Disabled People in the UK’s Labour Market and Government Policy: A Critique

The aim of this chapter is to set the findings that we present later in the book in the context of disabled people’s labour market position, the Conservative government’s policies and the Labour Party’s commitments. Accordingly, we first examine the gap between disabled people and non-disabled people in terms of their employment and pay, considering such factors as the sectors, industries and occupations where disabled people can be found. We then set out the Conservative government’s policies to foster disabled people’s employment, including their National Disability Strategy. We find that the Conservative government chose to rely largely on voluntary and supply-side measures to address disability disadvantage in the labour market, combined with restrictions on welfare benefits to force disabled people into work. These measures have received much criticism, which we summarise. In particular, we find that the Conservative government’s approach was inadequate because demand side measures are largely ignored, as is the use of compulsion with regard to employers. We critique the punitive welfare provisions which are unlikely to increase disabled people’s labour market participation and the Labour Government’s pledges.