Hansard

Before I begin my remarks on behalf of the Equal Opportunities Committee, I welcome Dr Jones's comments on diversity and his previous remarks on this important issue.

It gives me no great pleasure to open the debate. This slot should have been taken by Cathy Peattie, the convener of the Equal Opportunities Committee, who has done a great deal of work on the issue. Unfortunately, because of a family bereavement, Cathy Peattie is unable to be here. I am sure that all members join me in sending our sympathy to her.

The removing barriers and creating opportunities inquiry was the major piece of work carried out by the Equal Opportunities Committee in this session of the Parliament. I look forward to debating the issues that the committee raised in its report and to hearing the Scottish Executive's response to our recommendations. I thank all the people who were involved in the inquiry, which lasted almost 29 months, during which time the committee travelled the length and breadth of Scotland. Many people gave up their time to speak to the committee at consultation events or in formal evidence-taking meetings. Without those important people, the report would not have been possible. I know that some of them are in the public gallery and I welcome them. I hope that they enjoy the debate.

I feel something of a fraud, because I rejoined the committee only recently, although this is my third stint as a member. I thank Cathy Peattie and my fellow members of the committee for their hard work. I also thank my Liberal Democrat predecessor as deputy convener of the committee, Nora Radcliffe, for her contribution, and all members of the committee, past and present, for their time and effort on the inquiry. I also pay tribute to the clerking team for its considerable input.

The inquiry was launched in 2004, although its foundations were laid in 2003, which was the European year of disabled people. Someone will no doubt correct me if I am wrong about this, but I think that the inquiry was the longest ever undertaken by a parliamentary committee—I am sure that it felt like that to the people who undertook it. The reason for that was the inquiry's extensive scope. The committee agreed to look at the barriers that disabled people face in accessing work, further and higher education and leisure, but during the course of the inquiry it became apparent that other, cross-cutting issues permeated all those areas. The committee therefore decided that barriers to disabled people that are caused by negative attitudes, poor transport availability, lack of accessible information and poor physical access should also be investigated. Each issue could have merited an inquiry in its own right, but the committee thought that an integrated approach was necessary.

The committee started by speaking to and taking advice from disabled people on how it should conduct the inquiry, to ensure maximum participation and accessibility. Those people advised the committee on how to consult effectively with disabled people and on the key issues. Between February and July last year, the committee embarked on a series of consultation events throughout Scotland, from Melrose to Kirkwall. It listened as disabled people explained the barriers that they face in accessing work, further and higher education and leisure.

The committee issued a call for written evidence and heard oral evidence over 17 meetings—I am sure that that is another record. Such extensive evidence taking was necessary if the committee was to get to the heart of the issues that disabled people had told it about, and if it was to identify solutions.

The consultation on recommendations in the committee's draft report, which took place between July and September this year, was a first for a parliamentary committee. The committee wanted to ensure that it had got things right and that its recommendations had the support of the disabled people who had participated.

The committee received more than 30 responses commenting on the draft recommendations, which allowed the recommendations to be refined into the final versions in the report that we are debating. I hope that, as a result of all that work, the voices and aspirations of disabled Scots echo through the pages of the report, which is very much a product of collaboration between Parliament and people.

Another first for the Parliament is the accessibility of the report, which was the first committee report to be published in larger 14-point font and with easy read, Braille, audio tape, Moon and British Sign Language DVD versions of the summary of recommendations being available on the day that the report was published. The committee hopes that other committees and the Parliament more generally will consider the work that it has done and identify opportunities for adopting similar practices.

Before I talk about the committee's recommendations, I will touch on the work of the Scottish Executive's disability working group, which also reported in November. The committee had hoped to comment on the group's recommendations in our report, but the publication dates did not permit that. Unsurprisingly, some of the disability working group's recommendations overlap with those in the committee's report. The recommendations are mostly complementary; for example, both groups recommend that public sector staff should have equalities as a performance competency in their job descriptions. The committee believes that that is crucial if we are to embed equalities and provision for disabled people into the work of the public sector.

However, on some issues, our report goes further than the working group's report. For example, our recommendation on independent living is much more proactive. The committee listened carefully to evidence on the issue from the Disability Rights Commission and agreed that the Scottish Executive should set up a cross-departmental working group to establish mechanisms that allow the independent living agenda to be developed in a co-ordinated way. If my case load is anything to go by, all members will know about that issue. The committee felt that the issue is of such fundamental importance to disabled people and their families that our stronger stance was more than justified. I urge the minister to look favourably on that recommendation.

I will highlight some of the committee's main recommendations. My committee colleagues will cover the recommendations on each specific theme of the inquiry in more detail as they speak during the debate. In total, the committee made 156 recommendations for change. Those recommendations are extremely wide ranging and call for action from more than 100 service providers in Scotland, from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities to the Scottish Arts Council. The convener, Cathy Peattie, has written personally to all the organisations that are tasked with implementing the report's recommendations, requesting that they take due cognisance of them in their work.

The committee found that support for disabled people in employment is critical to their ability to access work and to retain it when their circumstances change. In "Workforce Plus: An Employability Framework for Scotland", the Scottish Executive admitted that the current system of employment support is not working, that services are not person centred, and that the £500 million that is currently allocated is not being spent appropriately. The scheme for supported employment that our report recommends aims to work alongside "Workforce Plus" to address those concerns. Crucially, we seek to support those disabled people who are furthest from the labour market, which is something that the committee heard "Workforce Plus" will have difficulty in delivering.

The committee considers that the enterprise companies are too focused on economic growth and may not be doing as much as they could do to encourage and support the employment of disabled people. We therefore recommend a fundamental review of the services that Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise provide to disabled people and employers. I feel strongly about the need for smaller employers to have access to good information about what support is available to them if they employ somebody with a disability.

The committee found that young disabled people are being let down by the careers service. Many of them do not receive adequate careers advice and many receive advice from people who have no real understanding of how a person's impairment may impact on their education or career choices. The committee thinks that Careers Scotland and the other bodies that are involved in the provision of careers advice should take a fresh look at the services that they provide, because it appears that not enough support is being provided at present.

The committee considered how it might provide greater opportunities for disabled people to participate in community and public life. As an example, I highlight the important role that political parties can play. We are all responsible for making our meetings and selection procedures as accessible as possible. Do we, as members of the Scottish Parliament, advertise the availability of BSL interpreters for public meetings? Do we make our literature available in accessible formats? Does the Parliament assist us in that? I make a plea to all members that we consider our systems and procedures to ensure that they are as accessible as possible. It would be helpful not only to disabled people, but to our society as a whole, if we encouraged more disabled people to become involved in grass-roots and representative politics, so that they became involved directly in making decisions and shaping our society.

Many disabled people cannot access work, further or higher education and leisure activities because suitable transport is unavailable. They told the committee that they want certainty of service from door to door, so that they can be confident that they can complete their journey without difficulty. For example, although the Executive's concessionary fares scheme is a massive step in the right direction, many disabled people find it difficult to get to a bus stop to take advantage of it. Alternatively, they may find that an accessible bus is available but that, when they arrive at a train station for the next part of their trip, the platform is inaccessible. Until disabled people have confidence that accessible transport is available for all stages of their journey, they will be discouraged from travelling. The committee's report contains a large section on transport issues, which are important. Given the publication of the Executive's national transport strategy, now is an ideal time for the issue to be not only discussed, but addressed comprehensively.

I want to mention attitudes. It is extremely regrettable that other peoples' negative attitudes are often the biggest barrier that disabled people face in accessing services. I want the Parliament to reflect on that and the message that it sends about the country in which we live. I hope that the committee's recommendations go some way to providing a Scottish solution to the problem. The committee has suggested actions to combat negative attitudes, from training to increase awareness and understanding in every workplace, to awareness raising through a national campaign.

Many people will ask about the cost—I asked about that when I read the report. It was not the committee's job to give a fully costed breakdown of what it would cost to implement the recommendations. There would be a price tag attached, but we must ask not only about the cost of implementing the recommendations, but about the cost to our society if we do not do so. For too long, disabled people have been left behind and in poverty. I am talking not only about poverty of income—although a disproportionate number of disabled people suffer in that way—but about poverty of opportunity and choice. Disabled people are the poor relations in our society and have for too long been fobbed off with second-class services. By producing the report, the committee says that that time has ended and that it is time that disabled people in Scotland were treated as equals. It is no longer good enough in Scotland to tolerate discrimination on the ground that it is too expensive to tackle.

Along with the report, which is important, there are the changes in legislation that are coming into force and the Scottish Executive's on-going work. I hope that the Executive, the partners with whom we worked in producing the report and those to whom the convener has written to ask them to implement the recommendations will work together to make those recommendations a reality for disabled people throughout Scotland. I commend the report to the Parliament.

I move,