Meeting of the Parliament 28 March 2019
The Scottish Government, the Parliament and society must recognise the rich and valuable contribution that disabled people make to all aspects of public and private life. We also know that much work is still to be done in challenging inequality, to ensure that disabled people have full access to the social, civic and economic life of Scotland’s communities.
As we stand at the midway point of our delivery plan for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities by 2021, it is only right to discuss progress thus far and what is still to be achieved. I thank Inclusion Scotland and others for their excellent briefings ahead of today’s debate, which highlight areas where we need to move forward. For example, disabled people are still more likely to live in poverty than a non-disabled person. Indeed, a disabled person in Scotland faces, on average, additional costs related to their impairment or condition of £632 a month. Sadly, there is also a real disability pay gap.
Those facts underline how important it is to reaffirm our commitment to delivering transformational change for disabled people. The delivery plan “A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People” could not be more distinct from the UK Tory Government’s approach, which was to abolish the independent living fund and cut employability programmes and welfare such that the United Nations declared there to be evidence of “grave or systematic violations” of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. That was all in the name of austerity.
Indeed, the Prime Minister was this week accused of making disabled people her bottom priority after failing to replace the Minister of State for Disabled People, Health and Work, Sarah Newton MP, who quit on 13 March. Meanwhile, official figures reveal that 70 per cent of disabled people facing the possibility of losing their entitlement to social security benefits who proceeded to a hearing had that decision subsequently overturned. It is simply unconscionable that so many people in need are being failed, and the situation raises questions about the number who may have been successful but who choose not to proceed to a hearing because of the process involved.
The UK Government’s punitive approach is demonstrative of its often callous attitude towards disabled and vulnerable people. Many people who are born with disabilities so severe that they are unable to work are still being subjected to repeated employment and support allowance work capability assessments over many years, despite the fact that their condition is permanent. It is deeply stressful and pointless for one of my older constituents to be summoned for interview in Ayr, which is 22 miles from the southernmost part of my constituency. It is a costly box-ticking exercise. In contrast, the SNP Government believes that every disabled person in Scotland has the right to choice, control, dignity and freedom to live their life with the support that they need.