

Government’s ‘milestone’ disability jobs stats ‘are meaningless when it comes to equality’
19th May 2022
SEN green paper suggests government is finally dumping Cameron’s ‘end the bias’ policy
31st March 2022
Ministers ‘should admit figures show zero progress on disability employment’
24th February 2022

Primary Sidebar

Image shows a man wearing glasses sitting by an open laptop The text reads: Free Career Support for Disabled People Our services include: 1-2-1 Coaching Online Career Resources Find Support near you Search for Inclusive Jobs Career Events and Workshops Visit the Evenbreak Career Hive today to find out how we can help you

Access

Latest Stories

Grenfell: Call for action over government’s ‘deplorable’ decision on evacuation plans

‘Severely neglected’ man found dead, three months after DWP assessment

Government brands DNS ‘vexatious’ for trying to obtain info on 90 DWP deaths

Government’s ‘milestone’ disability jobs stats ‘are meaningless when it comes to equality’

Concern over offensive LGBT+ comments at access awards event

Universal credit boss defends years of misleading information

Discrimination could be a cause of increased risk of Covid death, says ONS

Access to Work in crisis as figures show ‘massive’ waiting-list

Queen’s speech: Activists’ message to Patel over new protest bill: ‘We fight on’

Queen’s speech: Six bills that may change disabled people’s lives, for better and for worse

Advice and Information

The Department for Work and Pensions: Deaths, cover-up, and a toxic 30-year legacy

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2022 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web