On Monday 5^th February 2024, the UK government released their Disability Action Plan, with the aim of improving the living standards of disabled people in the UK, after having continuously eroded them for almost 14 years. Having had a peruse of the materials relating to the plan distributed by the government (so that you don’t have to), one thing in particular stood out to me; this “plan” has more fluff in it than an unfortunate incident at Build-A-Bear.

In my professional opinion, controversial though it may be, an action plan should have actions. As the title of this post suggests, there is nothing concrete to be found in the materials I perused beyond repeated mentions of conducting research and talking to some disabled people. Not only should most of the research and discussions have taken place before this report was published, but the plan also fails to establish specific goals besides improving the lives of disabled people. Notably there is nothing measurable among these aspirations, meaning the government cannot be held accountable for not meeting a target. This will be critical when releasing the promised follow-up reports in 6 and 12 months’ time.

In truth, there are a handful of “actions” that appear in the report other than having a natter with disabled people. These include promises to make homes, employers and public spaces accessible, such as having them allow assistance animals like guide dogs onto the premises, something which the law already stipulates (coincidentally, this is a law predominantly worked on before the Conservatives came to power in 2010). The current issues experienced in regards to lack of accessibility are nothing to do with the law, and everything to do with the fact that the law is not enforced unless an individual disabled person drums up the time, energy and funds to sue an individual company. The action plan does not even acknowledge this issue, let alone set out how to address it.

After my recent experience trying to evacuate from a fire, I was initially excited to see that emergency planning would now include disabled people in the design process, until I realised that this applies to national emergencies only. Furthermore, after reading the paragraph a couple of times it became very clear that while disabled people would be included in discussions, whether their suggestions will be actioned or not was left worryingly ambiguous. It seems that in case of either individual or national emergency, we will be an afterthought at best.

Perhaps most insulting of all, considering how this government is responsible for making the process increasingly difficult, is how the plan claims that the government will work on making the process of applying for Personal Independence Payment (PIP) less arduous. I fear I am more likely to see pigs fly past my fourth-storey window (which with the impact of climate change and recent storms may not be as unlikely as it sounds) than see the PIP application process get any easier.

The final nail in the coffin was that, after having waxed lyrical about how important disability rights are to them, the government then released the reports in formats so inaccessible you may even need to request special permission to access them if you use assistive technology. While the report is available in some other formats, were these fully accessible the statement and link to request access would not be needed at all. Certainly no accessible format should be upon request only, except perhaps in the case of some physical media.

To the outsider looking in, I understand that disabled people may be appearing ungrateful after being given our own plan. If my above reasoning does not give you some insight into why disabled people are upset, consider how you would feel if your employer promised rewards for your increasingly difficult labour under worsening conditions, only for the reward to turn out to be a pizza party. And the boss takes most of the pizza. And the pizza has pineapple on it. You would be rightly miffed.

The sad fact of the matter is that the Disability Action Plan is not going to change a damn thing. Not 48 hours had passed from publication before the government shelved plans to increase funds for people having to make their home accessible, because the building of accessible homes is not enforced.

Discrimination will continue to run rampant. The law will still not be enforced. Support will be harder than ever to reach. Disabled people will still face a higher risk of death due to poor health and social care, non-existent protection against hate crime, and being abandoned in emergencies. The culture of trying to force Do Not Resuscitates on us, of telling us not to reproduce, and suggesting institutionalisation as a cost-cutting measure will continue. The only thing this plan will achieve is to give the current government something they can point to when we point out that disabled people are dying.

This is not an action plan.

This is a death knell.