Hello Eric, goodbye Blackpool

This year’s party conferences were rife with talk of a snap election. But disability issues were also on the agenda, say Disability Now’s reporting team.

Sunil Peck has a close encounter with the Prime Minister in Bournemouth.

My abiding memory of the Labour conference is the will-there-won’t-there-beone question which did the rounds in Bournemouth’s bars and hotels this year. Not an announcement about a snap election – I’m referring to the likelihood of the heavens opening, which seemed to happen the second I left one fringe event to dash to the next one with my guide dog Bosley.

The demise of the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) and its replacement with a new equalities body was another hot topic debated among many disabled conference-goers. But there was a degree of confusion surrounding the proper name of the body replacing it.

During his speech to a fringe meeting about disability and social exclusion, Age Concern’s Gordon Lishman raised titters from the audience when he admitted that he was not sure whether to refer to the commission as the Commission for Equality and Human Rights or the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC). In the end he resolved his dilemma by opting for the name Eric.

Meanwhile, other disabled conference-goers voiced concerns that disability rights would be pushed down the political agenda by Eric. But EHRC chair Trevor Phillips did his best to reassure people. He paid tribute to the DRC and pledged to build on its achievements.

David Blunkett used a fringe event on supporting more disabled people into employment to demand more disability champions in large organisations to change the culture of negative attitudes to employing disabled people.

He highlighted the need to educate employers about the additional support that the access to work scheme offers disabled employees.

Shouting over the noise of the wind buffeting the marquee, Blunkett just about succeeded in getting across the message that employers need to support and retain employees who become disabled.

Blunkett’s pleas came a day before the secretary of state for work and pensions, Peter Hain, told the conference that he had suspended any possible closures of Remploy factories.

Although I was fortunate enough to spend a few seconds in the presence of Gordon Brown, I failed to coax anything out of him concerning Remploy, welfare reform or his take on being a disabled Prime Minister. Not because of a lack of effort on my part, but because I was only aware of his presence after he had gone; a security guard explained to me that the reason he had placed his hand on my shoulder was to stop me crashing into GB and his entourage as they headed into the conference hall.

Paul Carter won’t miss Conservative conferences in Blackpool.

It was amid stringent security in the stifling and dated surroundings of Blackpool’s Winter Gardens that the resurgent Tories battled back to the forefront of the political landscape to throw down a meaningful challenge to Gordon Brown’s government.

Specific disability proposals were thin on the ground, although Iain Duncan Smith’s speech on social breakdown did contain proposals for wideranging benefit reform, including moving people off incapacity benefit and into paid employment.

There were healthcare proposals, too, with changes promised to the way NICE licenses cancer drugs, and a commitment to provide “clot-busting” drugs to stroke patients.

Michael Gove reaffirmed the party’s stance on inclusive education for disabled children, saying that parents should be given the choice of a mainstream or special school – a proposal backed up by leader David Cameron in his closing speech.

The conference provided a platform for the party’s new disability minister, Mark Harper, to meet disability charities and campaigners.

However, while the conference may have been a success for the party, for some delegates it was a very different experience.

Getting around the Winter Gardens was a challenge. Many elements of its access are firmly rooted in the 1930s and while efforts have been made to upgrade it, navigating an accessible route through the labyrinth of corridors resulted in long detours through the building’s underbelly.

The Imperial Hotel, the main base for the party and also for many fringe events, did not fare much better.

Despite being disabled, I was refused access to the shuttle bus running between the Winter Gardens and the Imperial Hotel, on the grounds that “no media were allowed on the bus”. It was only after three police officers and two party members intervened that security eventually agreed to let me on, so long as I “kept it to myself”.

At the Imperial, I was initially refused access to a lift as it was for staff only. Again, it was a police officer who stepped in to assist.

The Conservatives will be relocating to Birmingham next year. While Blackpool may have proved a success for the party, it’s safe to say that for many others it won’t be missed.

Elizabeth Choppin found Brighton a refreshing experience.

Another year: another easy-breezy Liberal Democrat conference. Most noteworthy in the raft of disability-related news to report from Brighton was the Lib Dems’ new policy on poverty, spearheaded by Danny Alexander MP, shadow secretary of state for work and pensions.

The Lib Dems have promised to simplify the benefits system, with one working-age benefit. They will also review carer’s allowance and grant a winter fuel payment to those on the highest rate of disability living allowance.

Mr Alexander, “a rising star in the party”, could be seen darting around most fringe events hosted by disability organisations including Scope, RNID and the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign,where he was joined on the panel by Trevor Phillips, head of the new Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC).

Paul Rowen MP, the party’s new disability spokesman opened up to Disability Now about his priorities for the coming year, which are to ensure the EHRC delivers what it has promised with regard to disability equality, to focus attention on the lack of help for people with mental health issues who are trying to get back into work, and to carry out research into whether public bodies are complying with the Disability Discrimination Act and to find out if it is “there in spirit, but not in practice”.