Hello everyone, its been a long time since i posted another blog, and i just wanted to update you on what myself and Lois have been doing and concentrating on in the Campaigns team over the last month or so. I hope your all keeping well and fighting the good fight, and if there’s any more of that left you’ll most definetly read on!

The Labour Party Conference was something of a tour de force for the Me in my Volunteer role and more importantly, the charity itself. I met,spoke to (& lobbied!) lots and lots of important people throughout the week, made some favourable contacts at some very sociable socials and really pushed the  Mencap Liverpool agenda. Our voice was heard on BBC Radio syndicated across all BBC Radio Breakfast shows in an interview i gave as a follow on from the question I asked Ed Milaband’s during his live  televised  BBC Parlaiment conference Q&A with delegates, party members, charity workers and members of the public, about whether he’d tackle the problem of the removal of indefinite awards of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) and its migration to Personal Independence Payment, as further questioning him on  Work Capability Assessment – the medical  carried out by Atos Healthcare on behalf of the Department for Work & Pensions for eligibility for benefit – as well as whether he’d move away from a less stereotypical dialogue that concerned Mencap and Disabled people and instead to a more compassionate and sympathetic language and rheotoric. The answer i got from the Labour leader was a far from satisfactory one and I will be following up my concerns with emails, phone calls, tweets, letters and whatever else it takes to pressure the Leader of The Opposition and his office to come out and further explain there position on these matters as I feel there is more Labour can do to defend the concerns of Disabled people on these matters.

I also met and conducted a long conversation with Labour’s Shadow Secretary for Work & Pensions & Chair of Policy Review Liam Byrne, as well as being roundly applauded by the floor at a conference Employment Consultation event for calling out the Shadow Employment Minister Stephen Timms to do more on protecting Disabled people in work and defending there welfare out of work.

My other priority for conference was to push our other agenda of Transport for disabled people and the savage cuts to Bus Services, disabled fare concessions and the imminent threat to free Disabled Travel Passes. To ensure this I attended as many fringe events on Transport as I could and poured through as many pamphlets, articles and Transport Select Committee report as I could, whilst also lobbying my Local MP in the hall Louise Ellman who is Chair of the Transport Select Committee.

Another point of concern through conference week was the highly publicised Government funding removal of the National Express fare concessions for Disabled & elderly people. To tackle this I’d already arranged a meeting with National Express’s Head Of Corporate Affairs who conveniently was also attending Conference as we met a stones throw away from the Conference Hall. During the meeting I learned National Express our trying to fill the void as best as they fiscally can with there new coach cards for the over 60s and the disabled, that they would be conducting further consultations to ensure they  “keep working with people around the country to help them to assist themselves and learn better how we can help them” as well as the appointment of a new Access & Inclusion Manager with concerns for Disabled peoples fares, travel experiences and employment within the company. We at Mencap Liverpool will continue to campaign to bring a solution to the problem by insisting that the option of National Express and Government sharing the costs of the concessionary schemes would be the best solution in the interests of all concerned.

Thomas