If David Cameron is called to the Palace...

I don’t think it constitutes a breach of RADAR’s strict rules of impartiality to state that Britain may well have a new Government in office within the next 18 months or so, quite possibly less. For the first time since 1992 we face the prospect of a genuine two-horse race at a General Election. That being so the wishes of the substantial electorate affected by disability, and the policies, plans and beliefs of the Conservative Party take on an increasing level of importance.

The Obama/Biden Presidential campaign has been cited as an example of thorough preparation for taking office - disability campaigners on this side of the pond have greeted with enthusiasm the level of forethought that has gone into Barack Obama’s impressively comprehensive disability platform.

Mark Harper MP, Shadow Minister for Disabled People, will be preparing the Conservative disability platform ahead of an election.

Left: Mark Harper MP (back left) with Conservative Party Leader David Cameron (front right), your very own RADAR blogmaster (front left), my friend Mattie (front centre), and Mattie's mum (back right)

RADAR asked Mark this question: “Are you as well-prepared to hit the ground running if you are called upon to form a Government?” Here is his response:

Mark Harper writes:

A future Conservative Government will be ready to ‘hit the ground running’ should we be fortunate enough to win the next election. I very much welcome the opportunity to outline how the Conservative Party views the challenge of breaking down the barriers that disabled people face, and our policies which will make a real practical and positive difference to improve the lives of over 10 million disabled people in the UK.

Being prepared and ready to take office from day one is vitally important, and is a lesson we have learnt from the failings of this Labour Government. In 1997, Labour came to power ‘policy light’. Little consideration had been made of how their good intentions were going to be converted into solid policies which would benefit disabled people. A future Conservative Government will not repeat this mistake.

Welfare reform

After 11 years of Labour Government it is disappointing that more progress hasn’t been made in helping disabled people get off benefits and into work, and reducing poverty. There is a broad consensus that work is the best way out of poverty, but still only half of disabled people are in employment compared to four out of five of non-disabled people in the population as a whole. The consequence of this is that disabled people are twice as likely as their non-disabled colleagues to live in relative poverty.

There are over 2.6 million people currently claiming Incapacity Benefit, a number which has broadly stayed the same over the last 11 years in spite of a benign economic environment. The number of people claiming for more than five years is higher than it was 10 years ago, and continues to rise. Around half a million people – almost one in five of IB claimants – are under 35. We cannot, and Conservatives will not, allow this potential to be lost.

The message is clear: if we are to reduce poverty among disabled people, we must improve their opportunities to work, as well as give them the right help and support to get into work. Therefore, one of the key priorities of a future Conservative Government will be radically reforming the welfare state and unlocking the talents of disabled people.

One of the reasons why many disabled people may have found it difficult to get into work is due to the high numbers of migrants entering into employment in Britain. Government figures have shown that, since 2006, the number of British people in work has fallen by 317,000 and the number of migrants finding employment rose by 865,000. Our proposals for caps on the numbers of economic migrants moving into the UK will unlock many more opportunities for disabled people to move into work.

In addition we will do a better job of explaining to employers the strong business case as to why it is beneficial for them to take on and retain disabled people. It is important that the Government should lead by example. In the Department for Work and Pensions only 4% of the civil servants are declared disabled. I want a Conservative Government to do better, and make the Department an exemplar employer for the rest of Government, and the wider business world.

Incentivising employers and supplying the opportunities for disabled people to work is only one side of the story. It is crucial that we make the changes to our welfare system so that disabled people get the proper help and support to find and stay in work.

The Government have finally accepted our proposals for using the expertise of the private and voluntary sectors to effectively help disabled people into work. Unfortunately they have not matched our commitment to fund this properly by changing the Treasury accounting rules which currently block the reinvestment of the savings from benefit payments back into the welfare to work programmes. Our commitment to change these rules means that a future Conservative Government has every chance of success in helping to move large numbers of disabled people into work.

Benefit simplification

At present, the benefit system is hugely complicated, overly bureaucratic and confusing for disabled people who use it, and discourages people from claiming. It also has perverse incentives which discourage disabled people from moving into work. We want to simplify the system.

We want to make it more straightforward for disabled people to claim and improve the take up of benefits so that disabled people get what they are entitled to. We will do this by cutting unneccesasary bureaucracy and form-filling, and ensure that benefits act to encourage and help people to move into work, not to keep them out of the job market.

Independent Living agenda

A future Conservative Government will move faster than the present Government in removing some of the obstacles which prevent disabled people from living independently. One of the central problems that disabled people face is in finding the right care services which best serve their needs.

At the moment disabled people have to fit their lives around those supporting them, rather than being in control themselves. They are prevented from living their lives as they would wish by the current framework which expects disabled people to neatly fit into the one-size-fits-all services that are often provided for them by the State. This limits their opportunities, dents their confidence and stifles aspiration.

Individual Budgets and Direct Payments can give disabled people the freedom to take charge of their own lives and design their own services around their own needs. They enable disabled people to control their own care budgets so they can use the money, for instance, to buy the latest technology which will best suit their needs as soon as it reaches the market instead of waiting a long time for equipment which then doesn’t do the job.

The Government is dragging its feet in making Individual Budgets available to all eligible disabled people in the country. The evaluation report for the Individual Budgets pilot programme finally arrived 6 months late, and currently only an estimated 6,000 people are in receipt of Individual Budgets out of the 1.7 million people who are eligible.[1] We want to speed up the national roll out of Individual Budgets so that disabled people don’t have to wait to take control of their own lives.

Of course though, we are under no illusions that our ambitions will be easy to achieve. In the context of an increasingly gloomy economic situation, this challenge is going to be all the greater, but our purpose is clear. The Conservative Party is determined and ready take up the reins of Government and make a positive difference to the lives of millions of disabled people.

[1] Guardian, 2nd July 2008, Alison Benjamin article.