Disability info for Parliamentary Candidates Association

1. The starting point is an agreed definition of disability - this is what the Disability Discrimination Act uses "A person has a disability for the purposes of the DDA if s/he has a physical or mental impairment which has a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his or her ability to carry out normal day to day activities."

a. This means that many people who don't think of themselves as "disabled" are. A person with severe angina, someone with asthma, anyone with hearing problems (including age-related issues) .. all are legally disabled. The definition also includes those of us who use wheelchairs, have assistance dogs and so on.

b. There is, however, a consultation process about the definition because it is argued that people are disabled because society doesn't provide adequate adaptations rather than because a person has a physical or medical impairment - there is likely to be a revised definition in 2010).

2. So, how many of the general population are "disabled"? Well, according to one set of statistics based on the 2001 census, 8.6 million people (aged 16 and over) self declare as disabled in the UK (15% of the UK population). The true number of disabled people is estimated to be much higher at 20% to 25%. There are also many family members and partners indirectly affected by disability.

a. Politically, at the last election the RNIB (the B is for "blind", not as one person thought, "birds") said, "there are over two million people in the UK with sight problems. This number means an average of 3,000 in every UK constituency - enough voters to deliver a constituency to the candidate who can deliver on disabled policy. "

b. The Leonard Cheshire charity commissioned a Mori survey at the last election, it showed that, "Disabled people are significantly more likely to vote in the upcoming general election than the non-disabled population - threatening a potentially significant impact on the outcome.

c. 61% of disabled respondents said they were absolutely certain to vote in the general election. For the general population, the figure stands at 54%. The survey also showed that over half of all disabled respondents would consider switching their vote if the policies of their preferred party were disability-unfriendly."

3. So, how many of our MP's, Peers and Assembly Members and Candidates are disabled?

The answer is that we don't know! It is for that reason that the Party is going to undertake an (anonymous) monitoring exercise.

I hope the above information makes you think about disability as an issue.

The LDDA plans to create some items for Focus leaflets and surveys and hope that PCA and others will help to disseminate these. We also hope that more people will join LDDA!

Robert Adamson

Chair LDDA