Hansard

I record my admiration for the amount of work that went into producing the report and the long process that was required. I joined the Equal Opportunities Committee only recently. My colleague, Frances Curran, participated in the process more than I did, so I do not profess to be an expert on the inquiry.

The report demonstrates just how big the issues are. Although the committee focused on particular aspects, the fact that there are so many recommendations even on those aspects demonstrates how big an issue the exclusion of disabled people in our society is and how much work needs to be done. I hope that the 156 recommendations and the appeals to more than 100 organisations to act, which the report contains, will be implemented. That will require the Executive to put leadership and resources behind the recommendations and it will require proper mechanisms for holding to account various organisations and public bodies as well as the Executive for delivering—or not.

I will speak about a couple of particular issues that the report touches on and other issues that it does not. It should be accepted that we sometimes generalise too much when we talk about disabled people; among them are a whole lot of individuals in very different situations and with very different disabilities and needs. Many people who have specific conditions need specific approaches to be taken by organisations and some attitudes need to be challenged—I am thinking specifically of people with autistic spectrum disorders. The adoption of the European convention on human rights in relation to disabilities, with the specific commitments that it contains for people with autism, has set the bar very high for government and public bodies. Such people are a section of the community who, in particular, are not being served well in any respect, including in relation to employment, transport, education and health.

Among those whom we call disabled people are people who have complex problems of ill health and morbidity, along with their disability. Our public services do not do very well when they are presented with people who have complex needs. The overcentralisation of specialties in particular means that the national health service is not set up to deal with a person who presents with a number of chronic conditions and disabilities. I speak from experience, with regard to my mother. I sometimes wonder whether it would be easier to chop up people like my mum into different bits and send their bits to all the different departments and organisations to be catered for. There is no can-do attitude in respect of examining people holistically and bringing to them everything that they need, instead of their having to chase around for services in every nook and cranny of the health service, their local authority, the voluntary sector or wherever. It is a huge issue. The report touches on some of the issues and we really need somebody to take responsibility for bringing everything together and driving things so that people with disabilities and people with complex morbidity and illnesses do not have to chase the services themselves.

The other big issue that underpins the problem is poverty. A hugely disproportionate number of disabled people are in poverty. Only 45 per cent of disabled people in Scotland are in work—about half the rate for enabled people—and Scottish households with one disabled person or more are twice as likely to live in poverty as is a household with no disabled people. It is not only disabled people who are discriminated against; those who care for them and others are affected by the disability. More than 40 per cent of the households in Scotland that contain at least one disabled person have an annual income of less than £10,000.

The benefits system and ability to get into work are huge issues. The benefits system is reserved to Westminster, but the Scottish Parliament has a duty to comment on such issues and to push them. I would like us to have the powers to do something about the situation because I have no illusions about Westminster delivering. Arbitrary age limits for access to benefits such as disability living allowance are completely inappropriate. They represent the state's rationing of access to those benefits in a completely discriminatory way. That must change because it is not compatible with the European convention on human rights. I agree with the DRC chairman, Bert Massie, who said earlier this year:

"Our vision is of a future where having an impairment or long term health condition is considered an ordinary aspect of human experience, not an extraordinary sign of human failure; where the link between having an impairment or long term condition and living a life of restricted opportunities, poverty and unfulfilled potential is broken forever."

That will take massive resources.

Recommendation 119 of the report concerns transport. I support it whole-heartedly, but it is a challenging recommendation. I hope that, when the Minister for Communities takes the recommendations to all the Executive departments, he will speak specifically to the Minister for Transport, who published his transport strategy and bus action plan the week before last. The bus action plan has more quangos than buses and they have all come along at once, including some that are to be called punctuality improvement partnerships—really. We need more buses and more transport and we need it all to be accessible and integrated; we do not need more quangos.

I ask the Minister for Communities to speak to all the ministers when he implements the recommendations. I hope that he will come back to Parliament with a real plan that has goals and timetables for when the recommendations will be delivered. That would be a real improvement.