Hansard

I apologise to you, Presiding Officer, and to the minister for being late. It was nothing to do with disability—I just cannot read a watch.

I have met a number of disabled groups since I was elected to the Scottish Parliament in May. All the groups identified the same three priorities: removing the stigma associated with disability, preventing bullying and getting more people with disability into employment. I welcome the Government’s delivery plan, aimed at improving the employment of people with disabilities, particularly those who are young, especially as our record in Scotland is not particularly good. Since 2008, the proportion of Scottish working-age disabled people in employment has fallen from 49 to 42 per cent. Just 2 per cent of working-age disabled people in Scotland get support from access to work, which is proportionately much less than the rest of the UK. There are many reasons for that, one of which I suspect goes back to education.

This lunch time, along with other members, I attended a briefing on mainstreaming in schools. The clear message that came from that was that mainstreaming does not mean inclusion. If we are going to follow a policy of mainstreaming for most people with disability, we need to ensure that it includes everything that is part of the educational experience.

After one year, school leavers with impairment-related additional support needs are more than twice as likely to be unemployed or workless as those with no additional support needs. Although disabled people make up 11.6 per cent of all 16 to 24-year-olds, in 2015-16, only 3.9 per cent of modern apprenticeships went to disabled people. That needs to change—and quickly.

My experience of meeting individuals with a disability is that many of them want to work but cannot find employment. Studies show that work is generally good for health. As well as a financial reward, it gives us self-esteem, companionship and a sense of purpose. Further evidence suggests that participating in internship schemes significantly improves one’s future hope for employment. For example, 10 of the 12 disabled graduates who participated in the Scottish Parliament internship scheme run by Inclusion Scotland moved into employment or full-time academic research.

The findings of the report, “Equal? Still not, why not?”, published by Disability Agenda Scotland at the end of November, identified that most people with a disability still experience some form of stigma, prejudice, harassment and bullying in the workplace. The report brought together some case studies. The Capability Scotland focus group included an individual who said:

“I did a work placement and the first day the person I was sitting next to was asking me all sorts of questions, which was fine. The second day I went in I was on my own and they told me because the woman sitting next to me had called me a spastic and said she didn’t want to work with a spastic.”

She did not want to be close to someone like that. It is clear that in Scotland we have a long way to go in all areas.

It is clear that all parties have to support efforts to raise awareness of disability, reduce stigma and discrimination and improve equality. We need to look at why discrimination is taking place.

We also have to look at the type of jobs that disabled people are going into. Is there still a glass ceiling for certain jobs that are simply not open to people with disability? Are there certain jobs that people think that disabled people should go into, rather than having the choice from a whole spectrum? What kind of development do people have? I was talking to a lady at lunchtime who had been in the same job for 30 years—not because she wanted to stay there, but because she was scared to move on because there was no training for that.

Disability comes in many different forms and we need to make sure that there is appropriate training. Earlier this week, I was pleased to see that the Scottish Parliament held disability equality training to help MSPs’ researchers to better engage with disabled constituents.

The parties and the Government must do more. We are underrepresented in the parties. If my maths is right, 23 disabled people should have been elected to the chamber. Part of that is to do with the electorate and who people vote for, but are enough disabled people being given the opportunity to stand?

Scotland has a vibrant and vocal disability movement, and we should welcome that and encourage them as they seek to lobby us all.

I hope that the outcomes of the Scottish Government delivery plan are felt in Parliament and, more importantly, across the disabled community. It is good to hear nice words from politicians, but what makes the difference is a job, security and a purpose. I wish the plan well and hope that it can be achieved.