Dr. Vivian Rath:

Political parties could start actively empowering young disabled people to engage in political parties and they could support those young people from the beginning. It should be based around rights. Most political parties would have some sort of equality statement and they need to work on those equality statements to ensure there are steps and policies within them to bring disabled people right through the processes of their parties from beginning to end. Political parties also need to examine whether they provide any extra funding to support their disabled candidates in elections. If the political parties themselves started working and lobbying on this to ensure these steps were implemented, a difference would be seen straight away. For instance, they could refuse to go on leader or public debates unless the venues are accessible and available to all. Steps like that would be useful and they would encourage and promote disabled people in politics. A first step would be a pledge and commitment to support disabled people to engage in public and political life. It does not have to be rocket science; there can be very achievable steps. The framework is already there and the key is to ask disabled people. Disabled people running in the last local election who required sign language interpreters could not access them and that was appalling. That is the level we are at and that is poor. Steps also need to be implemented at local level to ensure that we can access the council governing structures.