Our Manifesto sets out what disabled people have told us are the most important issues they face and what needs to be done to make a post Covid-19 Scotland a better place for disabled people. You can show your support for our manifesto by signing our pledge.
Download our Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-2026 in Easy Read and large print
Want to hear direct from leading politicians from Scotland’s main political parties on how they plan to make a difference for Scotland’s disabled people over the next five years? Sign up to our our Disabled People’s Question Time on Wednesday 14 April.
The Covid-19 crisis hit hard and it hit quickly – and it hit disabled people most of all. From losing vital social care support and being left unable to get out of bed, to fears about involuntary ‘do not resuscitate’ notices, job losses, getting access to basic items like food and medicine and health services and other support services they need. People told us they were ‘being pushed to the brink’.
Before Covid-19, disabled people were already some of the most marginalised and excluded in society. We were already more likely to live in poverty, be unemployed or to earn less than non-disabled people, and less likely to leave school with qualifications, in addition to facing barriers and exclusion in our day-to-day lives. The Covid-19 crisis and responses to it highlighted and aggravated this, generating new inequalities, and putting the human rights of disabled people at further risk.
Going back to the way things were before is not good enough for disabled people.
Inclusion Scotland’s Manifesto is informed by the lived experience of disabled people and they told us what needs to change. The next Scottish Parliament can deliver these Five Asks to make a post Covid-19 Scotland better for disabled people:
- Incorporate the UN Convention on Rights of Disabled People into Scots Law to fully promote, protect and realise our human rights.
- Recognise social care support as a fundamental basic right with the same criteria wherever you live.
- Ensure equal access to education and jobs for disabled people, particularly disabled young people.
- Use Scottish Social Security powers to help reduce the number of disabled people living in poverty.
- Involve us, the experts in our own lives, in making post Covid-19 Scotland better for disabled people.
We urge all candidates for the Scottish Parliament Elections to back disabled people’s Five Asks for a fresh start.
Show your support for our manifesto by signing our pledge.
Incorporate the UN Convention on Rights of Disabled People into Scots Law to fully promote, protect and realise our human rights.
What disabled people’s lived experience tells us:
“I think the human rights of disabled people and older people are being completely ignored.”
“I can see clearly that, as a disabled person, I count even less and have no rights compared to before Covid-19.”
“My greatest fear is that if I were to experience complications from the virus and require admission to hospital, as a disabled person, I would not receive the same care that I would as an able-bodied person.”
What disabled people want:
- The incorporation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCRPD) into Scots’ law as soon as possible, and support to enable us to challenge in court the laws, policies and practices that breach our human rights and to get redress and change.
- Future emergency legislation and processes to deal with pandemics or other crises must not remove from disabled people fundamental rights to life, equal recognition before the law, liberty and security, health, and independent living.
- To ensure that disabled people can exercise their right to access services on the same basis as anyone else – particularly health and mental health treatments, food and medicines.
Learn more in our briefing on Incorporate the UN Convention on Rights of Disabled People into Scots Law to fully promote, protect and realise our human rights:
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 Briefing 1 (PDF)
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 Briefing 1 (Word doc)
Recognise social care support as a fundamental basic right, with the same criteria wherever you live.
What disabled people’s lived experience tells us:
“I have gone from 20 hours of care to zero. I am now bedbound completely because of this.”
“The plight of disabled people and unpaid carers has been largely ignored: the devastating cuts in social care; what happens to disabled children; the fact that nothing has really been done to support family carers who are doing far more. We feel abandoned – as if we don’t matter.”
“I receive Self-Directed Support Option 1 and I think this is the difference: I am paid directly and carried out all checks on my personal assistant myself. Local authorities cannot withdraw care and send my care staff elsewhere, e.g., care homes.”
What disabled people want:
- A National Social Care Support Service that recognises that social care support is a basic right and fundamental to participative citizenship, with a set of universal criteria coproduced with disabled people. Whether disabled people can have human rights should never be subject to local priorities.
- Cuts to social care support to be reversed and an end to all charges for social care support.
- The Independent Living Fund Scotland to be reopened to new claims.
Learn more in our briefing on recognising social care support as a fundamental basic right, with the same criteria wherever you live.
Ensure equal access to education and jobs for disabled people, particularly disabled young people.
What disabled people’s lived experience tells us:
“Concerned that I will have to make the decision to put myself at risk or lose my job.”
“All the simple adjustments to enable distance working that I’d previously been told were impossible have started to be made.”
“My son has ASD and self-harms/has suicidal thoughts. He is also really volatile and can hit out. He has no support at all now, as his main support was a school counsellor.”
What disabled people want:
- The Scottish Government to remove employer-based barriers to disabled people, working with employers to encourage flexibility in working hours and arrangements that recognise the individual needs of disabled people.
- Disabled people to be a priority group for access to the Young Person’s Guarantee and employability support schemes to be designed with disabled people.
- Education that is inclusive for all and each disabled child and disabled young person to receive appropriate care and support before, and during, the transition to adulthood.
Learn more in our briefing on ensuring equal access to education and jobs for disabled people, particularly disabled young people.
Use Scottish Social Security powers to help reduce the number of disabled people living in poverty.
What disabled people’s lived experience tells us:
“Have an application for PIP in that is not seeming to progress… I’ve read they are pushing these aside to prioritise new claims (to Universal Credit) which will leave me with no money for food after bills are paid.”
“Disabled people already face additional daily living costs, but these have gone up even more due to things like having to pay for online deliveries for essentials and PPE and cleaning materials for our carers.”
“There was a 40% reduction in claims for Personal Independence Payment during the first month of Covid-19 lockdown.”
What disabled people want:
- The Scottish Government to use devolved powers to top-up social security payments, similar to the child payment, for families with one or more disabled parent or disabled child.
- Child poverty reduced by increasing funding for the Scottish Welfare Fund and assisting families in priority groups, including families with disabled children.
Campaigns to ensure everyone who should be in receipt of the new Scottish Disability Payments, Children’s Disability Living Allowance, Personal Independence Payment or Attendance Allowance is getting it.
Learn more in our briefing on using Scottish Social Security powers to help reduce the number of disabled people living in poverty.
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 Briefing 4 (PDF)
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 Briefing 4 (Word doc)
Involve us, the experts in our own lives, in making post Covid-19 Scotland better for disabled people.
What disabled people’s lived experience tells us:
“Inaccessible systems and processes were put in place without consulting disabled people, including social distancing rules for supermarkets for people who require assistance.”
“It’s clear that there’s no contingency plan for services for disabled people.”
“Too much conflicting information. Information that doesn’t consider disabled people’s experiences.”
What disabled people want:
- Full recognition and involvement of our Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) – organisations run by disabled people for disabled people – by decision and policy makers, those holding them to account, and by funders.
- Communicate with us and inform us in ways that are accessible to us.
- Stop stigmatising disabled people as vulnerable and problematic.
Learn more in our briefing on involving us, the experts in our own lives, in making post Covid-19 Scotland better for disabled people.
How you can support disabled people’s 5 asks
First, sign our Manifesto pledge.
Second, share our manifesto and ask others to sign the pledge! You can share the manifesto on facebook, twitter or instagram!
Third, ask the candidates in your constituency to support disabled people’s 5 asks and sign the pledge! You can do this by:
Email or Letter using the following template:
As a disabled person, I am writing to ask you to pledge your support for Inclusion Scotland’s Manifesto “Rights and Renewal”.
The Manifesto sets out what disabled people told Inclusion Scotland are the most important issues they/we face and what needs to be done to make a post Covid-19 Scotland a better place for disabled people. It has 5 Key asks:
- Incorporate the UN Convention on Rights of Disabled People into Scots law to fully promote, protect and realise our human rights.
- Recognise social care support as a fundamental basic right with the same criteria wherever you live.
- Ensure equal access to education and jobs for disabled people, particularly disabled young people.
- Use Scottish Social Security powers to help reduce the number of disabled people living in poverty.
- Involve us, the experts in our own lives, in making post Covid-19 Scotland better for disabled people.
Please read the full manifesto and short briefings on each of the 5 Asks, and support for the 5 Asks by signing the Manifesto pledge.
I look forward to hearing from you.
You can also send a direct message on twitter using the following template:
“Hi [insert @candidatename]. I am contacting you as a candidate for my [insert name of constituency or region] to ask you to sign the pledge to show your support for Inclusion Scotland’s Manifesto “Rights and Renewal” and the 5 Asks of Disabled people. https://bit.ly/3jJqUe2 ”
Fourth, attend a hustings (a meeting at which candidates in an election address potential voters) and ask the candidates a question about what they’ll do for disabled people.
Some Questions you could ask at a Hustings event:
General:
Before Covid-19, disabled people were already some of the most marginalised and excluded in society. We were already more likely to live in poverty, be unemployed or to earn less than non-disabled people, and less likely to leave school with qualifications, in addition to facing barriers and exclusion in our day-to-day lives.
Q: If elected, what will you do to make things more equal for disabled people?”
Ask 1: Incorporate the UN Convention on Rights of Disabled People into Scots Law to fully promote, protect and realise our human rights.
Disabled people are seeing their hard fought for human rights, such as the right to Independent Living, undermined by measures to combat Covid-19, in particular as the needs of disabled people have not been fully considered in the planning or implementation of these measures.
Q: Will you support the incorporation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (UNRCPD) into Scots Law to protect our Human Rights? What will you do in the next parliament to help the UNRCPD be passed into law?
Ask 2: Recognise social care support as a fundamental basic right, with the same criteria wherever you live.
Many disabled people have seen their social care support cut or stopped completely during Covid-19, but even before the pandemic, social care support was in crisis. Years of austerity and rationing of social care support to those with ever higher levels of need has led to significant unmet need for social care support in Scotland. Disabled people can’t afford to wait years for a new national service to be set up.
Q: How will you make sure disabled people get the social care support they need, and what will you do to ensure that a national social care support service with ministerial accountability is set up without delay?
Q: What will you do to make sure that the new national social care support service is co-produced, at all levels, with those who have the lived experience of social care support?
Q: Do you agree that cuts to social care support should be reversed and an there should be an end to all charges for social care support?
Ask 3: Ensure equal access to education and jobs for disabled people, particularly disabled young people
Before Covid-19, only 46% of disabled people of working age were in employment, compared with 82% non-disabled people. Disabled People, particularly young disabled people, are more likely to have lost their jobs due to Covid-19 and will be at the back of the queue for jobs when the recovery begins.
Q: What will you do to ensure that employers address the barriers to employment faced by disabled people and help close the disability employment gap?
Q: How will you support disabled young people to get jobs?
During lockdown many of the services disabled children rely on to support their daily living like social care support, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, pain management provision, child and adolescent mental health support (CAMHS), and additional support for learning when in school have been reduced or have stopped completely.
Q: What will you do to ensure that disabled children and young people get the additional support they need to support their learning and fully included with all other children in all activities at school?
Q: Do you agree that there should be a statutory right to transition support for disabled young people moving from children to adult services?
Ask 4: Use Scottish Social Security powers to help reduce the number of disabled people living in poverty.
Even before Covid-19, disabled people in Scotland were more likely to be living in poverty and faced additional costs related to their impairment of £641 a month. As a result of Covid-19, 25% of disabled people have reported having less money to spend on food and disabled people face additional costs for things like personal protective equipment (PPE) for themselves and carers, extra cleaning equipment and materials, having to pay for food deliveries, and having to rely on taxis to avoid public transport.
Q: What will you do to support families with a disabled child or adult to get out of and stay out of poverty?
Q: Do you agree that there should be a full review of Scottish Disability Assistance to ensure that it compensates disabled people for the extra costs they face as a result of their impairment, and help us realise our rights to participate equally in society and independent living?
Ask 5: Involve us, the experts in our own lives, in making post Covid-19 Scotland better for disabled people.
Disabled people have reported difficulties with accessing food or medicines because measures to implement social distancing rules did not take account of the needs of disabled people. Disabled people are not just at risk from the virus. We are at risk from the actions of public bodies and others who do not understand who we are, what we need or what will work. Why? Because they have not asked us.
Q: What steps will you take to ensure that disabled people and our Disabled People’s Organisations are fully consulted with and actively involved in the planning, implementation and monitoring of recovery and renewal planning from Covid-19 and contingency planning for any future emergencies or pandemics?
Download our Manifesto in alternative formats
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 (PDF)
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 (Word doc)
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 Easy Read (PDF)
Inclusion Scotland Manifesto 2021-26 Easy Read (Word Doc)
Using the manifesto guide (PDF)
Using the manifesto guide (Word Doc)
