Many of our readers will remember speeches given at Conference by David Buxton. They were notable because they were given in British Sign Language. On each occasion a member of the wonderful BSL interpreting team switched roles and gave the spoken interpretation. At the end we all showed our appreciation with jazz hands instead of the usual clapping.
David was our Parliamentary candidate in East Hampshire, where he increased the Lib Dem vote by a very creditable 9%. But:
I’ve ended up having to pay £5,000 out of my own pocket for sign language interpreters, which has been very disappointing as the Conservatives abolished the The Access to Elected Office Fund, which helps disabled people with the costs of standing for election, in 2015.
So after multiple years of campaigning within the coalition – lots of campaigning for that – unfortunately that was abolished.
He appealed directly to Damien Hinds who was re-elected in the seat for the Conservatives.
I’m sure that most of us hadn’t realised that this fund had been cut. But now that we do know about the impact it has on candidates we should be campaigning with David to get it reinstated. A resolution for the New Year?
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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20 Comments
I know this comment might not be taken well, but when David Buxton first brought this to LDV in an article in 2018 https://www.libdemvoice.org/a-new-campaign-to-restore-the-political-disability-fund-57177.html I was surprised by the size of the grant (£40,000) which he reportedly used to fund his selection campaign (not election campaign).
I understand people with disabilities have needs and that participating in the democratic process as a candidate means these needs will incur additional costs to the individual, but this concept is not unique just to those with disabilities. Any would-be candidate who has children, or who is a carer, or who works freelance or zero-hour contract or is self employed will incur substantial costs in the process. Actually any would be candidate incurs some out of pocket costs from participating, some of it very substantial.
In the name of equity, is it proposed that all these would-be candidates be offered state funding to support their candidacy? Because the potential funding of that is actually limitless, and I doubt there is much popular support for such use of taxes, especially if £40,000 can be used for one individual’s selection campaign. It’s probable that because of such scenarios that the fund was scrapped in the first place.
I think it is the responsibility of individual political parties to provide such funding for their would-be and actual candidate IF (and I emphasise this “if”) the political party wants to. I really don’t think these sorts of initiatives should be financed from taxation.
” I’ve ended up having to pay £5,000 out of my own pocket for sign language interpreters, which has been very disappointing as the Conservatives abolished the The Access to Elected Office Fund, which helps disabled people with the costs of standing for election, in 2015.”
Perhaps Mr Buxton having a hearing impairment can advise us how much he has spent on BSL intepreters over what appears to be a very successful 30 year high level career to date in his chosen area, as well as his role as an elected councillor as he presumably has major difficulties in basic communication.
If he has needed a BSL interpreter for most of the 6 week GE election campaign, then presumably he needs the same for his day job. £5000 equates to 20 days full time use of a BSL interpretor at £250 a day or 40 half days, at that rate over a 30 year career at today’s rates he must have spent the equivalent of around £150,000 on BSL interpreters.
Quite astonishing!!
I am rather unhappy about the rather churlish response to this post. As Liberals we believe in providing support so people can participate equally in society, whatever obstacles they face. That is not the same as treating everyone the same.
Of course there are other factors beyond disability that can limit participation – child care being an obvious one, as James points out. And we should be looking at those issues too. But disability is a major obstacle to participation and we should certainly be starting there.
How David conducts his work life is another issue and not relevant here.
A very useful article, I didnt know that The Fund had been closed.
On the tone of the first 2 comments, I am afraid they arent the only ones on LDV that cross the line into plain nastiness. Perhaps it might be an idea to turn the comments function off for a couple of weeks ? It works for computers.
The archived fund websites states that it provided grants of ‘up to £40,000 ‘ – I wonder if this is just something that was badly written/phrased. (£40k sounds an awful lot to support someone through an internal party selection contest – not least because that would max out any entitlement for the year leaving nothing to support them in the actual election)
@Mary
I agree Liberalism is about enabling people to reach there potential. And I believe this entails aspiring to do so within society’s means. Every candidate is going to have some sort of individual issue that is going to lead to individual costs for them as part of standing for election (at the very least transport costs to participate in campaigning, which depends on where they live).
The principle of the Access to Elected Office Fund is about mitigating some specific financial costs of standing for election that a candidate with disabilities would face. The reason I raised the question of equity (and I was careful to use the ‘equity’ and not ‘equality’) is that all candidates are in circumstances beyond (and within) their control that create additional barriers that require money to mitigate (i.e. expense to themselves). The reason this is a question of equity is that a would-be or actual candidate who is a single mother with multiple children on a zero-hours contract is actually going to face far far more barriers (and thus higher personal costs) than most candidates with a disability. And herein lies the problem; to be inclusive and equitable opens up the system to near limitless state expenditure.
Life isn’t fair, and British elections fall short on fairness in so many ways. As Liberals rationing finite state resources is part and parcel of delivering policies that help people to maximise their potential and mitigate unfairness; choosing what to fund and what not to fund from a whole host of worthy issues. We can’t fund and solve everything and need to always ask ourselves whether funding one thing justifies not funding another thing (the reality of budgeting).
I’ll also be clear that part of my opposition to this is that I am VERY opposed to state funding of political parties (which is what the Access to Elected Office Fund was; funding to a political party to support one or more of its candidates). However I think my opposition is supported by sound reason and notions of equity.
@Paul Barker
I fear that your response to the discussion reflects a common trap that many Lib Dems have fallen into. And that is not wanting to listen to a diversity of voices and opinions on subjects that are deemed “settled”.
The Lib Dems as a party have found themselves down (and stuck down) a number of rabbit holes that result in the party taking positions that are neither liberal nor popular or of interest to the electorate. All because there are positions deemed “settled” and not open to discussion (or as you suggest should be just shut down vis a vis “shutting off the comments”). The problems arise is that most subjects and opinions deemed “settled” by Lib Dems (which lets be fair is made up of a tiny miniscule clique of society) are very much not settled by the electorate which the party must appeal to if it is to broaden it’s support and gain some sort of power.
Amongst the segment of society that fully understands elections and what they entail from the air campaign, to the ground campaign and onto the individual work of the candidate themselves (which let’s be fair is going to number only in the tens of thousands nationally), a figure of £40,000 of financing is going to seem like a lot to support a selection campaign of one individual. If you move into the wider electorate, then support for spending taxes to fund some of the expenses that politicians (i.e candidates) incur when standing for election is going to actually be in single digit percentages.
For the party to recover and grow it does have to listen to and take note of the electorate
Mary,
I don’t think anyone including Stopwith would claim he was a Liberal. In fact if I called him one he’s probably take it as an insult. I’m afraid he’s just looking to provoke a response and to feel someone cares what he thinks. Rather sad but there you go.
Mary Reid 28th Dec ’19 – 5:36pm
“I am rather unhappy about the rather churlish response to this post.”
Why?
Because it was glaringly painfully obvious that this candidate could probably afford to fund himself whatever his disability if he has £5 floating around, rather than sponge off the state. As others have said why should the state fund any party candidate whatever their situation, if it is needed at all it should be targetted on the basis of need. If you want a LibDem elected than fund their campaign yourself.
If your article was truly about opportunity, where is your parties pro- active campaigning to support and fund the candidatures of deaf BAME working class candidates in deprived areas of London, or deaf white single mothers in the West End of Newcastle, or generally those who have a lot to contribute, but never get the opportunity to have their say, and no forum to say it in anyway. They simply don’t pop up on the horizon of most political parties unless they fit what appears to an elite selection process of education, career, and how many talking shop committees they have warmed their backsides on do date.
If this fund needs to exist, it should only be available to candidates on average incomes or less, and more importantly it should disbar the elite candidate criteria that infests our political system. Anybody who has the means whatever their disabilities can afford to pay for themselves and should.
Correction:
“if he has £5K floating around”
The LDV Team are overdue a rest, I urge them to consider just turning off the comments function for a few Weeks & then ignore any complaints sent directly to them.
Its not as if many actual Members will be reading LDV at this point anyway.
I dont know if we are just seeing a bunch of Trolls or if the Nasty Comments are the result of real Libdems lashing out after The Election; either way the effects could be damaging if anyone was actually reading this stuff.
I have been mildly deaf since my mid 40s, needing to wear a hearing aid. I also attended lip reading classes which were eye opening in terms of learning about the discrimination against deaf people, mainly because this disability isn’t visible. In my opinion this is why some people have felt able to respond in a very negative way to Mary’s post.
Disabled people in general are suffering more than any other group because of the obscenity which is the present system of awarding benefits. We as a party have done little about this as far as I can see. Disabled people suffer from insults in the same way that other minority groups do but there is less publicity about it.
Thank you for this article Mary. I don’t know if you’re aware but a fund was launched in 2018 to support candidates with disabilities at local government level. (More information can be found here: https://www.disabilityrightsuk.org/enablefund) It helped a number of brilliant councillors get elected in 2019 who would have otherwise struggled to do so without the support the fund was able to offer. Sadly the fund is closing 31st March 2020 so the final election it will cover is the Police and Crime Commissioner elections.
It’s a pity that James Pugh thinks he has the right to take over this thread in his rather aggressive way.
So do you listen to the words of James Pugh or Tony Greaves ?
When someone comes up your drive holding a bunch of pamphlets you know it’s either a Lib Dem or a Jehovah’s Witness, and your heart sinks, because you know that the encounter will amount to the same thing. Both going to condescendingly tell you how you must change your lives and repent from the error of your ways.
Truth is, the Lib Dems are at a decisive fork in the road,
One path is to actually listen to the British electorate and hear what they want, and the other path is to continue door knocking and preaching issues that are irrelevant to voters and hoping to get a different result.
We’re in the process of bringing democracy back home to the UK, where we can keep an eye on those that would make the rules and sack those who make rules we don’t approve of. You either accept that ‘voters rule’, or pack your liberal bags and leave the political stage?
Good Luck.
According to the Charity Scope there are 13.9 million disabled people in the UK https://www.scope.org.uk/media/disability-facts-figures/
The disability news service reports that the number of disabled MPs has fallen to just five https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/election-post-mortem-number-of-disabled-mps-may-have-fallen-to-just-five/ following the loss of Liberal Democrat Stephen Lloyd and Jared Omara’s decision to not stand.
With over 20% of the UK population having a disability this level of representation in parliament, where many of the decisions that impact directly on the daily lives of the disabled are taken, is clearly inadequate.
On this grounds alone, I for one will happily back David Buxton’s campaign for the reinstatement of the access to elected office fund.
There is of course much more we need to be doing via the welfare system and legislation to ensure that the disabled are able to access special needs education as children, rewarding work as adults and good quality care services as seniors. One place to start is by supporting efforts to bring more disabled representation into Parliament where disability laws and welfare provision are determined.
Rather than the Pavlovian denunciation of all those who express simple reservation when yet another worthy cause emerges requiring non-existent public money, a pause for thought might be better.
Pugh and Morley are nowhere near the far right. They sit firmly in the political centre and I offer the newspapers of Friday 13th as evidence. As these offer little comfort for the LibDem party maybe switch the Transmit/Receive button to Receive, briefly?
It must be nice being the ever generous party of Santa Claus but maybe a fraction of 1% of that intellect could be devoted to generating wealth in the first place. They party’s economic agenda has been endorsed by the New Covent Garden Soup Company, and Hugh Grant.
I did not make that up. It’s true.
@Tony Greaves
Providing alternative points of view to an article in a calm and reasoned way is not “tak[ing] over” a thread as you so non-aggressively put it.
Being able to listen to others’ point of view is a virtue. Being able to reason with and engage with others’ thoughts is a skill. Being tolerant throughout such a process is being a Liberal.
It’s always worrying when individuals try and browbeat others into conforming into their worldview through ignoring reasoned arguments put forward and just making unfounded personal remarks (e.g “nasty”, “troll”, “aggressive”) about the skeptical person putting forward an alternative point of view. Sadly it is a behaviour deep rooted in too many Lib Dems. We’ve all got a lot to learn if we are to get the country back towards facing a more open, more tolerant and dare I say more liberal future.
As ever Sue talks compassion and common sense.
Mary does in this thread too.
We must not do as Paul wants though and close debate.
The waspish tone of James and co above cannot hide an argument to discuss and for our benefit, deal fairly with.
This party sat by while the newly knighted minister created the worst changes to disability rule in decades. The sainted Ms Cooper began it in earnest under the latter pathetic days of Mr Brown, atos, folks?
Under Smith it got worse. No tears for an access fund? What about for those with disability tax credits, added to working tax credits, for many who are self employed? They are not in existence under Universal fiasco, er, credit!
I back our author in his requests, but they are but small beer compared to the hideousness of daily toil of those, abled or disabled, by cirumstance, but not enabled by the awful staff or ministers who abuse power and trash decency.
The costs of running for an election seem pretty prohibitive in general, and it’s not an easy fix. It’s a large part of why we don’t often see MPs who transition from working class backgrounds much any more – which some people in Labour have felt partly responsible for the party’s drift in reputation from their ‘heartlands’ and traditional voters – and it’s a part of the diversity equation that doesn’t come up enough.
You won’t round off truly diverse perspectives without passionate voices from various different industries (not only specifically working class), disabled folk and the like. A disabled MP can speak much more directly as to what struggles there are improving employment rates among the disabled, can speak productively about the counterproductive and harmful nature of the work capability assessment (amongst other things) and can embody the ‘nothing about us without us’ principle. Aside from the policymaking, it is a public and visible role and it really helps motivate people when they can see people like them succeed in life.
An important point to note is that even with the fund, not many disabled people were actually getting the job in spite of being able to access quite significant additional funding. The fund may have been useful, but there are other deeper systemic issues at play to address. 1% representation with 19% disabled working age people even with that fund available is obviously not great. I’ve also read of significant accessibility issues for disabled people once they actually do manage to get the job.
I think criticisms about whether the fund’s 40k cap was appropriate, whether it should be means tested and such… fair enough, these are questions worth asking. But I get the vibe that some people don’t really want to hear about disability issues in general, with this feeling that it’s out of touch and ‘irrelevant to the electorate’, and honestly it’s kinda weird that disabled people are normally almost completely off the agenda despite comprising over a fifth of our overall population. You’d actually generate quite a bit more ‘wealth’ by helping people to help themselves… and working toward more direct parliamentary representation could well be a meaningful part of that process.