Meeting of the Parliament 05 December 2023
That is an excellent point. The member will be aware that the UNCRPD is one of four treaties that we are seeking to incorporate into Scots law as part of our forthcoming human rights bill, which I will talk about shortly.
At the disability summit that was held a week and a half ago, Tressa Burke from the Glasgow Disability Alliance noted the recent comments by the UK Government on disabled people working from home and rightly pointed out that, currently, not many work-at-home opportunities are available to disabled people.
We see things differently in Scotland. We reject the notion that everyone is able to work and that those who cannot work or have not received the support that they need in order to do so do not deserve help from the Government. We also accept that many disabled people can work and want to do so, but changes are needed to open up the job market to them. Although employment law remains reserved to the UK Government, we use our fair work policies to promote fairer work practices across the labour market in Scotland. That includes our fair work action plan, which takes an intersectional approach to minimising the structural barriers that disabled people, racialised minorities and women, in particular, face.
The action plan also reinforces the Scottish Government’s ambition to at least halve the disability employment gap by 2038 from the 2016 baseline of 37.4 per cent. We work closely with disabled people and their representative organisations to ensure that their voices and experiences help to shape our policy and the actions that we take to meet our ambitions. Through a combination of locally designed services such as no one left behind and our national employment service, Fair Start Scotland, we are delivering all-age, person-centred and tailored employability services, including in-work support, to those who are furthest from the labour market.