No 10 meeting sees Labour hold out olive branch to disabled activists after breakdown of trust over cuts

Senior figures in the Labour party pledged to try to rebuild trust with disabled people at a meeting with activists earlier this month at 10 Downing Street, Disability News Service can reveal.

The 90-minute meeting between a delegation of seven disabled people and senior figures within the Labour administration took place on 2 September (pictured).

It came after a text message from Joe Watkinson, deputy vice chair of Disability Labour, to Claire Reynolds, who was at the time the party’s political director in Downing Street, but is now Labour’s executive director of stakeholder relations.

Watkinson had suggested the need for a meeting to try to rebuild Labour’s relationship with disabled people after the damage caused by the government’s attempts – later abandoned – to cut billions in spending from personal independence payment, and the cuts that will be introduced through its Universal Credit Act, and to ensure disabled people “have a voice and can be heard in a constructive way”.

He told Disability News Service (DNS) at this week’s Labour conference in Liverpool: “Disabled people cannot afford a Reform government.

“The only hope we have is via a Labour government. We need to reset the relationship with disabled members and that’s at the core of everything we need to do.”

Among the disabled people who attended the meeting were representatives of the Co-operative Party – where Watkinson is chair of the party’s disability network – union activists and representatives of Disability Labour (DL), including Kathy Bole, DL’s chair, and Emily Pomroy-Smith, another member of DL’s executive committee.

As well as Reynolds, other Labour representatives at the meeting included a work and welfare special adviser, and a representative of the party’s general secretary.

It is not yet clear what promises the party will make to those who attended the meeting, other than a pledge to hold further such meetings.

But Watkinson said: “It was a very constructive meeting. It was taken seriously. It was a very frank and honest discussion.

“For the majority of the meeting, they sat there and listened.”

Pomroy-Smith said: “It was about using our lived experience to inform what they were doing. They were ready and listening.

“Claire really did fight for this. She really fought for the meeting to happen, and she’s continuing that in her new role.”

She said the government representatives they met were aware of the level of anger among disabled people at the way the PIP and universal credit cuts had been handled earlier this year.

She said: “What we were coming with was solutions. The focus was how can we rebuild and what does that look like.

“It was about moving forward. How do we prevent it from happening again.”

Among the issues raised were the kind of language used by ministers, and inaccurate briefings on social security reform.

Pomroy-Smith added: “At the moment there is a real need to amplify the voices of disabled people and not be spoken about.”

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