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   Government disability policy after the economic downturn
Tom Clarke MP writes for ePolitix.com ahead of his Westminster Hall debate on government disability policy after the economic downturn. The debate will focus on issues surrounding disability legislation as the economy emerges from recession, and as fiscal belt-tightening inevitably takes place. The reason for this debate is to seek to ensure that cuts in public spending are not disproportionately aimed at some of the most vulnerable in our society. Alas, we have seen this happen all too often in previous recessions, as part of a dogmatic free-market agenda, which tends to target the weak and the vulnerable, and which we have seen again in certain local authority areas. Yet it is vital that services for people with disabilities, and legislative reform, continue to have the momentum of investment and commitment both from the government and from local authorities. The debate will focus on three key areas. The first is social care, in which I will encourage the government to continue with its ambitious and widely supported roll-out of the personalisation agenda. The recession, and public spending cuts, cannot be allowed to weaken the move towards individual control of social care budgets, with sufficient safeguards built in to its implementation. Local authorities should not use personalisation as an excuse for cost-cutting to hide the excesses of their incompetent financial management. The second area will focus on issues of disability inequality in the economic sphere, particularly with many of the findings that came out of recent Leonard Cheshire reports on disability and poverty. A disproportionate number of disabled people live in poverty, and too many are out of work. Both of these problems have been exacerbated by the recession. It is important that the government, with its bold legislative programme on disability unemployment, continues to implement wide-ranging economic reforms to help close the poverty gap between disabled and non-disabled people. Finally, the debate will focus on wider issues of inequality in the post-recession climate, such as discrimination in public services and hate crime towards people with a disability. The government has made unparalleled strides towards its goal of equality for disabled people by 2025, and it's important that these policy goals continue to be implemented in a robust and fair way. Source: epolitix.com Copyright Dod's Parliamentary Communications Ltd
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