• 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 2019: SNP manifesto manages just three mentions of disability
Nicola Sturgeon behind a podium

Election 2019: SNP manifesto manages just three mentions of disability

By John Pring on 5th December 2019 Category: Politics

Listen

The SNP’s general election manifesto includes just three mentions of disability or disabled people, and only one of those is related to a policy it would push for in the next parliament.

Many policies that have a specific impact on disabled people, such as social care, local government, education, parts of the social security system, and many aspects of transport, are devolved to the Scottish government.

But there are still just three areas in the manifesto in which the party pledges to fight for greater support for disabled people in Westminster after the election.

The most significant area is around social security.

The party says it would demand an end to the benefits freeze – which is already set to end in April – and the bedroom tax, and would push for a period of annual increases to benefits of “at least inflation”.

It also pledges to demand an end to the government’s “punitive benefit sanction scheme”, which has “contributed to rising poverty across the UK”, saying it is time for “the whole scheme to be scrapped”.

On the “fundamentally flawed” universal credit, it does not call for the system to be scrapped, but insists that there are “changes that could be made immediately which will effectively deliver a new radically different benefit that supports rather than penalises people without requiring individuals to go through a new application process”.

While these changes are introduced, it says that all migration of claimants onto UC “must be halted”.

A second relevant area in the manifesto, although it provides no details, is a pledge to push for “as much support as possible” for disabled people to stand for election as MPs.

And on immigration, the party says it would continue to oppose the detention of children and “vulnerable people”, including pregnant women and people with mental illnesses.

Meanwhile, the national disabled people’s organisation Inclusion Scotland has published its own Manifesto for Inclusion, which includes many more disability-related polices than the SNP manifesto.

Inclusion Scotland’s manifesto says the UK is “scarred by poverty, inequality, discrimination and exclusion”, despite being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, and it says that disabled people are one of the groups that are worst affected.

It adds: “All of the evidence suggests that disabled people are becoming more excluded and pushed into deeper poverty by recent policy changes at a UK level.”

It focuses on five areas: the need to protect and enforce disabled people’s human rights; reforms to social security to support disabled people’s right to participate in society; increased spending on employment support for disabled people; measures to increase the representation of disabled people in public life, particularly in the UK parliament; and the need to protect and promote disabled people’s rights in Brexit negotiations.

Picture: SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon

 

A note from the editor:

Please consider making a voluntary financial contribution to support the work of DNS and allow it to continue producing independent, carefully-researched news stories that focus on the lives and rights of disabled people and their user-led organisations.

Please do not contribute if you cannot afford to do so, and please note that DNS is not a charity. It is run and owned by disabled journalist John Pring and has been from its launch in April 2009.

Thank you for anything you can do to support the work of DNS…

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: Disability election2019 General election manifesto Scottish government SNP

Related

DWP’s ‘aggressive’ post-2010 attitude to sanctions ‘is back with a vengeance’
15th December 2022
Labour’s broken promise could see it finally face legal action over years of discrimination
1st December 2022
DWP admits court defeat after universal credit discrimination led to suicide thoughts
20th October 2022

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to the free Access London Theatre Guide

Access

Latest Stories

Disability discrimination in Met police is ‘baked into the system’, says report

Evidence mounts of disability benefits white paper’s fatal flaws

Court orders second Jodey Whiting inquest to probe consequences of DWP’s actions

‘Nonsensical’ disability benefits white paper sparks return of Spartacus

Concern over expansion of supported internship scheme ‘with potential for exploitation’

Labour ‘shares concerns’ about government’s work capability assessment plans

‘Heartless’ reforms to disability benefits ‘defy logic’

DWP white paper offers mix of ‘human catastrophe’ and overdue reforms

DWP figures show 600,000 could be missing out on disability benefits

DLA ‘disallowances’ plummeted after death of Philippa Day, DWP figures show

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

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

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

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web