Hansard

Like others, I congratulate Pam Duncan-Glancy on securing the debate. I also thank her for highlighting the summit that will take place in February. It was a pleasure this afternoon to meet some of the young people who are in the gallery, and I am sure that the day will be a success.

I found Pam Duncan-Glancy’s speech quite uplifting. Perhaps it will be the other side of the coin to what I want to say tonight, because, although this Parliament often talks about disability and accessibility, the reality is that, often, there are warm words but very little action coming out of those discussions.

Let us look at what the political parties are doing, or are not doing, on issues affecting disabled people. One party is not even here to speak in the debate, so I will turn to the Scottish National Party, which forms the Scottish Government. It has done almost nothing to deal with the disability employment gap. We hear lots of warm words about how we need to close the gap—we have heard that from speakers already tonight—but we know that the figure has not moved at all. We must ask the Scottish Government and the UK Government what they are doing to close the gap, rather than talking about it.

The Scottish Government has dragged its feet on the changing places toilets fund. It has taken almost the full session of Parliament for that fund to come forward. Last week, I held a meeting with about 15 disability charities and asked them what one thing they would like to happen. The answer was that they want to see the Government deliver a manifesto commitment, because it still has not abolished non-residential social care charges. I ask the minister: will that happen before this session of Parliament comes to an end in the spring of next year, or was the commitment simply words on a bit of paper?

To Scottish Labour members, I say gently—or maybe not so gently—that they need to speak to their colleagues down south. We all know that the health element of universal credit is still in the pipeline and that it will make life harder for disabled people. It is easy to come up with something that will make for a cheap headline, as Labour did last week in relation to the motability scheme in a move that saved not one penny of taxpayers’ money but was simply designed to mimic Reform policies.

I say to my former colleagues on the left of me—their position in the chamber is the only thing about them that is to the left of me—that they should look at their website. The last time that it was updated with anything on social security was in September 2021. That is how seriously the Scottish Conservatives take social security. From my time in the party, I can say that they have no real understanding of how social security works, and they have no policies coming forward for disabled people.

My final point is that, earlier this year, this Parliament chose to deny disabled people the champion that they deserve. A disability commissioner would have helped to reverse decades of neglect, and it would have driven meaningful change—change that would have transformed the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. However, this Parliament decided that a disability commissioner was one commissioner too many—a decision that was made just weeks after passing legislation to create a commissioner for victims and witnesses.

That decision captures the attitude that I think exists across the chamber. Parties are very good at talking the talk, but when it comes to action, disabled people are too often sidelined in favour of other priorities. I do not think that that is good enough. Disabled people deserve better.

Although I welcome the Parliament’s marking the international day of persons with disabilities, I am afraid that it rings hollow with many disabled people while parties continue to ignore us and ignore the chance to bring about real change in our society.