Hansard

I, too, thank the hundreds of people who responded to the fairer Scotland consultation. One of the most important lines in Jeane Freeman’s motion is the determination to

“continue to engage with disabled people as the experts in the continued actions that need to be taken to ensure that rights and independent living can be enjoyed”.

The fairer Scotland report defines disadvantage not in terms of an individual’s disability but in terms of the barriers created by society. I will quote in full from the report, which says:

“Unlike the medical model, where an individual is understood to be disabled by their impairment, the social model views disability as the relationship between the individual and society. In other words, it sees the barriers created by society, such as negative attitudes towards disabled people, and inaccessible buildings, transport and communication, as the cause of disadvantage and exclusion, rather than the impairment itself. The aim, then, is to remove the barriers that isolate, exclude and so disable the individual.”

As the minister said, disabilities are enormously varied. We are each unique and one policy for all is not the answer. I welcome the fairer Scotland report because its focus is on giving people the means and opportunities to live as independently as possible and to make their own choices.

In the spirit of celebrating uniqueness, if members will indulge me, I would like to talk about my uncle, who works in a café and as a gardener. He is St Johnstone Football Club’s biggest fan. He goes to the football almost every Saturday and to church almost every Sunday. Throughout my childhood, the happiest parties that I went to were with him and his friends. He recently celebrated his 50th birthday with a big karaoke night with friends and family, including Tory MSP Alexander Stewart, who knows him well. Sadly for both of us—I will say this very quietly—my uncle is a Labour supporter through and through and will not be persuaded to see the light.

Every Christmas, my uncle dresses up as Santa and bestows presents on all his nieces and nephews, which almost makes up for the fact that he has spent most of the year telling us that he is the boss and sitting in the front seat of the car. He has been an avid swimmer and horse rider in the past. He lives in Perth on his own in a house with a small garden. And he has Down’s syndrome.

My uncle’s life works well. He makes the choices—until his environment stops working. Recently, traffic works meant that the pelican crossing immediately outside his house was out of action, and life completely stopped, for the simple but transformational reason that he could not cross the road. Work, football, shopping and visiting friends all stopped. Independent living was gone, not because of who he is or what he can do but because of a simple matter of traffic works. Whose fault is that—his or ours?

We are all dependent in some way—some ways might be more obvious than others or some might be more freely admitted to than others—and we must see people and not disabilities, because each of us is unique. People make a community and that community is all the richer, happier and stronger for including people such as my uncle.

Real community is also the means of support for individuals, and the debate is about how our national community removes the barriers to independent living, opens up employment opportunities, improves accessibility to buildings and institutions—physical and virtual—and promotes active participation.

I will briefly mention two ideas from the fairer Scotland report that provide great examples of how to do just that. They are based on the belief that the hurdle to participation is caused not by the disability but by the challenges of our environment. The first is the access to elected office fund, which aims to improve representation in democratic institutions by meeting the additional costs that disabled people face when they stand for election—Jeremy Balfour commented on that. The second is the forthcoming strategy to tackle social isolation and loneliness, which is to be published in 2017 and which promises to address the issues to do with forming and maintaining relationships with which many people struggle.

A few weeks ago, an older gentleman, who could not walk easily, cycled to my office straight from the jobcentre. He was in a genuine state of shock, because his income was being more than halved. His fears were about not his bank balance but what that money meant. It meant a warm home and transport so that he could get out of the house and spend time with others. It meant the difference between more independence and more dependence, between having choices and not having choices and between participating in society and not participating.

The burden is on us, as representatives of the national community that we call Scotland, to ensure that disabled people exercise choice, live independently and participate fully in society and to ensure that we do not put up barriers that cause disabled people to be excluded from doing any of those things.