An analysis of support for disabled people from the State | Sam Hall
“We all need to live the life we have not mourn the one we don’t. Change takes time, it’s baby steps. It isn’t going to be easy, but nothing worth doing ever happen easily.”
Adam Pearson; presenter, actor, and campaigner.
What relationship do disabled people have with the government and the wider society they are drawn from? In a society that allows the abortion of children purely because of having Down’s Syndrome and where disability hate crimes rose just under 12% in a year, it’s not surprising that some disabled people feel left behind by society and the government.
The question of support is a broad one. Just as disabilities are wide-ranging, so will people’s experience of the amount of support they need compared to the amount of support they get. Realistically this article will not cover all basis- but it will hopefully give statistical insight into life with disability as well as some personal experiences. Broadly speaking, the current pandemic offers an opportunity for everyone, especially disabled people, to utilise some of the lessons we have learnt for a better quality of life. We should not wait for government bureaucracy and politics to kick in.
The Facts:
Most probably think of disability in terms of physical impairments- but the Equality Act 2010 defines disability as a physical or mental impairment that has a ‘substantial’ and ‘long-term’ negative effect on one’s ability to do normal daily activities. This would include an impairment that means it takes much longer than normal to complete a daily activity like getting dressed and a breathing condition that developed as a result of a lung-infection that lasts for twelve months or more. It would not include addiction to non-prescribed drugs like alcohol.
This is 11 million of us in the UK, with prevalence rising with age- 45% of us over the State Pension Age. Worryingly, if you are a child in a family with at least one disabled member, you’re 5% more likely be in poverty compared to children in families with no disabled member. Topically as we think about how we might dig ourselves out of a financial black hole, working age non-disabled people are 30.1% more likely to be employed than their working age disabled counterparts. Of significance for this article, over a quarter of disabled people say that they do not frequently have choice and control over their daily lives. These figures were last updated in 2014 and like all statistics, they cannot tell the human lived-in experience.
The Support:
According to Citizen’s Advice, disabled people can access a number of financial support packages as can those who can support them. For instance, those under 16 who have difficulty with everyday tasks or getting around might be able to get a Disability Living Allowance. The employed who can’t work through sickness or disability normally receive Statutory Sickness Pay for 28 weeks or Employment and Support Allowance and there’s Universal Credit for low or no income. There’s specific support for Carers and Veterans.
The general aim seems to be (and must be) that although we all have difficulties in life, disabled people should not be at a disadvantage specifically because of their disability. Objectively this is not working and the statistics are telling. But the experiences in any group in life (racial, sex, etc.) are by no means universal and this is also true of disabled people.
The Success Stories:
Lord Kevin Shinkwin has been a member of the House of Lords since November 2015. He has previously worked for charities such as Macmillan Cancer Support, Cancer Research UK and The Royal British Legion. He has also worked in the private sector.
Ade Adepitan is a Television Presenter, Journalist, Children’s Author and Wheelchair Basketball Paralympian. Ade’s presenting career ranges from CBBC’s Xchange to Channel 4’s Unreported World and the BBC’s Travel Show. Earlier this year he released the four-part BBC documentary Africa with Ade Adepitan. For Comic Relief Ade’s travelled to Ghana and taken part in the Disabled Motoring UK Alps Challenge. He trekked through Nicaraguan rainforests, deserts, rivers and over mountains for ground-breaking documentary Beyond Boundaries, showcasing people with disabilities taking on major challenges.
Lee Ridley (also known as ‘Lost Voice Guy’) is a stand-up comedian who uses a communication aid. Lee shot to fame last year on Britain’s Got Talent where he became the first comedian to win the competition. He has since performed at The Royal Variety Performance, Live At The Apollo and America’s Got Talent: The Champions. Many of Lee’s jokes focus on disability, such as his communication aid sounding “like a posh Robocop” – so that while he’s from Newcastle, he says he has “never picked up the accent!” Lee’s brand of comedy makes people think and gives them a deeper perspective on disability. By riffing on people’s attitudes and thoughtless comments he fights overt and covert ableism, while also landing every joke.
If ever it needed to be proved that disability has no one feature then here we are facial disfigurement, wheelchair use, and no voice without a computer. There are countless more examples of those who are successful despite (or arguably in Lee’s case) because of their disability- turning what for others might be a weakness into a strength.
In some ways therefore, this diversity of inability (or ability, depending on your perspective) helps to explain why some might feel left behind because of their disability. As mentioned before, children with at least one disabled member are more likely to be in poverty and disabled people are more likely to be unemployed. Some will need far more support than other; financial, physical, and more, Help in the home is infinitely more preferably performed by a family member; as a gesture of love if nothing else, rather than a well-meaning stranger. But of course, in cases where this isn’t possible, where family members might feel overwhelmed, or the person might not have funds available, of course the state has a hand to play.
The 2012 Paralympics may have created the impression that Britain is moving forward. But as Nina Grant, who uses a wheelchair, said whilst being interviewed in this 2017 article for The Guardian; ‘In reality, we still get turned away from buses. We still have nowhere to live’. Part of the struggle for the government is that the spectrum of disability is big and not as binary as say gender. What would help one person to live a dignified life, like help getting dressed and washed, would be an infringement on another disabled person’s personal life because their disability affects them differently. Therefore, it’s difficult to make sweeping statements about progress or indeed recommend what needs to be done in a short article.
The wider public has a role to play as well. We might well think of disability in terms of a wheelchair, or an elite Paralympian but it is more diverse and nuanced than that. Invisible disabilities are gaining more prominence for example. The rapid rise of disability hate crime might seem at odds with our ‘progressive’ age- but logically why would some who deem disabled unborn babies unworthy of life have any more respect for the same people outside the womb? It would seem that we have backwards attitudes in this respect- disabled people are a novel commodity that only get any attention during major sporting events. Day to day lives go unseen.
The question of ‘Do Disabled People receive enough support from the State?’ is unlikely to be satisfactorily answered by an abled-bodied man in anything less than a report from a Royal Commission. I would love to be able to say that being disabled in Britain doesn’t disadvantage you in any way — but statistically that isn’t the case. As we (hopefully!) wrangle our way out of this pandemic, there are takeaways from working from home. For some, it might mean less car travel, more time spent with the family because of skipping the commute, and a better environment with less air pollution. But for others, it might mean more employment opportunities in higher paid jobs where wrestling the logistics of public transport, the unavailability of disabled toilets or poorly adapted workplaces is less of an issue. I would hope that the government encourage this for at least part of the working week going forward.
Governments, especially neoliberal ones, make poor parents. We often ask ourselves what more the government can do. As we seek to ‘level-up’ the country in the wake of Brexit and the pandemic, I pray that the most vulnerable in society- born or not- may not be forgotten. It is time to stop asking how to assimilate disabled people into a society that was not built for them. Instead, perhaps we should be asking how disabled people can use different paths to reach the same conclusion- to live out a life that as far as possible, is dignified, fulfilling and meaningful. Working from home might just be part of the answer.
If it is control over one’s own daily life that we all crave, then in regards disabled people, we are not there. Public attitudes need to change, unemployment attitudes need to change, and circumstances need to change. Disability can affect anyone of us at any time, but it should not mean a poorer quality of life. As many prominent individuals show, this is not the case. The pandemic is threatening to break society- I hope we rebuild wisely.
This is not the report of a Royal Commission. It is, however, food for thought.
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