London calling

This month’s London Mayoral election has sparked huge public and media interest. John Pring interviewed all three leading candidates to ask them what they would do for disabled people

KEN LIVINGSTONE, LABOUR

He says he has the best record on disability issues of any elected official in Britain, so you would expect Ken Livingstone to have policies to address disablist hate crime and inaccessible facilities in central London.

But he says disabled people’s organisations have not brought these issues to his attention.

When we point out the lack of a London-wide organisation since the messy demise of Greater London Action on Disability in 2006, he promises to bring disabled people’s groups together to set up a new body.

Unfortunately, it emerges that his own disability adviser, David Morris, has been closely involved in plans to do just that.

However, he also promises to launch a programme to address the shortage of accessible hotels and restaurants, in the run-up to the London Olympics and Paralympics in 2012.

As for policy priorities, he concentrates on two areas.

He will use new legal powers to force local council planning officers to meet the target in the London Plan – his planning strategy for London - for ten per cent of all new homes to be wheelchair-accessible or easily adaptable for wheelchair-users.

“Borough planning officers are missing it,” he says, “they are not insisting on it. The new planning powers I have been given will give me the chance to step in and say, ‘look, the boroughs aren’t doing this and it is the law and we expect you to comply with it, and if you don’t we are going to have you taken to court.’”

The government has given the Mayor money to build 50,000 affordable homes in London over three years, so at least ten per cent of these will be wheelchair-accessible and all will be built to lifetime homes standards of accessibility (another London Plan target). He says he also wants to consult with disabled people on how his London Plan will evolve.

His other policy priority, of course, is accessible transport. Livingstone has “finally given up” on waiting for the London boroughs to provide good Dial-a-Ride (the pre-booked, door-to-door service) and Taxicard (which offers reduced taxi fares to people with mobility impairments) services.

Over the next year, he plans to fund one unified, London-wide scheme providing Dial-a-Ride and Taxicard services, to replace the “outrageous” postcard lottery that currently exists.

His focus is on door-to-door services and buses, he says, because about half of the city's tube stations are “physically incapable of being made fully accessible”.

He says 15 per cent of tube stations are accessible, and in "spending a fortune we will get that to 25 per cent" by 2010. By 2012, that might rise to 30 per cent. But it costs tens of millions of pounds to make an “average” tube station accessible, with the bill rising to as much as £50 million for an older station.

He says disabled people should complain, as he does, if buses and taxis do not stop for them or claim their ramps are broken, although he says 95 per cent of bus ramps now work.

Of the three candidates, Livingstone clearly has the best track record on disability. He can prove it, too. The Greater London Council he led in the 1980s established the first disability unit in central or local government, and he is just as proud that disabled people took control of the unit in 1985.

BORIS JOHNSON, CONSERVATIVE

Disability, it seems, does not sit at the top of Boris Johnson’s list of priorities.

When asked who he had been consulting with on his disability policies, he says: “With a wide range of relatives. Obviously, I’ve talked to various people. My team has talked to various people, but I am conscious that there is more I need to do to…”

But when asked who his team had spoken to, he says: “I, I, I can’t say…I’m guided heavily by my mother.”

There are also very few mentions of disabled people in the three policy documents I am given.

He is very good, as you would expect, on the agreeable generalities, but not so great on distinct, precise policies aimed at improving life for disabled people.

For instance, on accessible housing, he is short on specifics other than talking vaguely about new homes being “compliant” and ensuring that all new homes are “fully disabled-friendly” in the London Plan, a measure already in the current plan. And he wants to crack down on abuse of the blue badge, but only by “encouraging the boroughs and the police not to tolerate it”.

On access in central London, he promises to “name and shame” those hotels and restaurants that are not accessible and says he “won’t tolerate” taxi-drivers who refuse to pick up disabled passengers.

Asked for his disability policy priorities, he says he will ensure that no bus leaves a depot with a ramp that doesn’t work and that he will support the Freedom Pass (he agrees with Ken Livingstone that its scope should be extended to provide 24/7 coverage to all older and disabled people).

He mentions a number of policies that could benefit disabled people as well as non-disabled people, but asked for other policies aimed specifically at disabled people, he first talks about encouraging bus drivers to stop pulling away “in a very jerky way”.

He admits his tube spending priority is the “crisis” with track and signalling, rather than the “extremely expensive” process of making tube stations more accessible.

He intends to phase out the huge bendy buses, but promises that their replacements will be accessible and says disabled people will benefit from having conductors on board.

Johnson admits that Livingstone has a good record on championing the rights of minorities, and says: “I certainly intend to build on that.”

On disablist hate crime, he promises to support our campaign and as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority “make sure we take disabled hate crime very, very seriously”.

He says he wants an administration that “reflects all of London”, and suggests recruiting disabled people to posts in City Hall so they can provide “inspiration” to other disabled people.

When we ask for one thing he could do to improve the lives of disabled people, there’s a long pause. “You need somehow to change the way people look and think about disabled people and disability,” he says.

When asked how he would do that as Mayor, he says it would be “by deeds, not words”. But not, it seems, with a raft of policies aimed at improving life for disabled people.

BRIAN PADDICK, LIBERAL DEMOCRAT

He may not have as good a grasp of the issues as Ken Livingstone or as high a media profile as Boris Johnson, but when it comes to personal experience of discrimination, Brian Paddick is streets ahead.

In our interview, he talks of how his public disagreement with the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police led to him experiencing clinical depression.

His revelation came after a stilted start to our conversation. Asked to describe his disability policies, he talks vaguely of improving public transport and raising awareness.

But he slowly warms to the task, and can clearly speak about discrimination from a position of strength – as a gay man who came out while a senior serving police officer and someone who has personal experience of disability.

He calls for a “much more radical” target for introducing step-free access at tube stations, although he admits he does not have his own target. He says the Mayor should have focused more on introducing step-free access at strategically important stations, rather than those that were easiest to adapt.

He also wants to make it harder for taxi-drivers to refuse to pick up Taxicard users, and a more reliable Dial-a Ride service.

He also talks about improving accessible housing, although he is vague on how this would be done and says it is more about “providing leadership”.

He says he cannot think of a single one of his favourite restaurants that has a wheelchair-accessible toilet, something he says illustrates the injustice many disabled people face over access in London.

And he pledges to carry out a “disability audit” of every organisation under the Mayor’s control to ensure none of them impose any barriers to employing disabled people, and again provide “leadership”.

Unsurprisingly, as a gay, former senior police officer, Paddick is good on disablist hate crime. He says the police – particularly lower-ranked officers – must take disabled people more seriously as witnesses and potential victims of crime, especially those with learning difficulties.

And he says he would hold the force to account on disability hate crime as chair of the Metropolitan Police Authority.

As well as his own experience of clinical depression, he has been the victim of homophobic hate crime and domestic violence himself. “I have been very lucky in being able to experience these things,” he says, “and therefore to be able to understand the issues facing people, particularly people who are mental health service users. People who are victimised because they are different.”

His mental health issues arose after his public difference of opinion with Sir Ian Blair, the commissioner of the Met, over the Stockwell shooting.

Paddick says he was desperate to cover up his depression – much of it work-related – because of the prejudice he expected to suffer at the hands of colleagues. “You didn’t want to ackowledge that the bastards had in fact ground you down,” he says.

“I might be short on the technical detail,” he admits finally, “but one thing I am not short of is commitment and passion around these issues.”

The other candidates standing in the election, on 1 May, are: Sian Berry, Green Party; Lindsey German, Left List; Matt O’Connor, English Democrats; Winston McKenzie, Independent; Alan Craig, Christian Choice; Gerard Batten, UK Independence Party; Richard Barnbrook, British National Party