Meeting of the Parliament 28 March 2019
I, too, welcome this debate on progressing towards a fairer Scotland for disabled people, and I thank all the organisations that provided briefings. We say that traditionally, as a matter of routine, but the briefings that we have received for the debate, including from the Scottish independent living coalition, CAS, People First Scotland, Enable and Royal Blind, have been extremely helpful.
As members have said, the key to the debate is in the title, “Progressing Towards a Fairer Scotland for Disabled People”. Progress has been made in Scotland’s social security system and in recent changes to public attitudes to hidden disabilities in particular, but too many barriers, both financial and social, persist.
As we know, disabled people are more likely to live in poverty and face higher living costs of, on average, around £630 a month. Today’s figures on disability poverty are deeply concerning. Between 2015 and 2018, the poverty rate after housing costs for people in families with a disabled person was 24 per cent—that is around 440,000 people—compared with 17 per cent for people in a family without a disabled person, and it was up 3 per cent from the lowest recorded figure in 2009.
Benefits such as the disability living allowance were meant to meet those higher costs, but the transition from DLA to personal independence payments has been disastrous for many disabled people. Fifty-six per cent of new claims are being turned down and 28 per cent of reassessment claims are also refused, and those figures do not take into account the thousands of Scots who are awarded PIP at a much lower rate. The refused reassessments alone cost disabled Scots around £56 million a year. To be clear, the money is for disabled people to live and experience a quality of life that everyone else takes for granted. In cutting that support, the UK Government is attacking the rights of disabled Scots to live in dignity.
I welcome the minister’s commitment to work with people with disabilities and their representative organisations to build a clear consensus around how disability assistance should be assessed, how it should work and how we can all take forward that vision—with the increased funding that will no doubt be required.
Disabled people continue to earn less than non-disabled people, which compounds the problems. With regard to working hours, disabled women are much more likely than disabled men to work part time, and they are more likely to be in underemployment and to be in low-paid jobs. Thirty-five per cent of disabled women are paid below the national living wage, compared with 25 per cent of non-disabled men and 29 per cent of non-disabled women.
Despite the urgent need for action, the target that is set out in the delivery plan of achieving the ambition to close—or only to halve—the employment gap by 2038 is progress that is far too slow for far too many people.