Sarah Ismail writes for the Same Difference blog

Today’s Times reports (£) that 27 charities, including the leading disability organisations Mencap and Leonard Cheshire, have written to Iain Duncan Smith and Andrew Lansley, urging the Government to reverse the decision to scrap the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance for people living in residential care homes. This was announced as part of George Osborne’s 2010 Spending Review.

The weekly payment, of up to £50 a week, is used to rent specially adapted cars, or to pay for powered wheelchairs, taxi fares or petrol for staff who drive for care home residents. The change will affect at least 80,000 disabled people.

Campaigners say that without the extra payments many children and adults will never be able to leave their care homes, as many of them are unable to use public transport as a direct result of their disabilities. Although residential care homes are required to provide transport for medical appointments or hospital visits, many use residents’ mobility allowances to pay for the use of their vehicles for these purposes.

Campaigners say those worst affected by the change will be disabled adults aged 20-50 who use the allowance to pay for transport to social outings.

However, the change will also affect disabled children and young people at residential special schools and colleges.  This may even stop parents sending their children to such organisations – which would deprive many disabled young people of an appropriate education.

One very concerned mother of a disabled young man told Left Foot Forward:

“For myself that would be the removal of my son’s wheelchair accessible vehicle as he attends a residential school Monday to Friday. How do they expect parents to cope at weekends and in the holidays?”

The charities also carried out a survey of care home users, of which more than half gave most or all of their DLA mobility component to their care homes. Of these, 40 per cent said that it paid for a Motability car and 20 per cent said that it paid for petrol for staff to take them out. The charities warn that the change, if it goes ahead, would significantly reduce the independence and quality of life of many disabled people.

Mark Goldring, Chief Executive of Mencap, summed up the fears of many disabled people and their families very well when he told The Times:

“Removing this benefit will take us back to the dark ages.”

Sarah Ismail writes for the Same Difference blog

Many people were shocked when they woke last Friday morning to find reports of a man being pulled out of his wheelchair by police at Thursday’s tuition fee protests circulating on Twitter and blogs. This video of the incident soon appeared on Youtube.

Watch it:

On Monday night, BBC News interviewed the man in question – Jody McIntyre, 20, a blogger and activist with Cerebral Palsy. Broadcaster Ben Brown was criticised by many people soon afterwards for asking Mr McIntyre ‘unfair’ questions – with others arguing that Brown simply treated Mr McIntyre as he would any other non-disabled interviewee.

However, on Tuesday morning, people were shocked to find Mr McIntyre being criticised in Richard Littlejohn’s latest column for the Daily Mail. Littlejohn compares Mr McIntyre to Andy, the wheelchair using character from Little Britain, saying that if McIntyre wanted to protest:

“… he should have kept a safe distance.”

This column has caused outrage among disabled and non-disabled people alike, and has led to the Press Complaints Commission receiving more than 500 complaints since its publication. Disabled people in particular are unhappy at the comparison to Andy, as the character does not actually have a disability.

Littlejohn, and Guardian blogger Roy Greenslade – who wrote an article this morning arguing for Littlejohn’s freedom of speech – have not considered Mr McIntyre’s right to freedom. Mr McIntyre had as much right as any other protestor to be at the protest. He, and his family and friends had as much right as anyone else to expect that he would come home unharmed.

Tory Councillor Phil Taylor also blogged yesterday on the case, saying that Mr McIntyre had walked up nine flights of stairs during a previous protest on November 30th. As Sunny Hundal rightly points out at Liberal Conspiracy, Taylor does not consider the fact that Mr McIntyre had support from friends and rails while walking up those stairs – or how long it took him to do so.

Many people who share Mr McIntyre’s disability, cerebral palsy, are able to walk with support – but they still need wheelchairs in crowds the size of ones at protests.

Most people agree that the police were very wrong to treat Mr McIntyre in that way, when he was simply expressing his opinion on the very important issue of tuition fees. If people like Littlejohn and Taylor think that disabled people don’t have opinions on politics and current issues, Mr McIntyre has proved them very wrong.

That is something for which he should be applauded, not criticised.

The Paralympic Games start in just over two years’ time. However, many London Tube stations are still not accessible to wheelchair users. As any disabled person who has ever tried to get a lift installed anywhere knows, lifts cost money. A lot of money. So it is a shame, but not a surprise, to disabled people that six step free access schemes were deferred last year, saving £50 million.

London Underground says there are 61 step free, accessible stations in London but, as last night’s BBC News investigation showed, the lifts are too small for more than one person – especially since most wheelchair users would always need a carer with them on public transport.

As Steve Smith, the son of a long-term wheelchair user, told the BBC:

“The underground stations with ‘accessible lifts’ as you could see in the report are too small and not easily accessible for a disabled person and their luggage and any carers. God knows how they would feel if they suffered from claustrophobia!

“If they put proper lifts of a decent size in, they would be accessible to everyone who needs help accessing the underground – not just some of the disabled.”

A spokesperson for Transport for London told Left Foot Forward:

“We would like all stations to be step-free, but it costs a lot of money – a lot more than people think. There are 8,500 step-free buses, all black taxi drivers have ramps and drivers are trained to assist disabled people. All of the Docklands Light Railway stations have lifts.

“Disability is not only about people in wheelchairs – we now have announcements and hearing loops for those who are deaf and blind.”

Unfortunately for the Coalition Government, they are currently making massive spending cuts wherever possible – just when spending extra money on sport and access would have allowed the rest of the world to see London for the wonderful place it is.

Unfortunately for Paralympic athletes and their disabled fans, disabled people already feel that their services are at the top of the list of things to make cuts to. So while it is to be hoped that Tube stations will become more accessible in the next two years, disabled Tube users cannot be blamed for having their doubts.

It is to be hoped, however, that the Government will consider the fact that if and when Paralympic athletes and disabled fans are able to get around the city, they will spend just as much money as anyone else during London 2012 and will, in this way, contribute to our economy, just as Olympic athletes and their non disabled fans will.

Since the 1992 General Election, disability charity Scope has run a campaign called Polls Apart, which aims to make elections more accessible to disabled voters. After voting at each General Election, disabled people are asked to complete a survey about the accessibility of their voting experience.

The Polls Apart campaign 2010 surveyed over 1,000 disabled people in constituencies throughout the UK. Researchers found that 67 per cent of polling stations had one or more significant access barriers to disabled voters. This represents just a 1 per cent improvement from the last General Election (68 per cent) and 2 per cent from the General Election of 2001 (69 per cent).

This meant that in 2010, many disabled people needed assistance to vote, and could not vote in the privacy of polling booths like other voters. Some disabled people were unable to vote at all.

Despite the widespread assumption that postal voting was the most accessible channel for disabled voters, almost half (47 per cent) of postal voters reported one or more significant problems. These ranged from the confusing and complicated instructions that accompanied the ballot to the difficulty postal voters faced in marking and folding and the paper into the small envelope provided.

One long-term solution being suggested by Scope is the introduction of online voting for disabled voters. Thirty five per cent of the disabled people surveyed in 2010 said they would like to be able to vote online.

Scope’s Ruth Scott told the BBC she supports online voting:

“In a digital age where people can vote by text for the X-Factor and shop and bank online, our voting system really needs to catch up.”

Online voting would certainly allow more disabled people to cast their votes independently and in safety, comfort and privacy.

This would also benefit non-disabled voters, and politics as a whole, as it would shorten the entire voting process. This may encourage more people to vote, particularly young, first time voters.

It is now to be hoped that the Scope report will be read by all politicians, and that serious thought will be given to allowing the option of online voting for everyone. 

Earlier this month, parliament passed the Equality Bill; this will now become the Equality Act, replacing the Disability Discrimination Act. To mark their support for the new act, Leonard Cheshire Disability released a report, “Rights and Reality“. This was based on a survey more than 1,000 disabled people conducted by Ipsos MORI and included 15 in-depth interviews with disabled people.

The report examines disabled people’s experiences of accessing goods and services, and the extent to which disabled people have been able to enforce their rights through the DDA. “Rights and Reality” also makes recommendations as to how the Equality Act can be made to work effectively for disabled people.

It found that:

• Forty per cent were able to identify difficulties they had experienced accessing goods and services in the last 12 months; a quarter believe that this discrimination was related to their impairment.

• Public transport appears to need most improvement, with 16% reporting difficulties using this service.

The survey also asked interviewees about their knowledge of the law, finding:

• Twenty per cent have never heard of the DDA; a further 51 per cent said they knew little or nothing about it.

• Only 28 per cent of people who had experienced difficulties accessing goods and services had taken action to challenge this. Just 12 per cent of these people made formal complaints to the organisations involved, with a mere 1 per cent taking legal action.

• Just one of the 15 disabled people interviewed had taken legal action against a service provider. Asked how service providers had responded to the action taken, 47 per cent stated there had either been no outcome yet or the service provider did nothing at all, while nine per cent stated the organisation had made improvements in its provision of services.

• More than three quarters thought service providers would make improvements if concerned about legal action. However, only 42 per cent felt they knew enough about the law to be able to challenge unfair treatment.

• Fifty seven per cent said they didn’t think they would be able to afford legal action if they felt unfairly treated.

The report recommends that awareness must be raised among disabled people of their rights under the law, and that the Government and the EHRC will need to work with service providers to raise awareness of their legal obligations around providing equal access.

It is to be hoped all relevant organisations, government authorities and service providers take note of these findings, and the Equality Act leads to improved equality for disabled people in all areas.

Employment Support Allowance (ESA) was introduced in October 2008 to replace Incapacity Benefit (IB) for new claimants. It aims to help disabled people who might be able to work with support. At first, ESA was greeted with excitement by many disabled people, who were informed that the test would focus on what they can do, rather than what they cannot.

However, since the introduction of the ESA, many disabled people have found out the hard way that the test is not working. Now a report by the Citizens Advice Bureau, which is endorsed by several high profile disability charities, has revealed even more evidence for this.

CAB ran workshops in London and Yorkshire for advisers and welfare rights workers dealing with clients claiming ESA. Many of the advisers shared anonymous details of their cases at these workshops. The evidence gathered suggests that severely disabled people who should be eligible for ESA are being found not to be eligible during work capability assessments, which all applicants must carry out.

According to the report, government figures show that the number of people being found eligible for the benefit under the assessment process as currently operating is 20 per cent fewer than expected. The latest available figures, for January 2010, show that 69 per cent of people assessed for ESA were found fit to work.

When ESA started, the government prediction was that 49 per cent of applicants would be found fit for work. The numbers found fit for work in the test for incapacity benefit were 37 per cent. So 32 per cent more of those being assessed are being found fit for work under ESA than under IB.

The report identifies three key factors which contribute to some of the unexpected outcomes in the assessment process – firstly that certain exemptions applicable to IB are not included in ESA; secondly, that changes have occurred in the process for collecting information; and thirdly, the assessment is not flexible enough to respond to short-term special circumstances.

Based on evidence gathered from case studies, the report recommends that some disabled people should be exempt from the Work Capability Assessment, and that instead decision makers should be allowed to decide on the level of support these people will receive based on written evidence.

It also recommends that more importance should be given to evidence provided by a claimant’s own doctor or consultant in cases of serious illness. Finally, it recommends that decision makers should be given the right to consider exceptional circumstances in which a claimant will be able to return to work after a short time spent receiving ESA.

The report found several problems with the WCA. Firstly, the test takes little account of variability in symptoms. Secondly, it does not consider generalised pain and exhaustion, which affects a person’s overall ability to work rather than simply affecting their ability to perform selected functions. Finally, it considers the medical rather than the social model of disability- seeing the disability, rather than society’s attitudes to disability, as the problem preventing disabled people from working.

The report recommends that a second level, based on the social model of disability, should be added to the WCA for people who do not automatically qualify for the ESA.

This report will now be welcomed by many disabled people, who have been saying for too long that the WCA urgently needs to be reformed. It is to be hoped that this report is read and understood, and that its recommendations are acted on, by all relevant government officials and decision makers as soon as possible.

It is also to be hoped that government officials will consider the harmful effects that sending disabled people who are not fit for work into work will have on our already badly damaged economy.

A ComRes poll for tonight’s Panorama has found that 73 per cent of men and 75 per cent of women support assisted suicide for people who have a painful illness or condition from which they will die.

The underlying data, however, shows that support varies slightly across age groups.

The highest level of support, 79 per cent, comes from respondents aged 35-44, with the lowest level of support, 70 per cent, coming from respondents aged 65 and over. This may well come as a surprise when it is considered that people in this age group are the most likely to be in poor health and to wish to commit assisted suicide themselves.

Geographically, the highest level of support for assisted suicide for people with terminal illnesses, 82 per cent, comes from respondents in Wales; the lowest level, 67 per cent, came from the south-east of England.

The poll also found that support for assisted suicide without prosecution of medical professionals dropped significantly in cases where illness was painful and incurable but not terminal. In such cases, only 44 per cent of men and 45 per cent of women supported assisted suicide without prosecution of medical professionals.

As if to highlight the high levels of public support for assisted suicide shown by the poll, the author Sir Terry Pratchett, who suffers from Alzheimer’s, has said that he would like to see tribunals being set up to help people with incurable diseases commit assisted suicide with help from doctors.

He is due to give the Richard Dimbleby lecture this evening. In the lecture, titled Shaking Hands With Death, he will say that “the time is really coming” for assisted suicide to be legalised.

Explaining how the suggested tribunals would work, Sir Terry told the BBC that:

“I think it would be rather better if a person wishes to die, they could go see the tribunal with friends and relatives and present their case – at least if it happens, it happens with, as it were, authority.”

• Tonight’s edition of Panorama, I Helped My Daughter To Die, will be on BBC1 at 8:30.

1. Disability Hate Crime reports must be taken seriously and acted on appropriately by the police and (if not already) should receive exactly the same punishment as hate crimes against all other minorities.

2. Parents of disabled children should be given full rights to decide what sort of an education they want their child to have, and at which school. Full provision should be made for mainstream schools to be able to meet the needs of children with all disabilities.

3. Disabled adults should be given an allowance specifically to pay for any therapy their condition requires, to be provided at organisations of their choice.

Late last year, Highland Council cancelled an annual school trip to an outdoor activity centre for 70 children at Crown Primary School in Inverness, to avoid facing legal action under the Disability Discrimination Act. The council has been criticised for misinterpreting the law.

Donna Williamson, the mother of a disabled child who attends the school and was to go on the trip, said her daughter is physically unable to take part in the activities planned. She told BBC Scotland:

“She cannot hold a bow and arrow for example, or go kayaking, because she has no upper body strength.

“My daughter would have been excluded in that she would have had to stay in the centre while all the kids went off to do the activities.

“When she wasn’t in the centre she would have been asked to film them kayaking and doing the things she would love to do but she cannot do and I thought that was psychologically a pretty cruel thing to ask a child to do.”

The Disability Discrimination Act states that, when carrying out their functions, schools have a duty to:

• promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people;

• encourage participation by disabled people in public life;

• take steps to meet disabled people’s needs, even if this requires more favourable treatment.

Last week, the council’s decision to cancel the trip was criticised by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), who accused the council of “a lack of planning and foresight.” The Commission also said that the cancellation of the trip was “the easiest answer.” The EHRC added that the cancellation was not unlawful, but said that it hoped practice in other schools could be better demonstrated than in this case.

Highland Council said there was no alternative to cancelling the trip after taking legal advice. In a statement, Highland Council’s education chief, Hugh Fraser, admitted that mistakes had been made by his department in this case, but provided assurance that this will not set a precedent for other cases. He said the school and council officers were now working to ensure that high quality experiences meeting the needs of all pupils would be offered.

Disability Rights campaigners believe that this case has taken the Disability Discrimination Act too far. Left Foot Forward has spoken about this case to two disabled young people, both of whom have successfully completed mainstream educations.

Stacey, who has had Cerebral Palsy from birth and has worked as a Further Education tutor, says:

“This is just silly. I accepted from an early age that some school activities I would not be able to take part in. It’s not discrimination. It’s life and practicalities.

“Of course every effort should be made so that disabled people can take part in activities, but ya know what, sometimes it is just not possible.

“I feel sorry for the other kids who will miss out. It’s a lose-lose situation.”

Another young person, who wishes to remain anonymous, remembers being taken on a similar trip by her mainstream primary school. She says:

“My mum had to come along, which was more than a little embarrassing for me. The trip was not without its problems, but we were both glad that I went.”

Yesterday’s Guardian reports Conservative plans to allocate a £1m fund to help people with disabilities become MPs and overcome the under-representation of disabled people in Parliament: twenty per cent of British people currently have a disability – yet only 1 in 20 MPs are disabled.

The final report of the Speaker’s Conference on Parliamentary Representation, published last week, suggested such an ‘access to public life fund’ for disabled people.

It highlighted several barriers preventing disabled people from becoming MPs, including wheelchair access to public buildings, documents not being available in Braille and a lack of sign language interpreters and specialised equipment.

There is no doubt that news of the fund will be welcomed by disabled people. It is to be hoped that this news will allow all disabled people to realise how much support will be available to them if they wish to enter politics. It is also to be hoped that the news will provide encouragement to those disabled people who do wish to enter politics to follow their dreams.

The proposals, however, may well have come as a surprise to some disabled people, considering David Cameron’s previous policies on disability. In 2008, much to the shock and dismay of many campaigners, Cameron backed a law allowing the abortion of fœtuses diagnosed with disabilities up until 39 weeks of pregnancy; at the same time, he pledged to vote to reduce the abortion time limit for healthy babies from 24 to 20 weeks.

Questions about whether the Party will be able to carry out these plans in the current economic climate will also no doubt be raised by disabled and able-bodied people alike. This is a very valid point and should be fully considered. Most of all, it is to be hoped that the Conservatives would at least make some effort to carry out such plans, and that this revelation is not simply a way for the Party to target the votes of disabled voters in the run-up to a General Election.