Fairoak’s Tenant Engagement Officer, Alison Barnes, and James Harrison of the Fairoak Owls tenant board, recently contacted the candidates standing for the Westmorland & Lonsdale seat in the General Election 2024.
One of these candidates is Pippa Smith from the Labour party who agreed to support the Learning Disability England’s Good Lives Manifesto and Pledge Card. But rather than just sending her response, asked if she could come and meet us.
So on Thursday 27th June, Pippa joined Alison, James and Fairoak Owls Michael and Lily in a ‘round table’ discussion about some of the points that matter to our tenants.
Pippa Smith: “I read the manifesto that was sent through and was made aware on a national level of the issues faced by people with learning disabilities but wanted to come to Fairoak and hear directly from the tenants about their experiences.”
James: “In your manifesto, you talk about a ‘national care service’: can you tell us how this would work in a small town like Kendal?”
Pippa: “That’s a great question. This is a campaign which is led by a number of trade unions; Unison in particular have been pushing this forward and saying that we need a universal access care service and reform to the social care sector. What’s in the [Labour] manifesto is a commitment to work out what this is going to look like and how it’s going to happen.”
“Whilst the details are still being worked on, this starts with minimum standards – these are the minimum standard of what good care looks like everywhere. Regardless of where you live, we want there to be equal access to quality care for everyone across the country.”
James: “How are you making this General Election accessible for people with additional needs?”
Pippa: “We’ve got different formats of the [Labour] manifesto including Easy Read and braille versions. It’s important that we get our message out to people in more accessible ways.”
“I’m interested to know if there are any other barriers that you find in engaging and participating in democracy in general? There are things that we can’t do as a political party, but there are things we could do if we are in power as the Government as part of the electoral system.”
Michael: “Should carers be paid more for what they do?”
Pippa: “Yes! What we [Labour] will do if we get elected into Government is to link the minimum wage, which a lot of carers are on, to the actual cost of living. We’ll task the independent pay commission to work out what the minimum wage should actually be, so that it is genuinely a wage that you can live on. Carers do a magnificent job and should be properly paid.”
Lily: “We’ve had a very bad cost of living crisis – if Labour were to win and get into power, how would they address this?”
Pippa: “A big driver of the cost of living crisis has been energy bills as we have no control over what we pay for our energy as we buy it on an international market, and that’s gone through the roof as a result of the war in Ukraine.”
“What we are going to do is invest in renewable energy and create a publicly-owned energy company, called Great British Energy, which is going to invest in solar and wind energy which will also create a lot of jobs to make and install things like wind turbines. This will also help bring down our energy bills here in the UK.”
Finally, it was time for a question from Pippa to the Fairoak Owls: “What is the biggest thing that you think will make a difference?”
“We would like our voices to be heard, definitely. People sometimes see the learning disability first and then just brush us off; they don’t see someone who is capable of living independently.”