The government has unveiled a £1.6bn strategy to improve the lives of disabled people.

The money will be spent on tackling issues such as housing and inaccessible public transport, as well as barriers to education and work.

Jane Percy is from Christian disability charity, Liveability. She told Premier she welcomes the announcement:

"I'm really quite excited by it. Is it going to go all the way to do what needs to be done? Absolutely not. But is it a really good starting point? In my opinion, it really is a good starting point."

Jane says she is particularly pleased that the first tranche of money will be spent on helping disabled people back into the workplace : 

"I think that's really good, because it will start to level up. The playing field isn't level because people need to be able to get access to work. Somebody with a physical disability needs to be able to get into the building and be able to get on public transport. All those things make a real difference as to how easy it is for somebody to get paid employment with a disability."

There has been a mixed response from some charities to the announcement and Jane Percy agrees action should have been taken earlier:

"I guess it has come too late. When you understand that one in five people has a disability, that puts it into some perspective. And I think previously, things have been tokenistic. Putting one seat on a train doesn't mean to say that there's only one person who wants to get on that carriage and travel to work.

"Hopefully this will help us break down some of those barriers. I don't think people with disability have been encouraged into work. They face all of the barriers that lots of people don't see as being a barrier. So we've not actively been working to encourage people to get into the workplace in an easy way."

Jane Percy says Christians can help support this issue by having open and honest conversations around disability:

"I think making sure that we are aware and educated about what it means to be really friendly in terms of people with a disability. Making sure that any connections that we've got in the workplace that we have educational tools available to support people. I think the difficult thing has been being open and transparent in having that conversation."