Conscience and Parliament by Philip Cowley

Author:Philip Cowley [Cowley, Philip]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Great Britain, General
ISBN: 9780714643885
Google: W51Q9VBEytUC
Goodreads: 7308589
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1998-01-15T07:40:39+00:00

1970–82: BUILDING ON THE CHRONICALLY SICK AND DISABLED PERSONS ACT

Whilst the practical effects of the Act were more limited than its proponents hoped, it had two important consequences. First, it gave impetus to the drive for a more coherent approach to disability-related legislation. The logic of the bill ‘led inexorably to extensive further legislation; to the appointment of a specialist Minister for the Disabled People [the first being Alf Morris]; to the provision of a wide range of new cash benefits specifically for disabled people’. Secondly and more importantly, it had a symbolic effect: ‘It gave disabled people a new place in society, and spawned a host of new organisations and thinking which raised awareness of disability issues well beyond the strict legislative provisions of the Act.’20

Morris himself had been struck by the ‘glaring omission’ of ‘the merest nudge from’, or on behalf of, ‘the disabled’ as he sought inspiration for the subject of his private members’ bill in 1969.21 For, although societies had existed for disabled people since the nineteenth century, they had essentially existed to administer to disabled people rather than listen to them and speak up for their concerns. It was not until 1965 and the formation of the Disability Income Group (DIG) by Megan Du Boisson (who had multiple sclerosis) that a group had been formed by and of disabled people. The DIG was successful in two respects. It raised awareness of the issues facing disabled people, and it highlighted the financial hardship suffered as a result of their widespread exclusion from the opportunities (otherwise taken for granted by non-disabled people) of mainstream education and employment. In so doing, the DIG exposed clearly the cost of dependence to the disabled person as well as to the state. It also exposed the moderation of its own demands, as opposed to the far more radical views espoused by the supporters of a positive rights philosophy who, in turn, treated such moderation with distrust.

In part, this philosophy was influenced by the growth in awareness created by the passage of the 1970 Act. But it was also affected by three key external influences. Firstly, the Civil Rights Movement in America had not only reconceptualised unequal treatment as a human rights issue, but had also bolstered the belief that social change was possible. Secondly, disabled people were witnessing legislation being passed in the areas of sex and race (and, in the USA, disability), which not only acknowledged that discrimination existed, but that the state also had a responsibility to end it. Finally, the success of more radical self-help organisations, such as the Independent Living Movement in the USA, demonstrated disabled people's capacity to overcome the barriers they found most inhibited them.22 Promotion of the social model of disability (and rejection of society's medical model) was central to disabled people's reclamation of the term ‘disability’. It also underpinned their criticism of groups such as the DIG. Not only did their lobbying methods appear politically naive; the change sought was too limited in its outlook.

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