• 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 / Independent Living / Labour faces pressure from party activists over Starmer’s independent living pledge
Two women sit behind a long wooden desk on a stage

Labour faces pressure from party activists over Starmer’s independent living pledge

By John Pring on 24th September 2020 Category: Independent Living

Listen

Labour activists are pushing their party for a stronger commitment to plans drawn up by disabled people that would solve the social care crisis by setting up a co-produced National Independent Living Service (NILS).

A motion based on the NILS plans became party policy at last autumn’s Labour conference, but it was not included in Labour’s general election manifesto.

Keir Starmer told Disability News Service (DNS) in February, before he became party leader, that he supported the motion, which was based on a document – Independent Living for the Future – drawn up by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) and the Reclaiming Our Futures Alliance (ROFA).

This week, Fran Springfield and Kathy Bole (pictured, left and right, at a previous Labour conference), co-chairs of Disability Labour, took part in a policy debate on the future of social care as part of Labour’s online party conference.

But they told DNS afterwards that they were disappointed at the failure of Labour’s shadow minister for disabled people, Vicky Foxcroft, to back the Independent Living for the Future document during the debate.

Although Foxcroft spoke of the need to listen to service-users, and give them the “opportunity to live decent independent lives”, she focused in the debate on care workers and their need for a “real national living wage”.

Springfield said afterwards: “I did hope for a stronger commitment from Vicky on NILS.

“This is a key issue for disabled people. It’s vital that it becomes a given for MPs and council leaders to support us on this, instead of just talking about a National Care Service.”

She said the right to independent living is a key part of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the party has pledged to implement into UK law.

Bole added: “I would have liked that Vicky would have fleshed out what the thinking was from the front bench.

“It would be helpful to know what her take is on NILS. Keir hasn’t allowed us time he promised we would have when he was campaigning.”

Springfield and Bole said they also expected more meetings with Foxcroft and Liz Kendall, Labour’s shadow social care minister.

Labour has spoken of the need for a new National Care Service, but Springfield told Sunday’s debate that the key for any such scheme would be “to give disabled people control over their lives and allow them to live in their homes independently”.

She said the Independent Living for the Future document – which calls for all social care to be provided free, to be person-centred and to be funded by progressive taxation through a national service designed through co-production with service-users – was “extremely important”, as it offered a “new way of looking at social care”.

She said: “We have got to stop focusing just on care homes.

“Most disabled people who have been disabled for quite long periods of their lives don’t when they get into their 60s and 70s want to go into a care home.

“We want to be able to live in our own homes independently with the right level of care.”

Bole, a Labour county councillor in Suffolk, added: “The biggest thing I have seen is that no social care system works the same as any other throughout the country.

“Disabled people are certainly not put at the centre of any process.”

Asked about Labour’s commitment to the NILS plans, Foxcroft told DNS: “With four years to go until the next general election, we’re not writing our manifesto yet.

“But the National Independent Living Service is an important part of ensuring disabled people live independent lives with dignity, and we fully intend to work with disabled people and disabled people’s organisations to get this right.”

 

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:

TwitterFacebookWhatsAppReddit

Tags: Disability Labour Independent Living for the Future Keir Starmer Labour NILS social care Vicky Foxcroft

Related

Disabled high-rise leaseholders are living in post-Grenfell fear of fire and financial ruin
7th January 2021
Disabled people highlight scores of lockdown concerns
7th January 2021
High court care charging victory ‘highlights flawed social care system’
23rd December 2020

Primary Sidebar

Access

Latest Stories

Philippa Day: Young mother ‘took her own life after being told to attend PIP assessment’

Philippa Day: DWP phone agent ignored sobbing claimant who later ‘took her own life’

Philippa Day: DNS wins legal fight with DWP over ground-breaking release of secret report into benefit death

New figures set to provide clearer picture of disproportionate pandemic deaths of disabled people

Peer calls for disabled people to ‘take control’ over PA vaccinations

Rights concerns over major Mental Health Act reforms

High court hears of ‘catastrophic’ impact of ‘fitness for work’ system

Disabled high-rise leaseholders are living in post-Grenfell fear of fire and financial ruin

Disabled people highlight scores of lockdown concerns

Regulator investigates DWP over universal credit ‘cover-up’

Advice and Information

DWP: The case for the prosecution

Readspeaker

Footer

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

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

Copyright © 2021 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web