What does a Labour government mean for neurodiversity?

Written in July 2024

It'll be no surprise to anyone that I was delighted with the outcome of the General Election, not least because for the first time in 100 years, a party other than Conservative holds the seat for Horsham; a constituency that has been consistently blue for a century has gone yellow, and not before time. The electorate here has slowly been pushing the Tories out at a local government level and now it's spread to our parliamentary representative.
 

Local politics aside, the change of government and societal mirror that voting statistics always holds up for inspection will have an impact for neurodivergent people. What is worrying is the number of people who voted for Reform UK, a party who have pledged to scrap the Equality Act and employment quotas. Ostensibly, this is for racial or nationality based discrimination reasons, but it threatens the protections afforded to people with all protected characteristics if parts or all of the act is revoked. I would be surprised if Farage understood or accepted the concept of intersectionality, as it is at odds with his simplistic worldview.

And no, Reform UK didn't get more than one seat, but they took a large share of the vote (likely away from Conservative, thus helping the more left-leaning parties) and when you're disabled and see that a significant proportion of the society you live in supports the removal of your human rights it's unsettling to say the least.

Lots of people belonging to minority groups have felt unsafe in increasing degrees over the last decade or so as society appears to have regressed in the gains made towards equality, and the election result seems to reinforce that desire for regression from some parts of society. The new government needs to represent a force for positive change.

The Buckland Review of Autism Employment was undertaken by a Conservative MP, Sir Robert Buckland, who lost his seat in July. At the time of writing, it's not clear whether the recommendations made in the report will be followed or revised. However, it seems that some of Labour's intentions are aligned with those recommendations and indeed some go further into different areas of life.

On paper, Labour seem to have a good grasp of the issues facing neurodivergent people, especially when it comes to benefits and support. Work Capability assessments would be replaced with Workplace Accessibility Assessments (putting the onus on employers to accommodate) and local authorities would have bigger budgets for local support, care and housing. Assistance dogs would formally be recognised for autistic people, and public service staff would receive neurodiversity training.

They would remove the Access to Work cap (which is actually pretty generous at £66k per person per year) and require workplaces to provide neurodiversity training (good news for me). They would also extend support for self-employed neurodivergent people, and that's great because a lot of us are (mainly due to mainstream work being inaccessible).

Labour would also extend neurodiversity training across various sectors, including the criminal justice system where this is sorely needed and enshrine neurodivergence as a protected characteristic of its own under the Equality Act. This means people no longer have to accept the “disability” label if they don't want it. Adding this characteristic is actually a major paradigm shift and one which I will celebrate heartily if and when it happens.

There's also a commitment to investigating and legislating against harmful “cures” and interventions which, as ABA is a massive concern for autistic people, is fantastic news. Along with a public awareness campaign and other policies, it seems like Labour have a good grip on the issues and are tackling what they can, where they can. They have committed to including neurodivergent people in the decision making process and while this is always put on paper, in reality it doesn't always happen in a meaningful way. 
 

We will have to hold this government to account on these and other promises, but at least we can be thankful they're promises that will actually lead to improvements in our lives, rather than more discrimination, bullying and ill treatment at the hands of both those that hold the power, and wider society.

You put so much hope in them. Perhaps they won't let us down.

(Image credit for blog page: https://www.kindpng.com/imgv/Tmoom_abstract-people-png-clipart-people-in-a-circle/)