Meeting of the Parliament 05 December 2023
I welcome the chance today to talk about the challenges that disabled people face in Scotland. There is much in the motion that we can welcome. We agree that Scotland can and should be a world leader in protecting human rights. We recognise the incredible difficulties that many disabled people faced during the pandemic and the global cost of living crisis, and we believe that disabled people must be at the centre of the decisions that affect them. More attention must be paid to the disability employment gap and the disability payment gap. There should be no discrimination in our economy or society, and we must work harder to root it out.
However, many important human rights issues for disabled people have been left out of the motion entirely. It paints an overly positive picture of the Government’s actions and glosses over many crucial aspects of the Administration’s policies. It neglects to mention the terrible failings of the Government, focusing only on the limited amount of positive work, and paying no attention to the negatives. It ignores many of the issues that the Scottish ministers ought to focus on, and that is what my party’s amendment seeks to address.
Given that the motion says that we should
“secure a life of dignity for all, including the most marginalised and disadvantaged”,
I fail to see how the Government cannot mention Scotland’s drug deaths crisis. It is an issue that is close to home for me—literally. In Springburn and communities like it across Glasgow, Dundee and the rest of Scotland, drug deaths have caused devastation. On the SNP Government’s watch, drug deaths spiralled to the worst level in Europe—several times worse than anywhere else in the UK—and we now lose more than 1,000 people each year to drugs in Scotland. Alcohol deaths, too, have hit record highs, and we also lose more than 1,000 people each year to alcohol in Scotland.
Those appalling statistics are not just for a year; they have been at or close to record levels for many years. For all that time, the Government has failed to act with enough urgency and enough resources. By Nicola Sturgeon’s own admission, the SNP took its eye off the ball. The SNP has neglected people’s human rights, including the rights of some of the most vulnerable. The lack of action from the Government has left whole families and communities in grief. Even now, years after the crisis began, the SNP is not doing anywhere near enough. It plays politics with drug and alcohol deaths. Instead of trying to save lives, it focuses on creating division with the UK.
Any discussion on human rights must include the SNP’s horrendous failure to tackle the shameful number of lives lost to drug and alcohol addiction. The motion overlooks and ignores some of our most vulnerable communities.
Drug and alcohol deaths are not the only glaring omissions from the motion. It cites the impact of the pandemic and the cost of living crisis on disabled people, and it is right to do so. Disabled people have suffered far more than most from Covid and the global cost of living crisis, but where is the mention of the Government’s human rights failings during the pandemic?