The government tried this week to persuade the UN that it has made “progress” since being found guilty of “grave and systematic violations” of the disability rights convention, just as MPs prepared to undermine one of its key claims.
A delegation of civil servants from the UK government, and three devolved governments, were in Geneva to be cross-examined by members of the UN committee on the rights of disabled people.
They had been asked to provide evidence of progress made since a 2016 report by the committee found the UK government guilty of repeated violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
That report followed the first high-level inquiry carried out by the committee and was the result of years of research and lobbying by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC), which sent members to Geneva this week, alongside representatives of more than 10 other disabled people’s organisations (DPOs).
The UN committee found in November 2016 that the UK government had discriminated against disabled people on the right to an adequate standard of living and social protection, employment, and independent living.
But the UK government’s attempts to claim it has made progress since 2016 were described by the DPOs who watched its evidence on Monday as “an insult to disabled people” and full of “half-truths, untruths” and “empty assertions” (see separate story).
The UK government’s lead representative in Geneva, Alexandra Gowlland, deputy director of the Disability Unit, said the government was “fully committed” to implementing the convention.
She presented a list on Monday of what the government appeared to see as its main achievements on disability rights since 2016.
One of the areas she focused on was the right to independent living, detailed in article 19 of the convention.
In late 2016, the committee concluded that the UK government’s policies had “disproportionately affected persons with disabilities and hindered various aspects of their right to live independently and be included in the community”.
Gowlland (pictured, right) pointed this week to a 2021 white paper published by the Department of Health and Social Care, People at the Heart of Care, with its “10 year vision for adult social care”, and claimed the government wanted “everyone to access high quality care that enables choice, control, and independence”.
But yesterday (Wednesday), just two days later, the Commons public accounts committee was concluding that the UK government was “falling short” on its promise to “fix the crisis in social care”, as “chronic understaffing, rising waiting lists and patchwork funding place sustained pressure on local authorities”.
The cross-party committee also concluded that the government had “no roadmap for achieving its vision, or any targets or milestones beyond 2025, with nothing meaningful in place to demonstrate progress”.
Gowlland also failed to mention to the UN committee that research by disabled campaigners has shown how tens of thousands of disabled people across England have been left in debt because they cannot pay their care charges.
The government also tried to take credit for two “landmark” pieces of legislation, the British Sign Language Act and the Down Syndrome Act, both of which were private members’ bills eventually supported by the government but were also criticised for failing to offer any strong new rights.
She also highlighted the government’s National Disability Strategy, which she described as “ambitious and comprehensive”, and the more recent Disability Action Plan, which have both been heavily criticised by DPOs for their lack of any co-production and for being full of empty promises.
Gowlland mentioned the Transforming Support white paper, published last spring by the Department for Work and Pensions and which disabled people’s organisations have described as not fit for purpose.
Those reforms, she said, focus “on what people can do rather than what they cannot”, a phrase used repeatedly by work and pensions ministers for decades, with the earliest known use by Labour’s social security secretary Alistair Darling in 1999.
Among her claims was that the government had overseen an increase in the number of disabled people in employment of 1. 3 million between 2017 and 2022, even though that claim has been repeatedly debunked by academics, who have made clear that it is deeply misleading.
Rather than mentioning the long and repeated delays to plans to force all new homes in England to be built to a higher basic standard of accessibility, Gowlland highlighted minor measures on supported housing, which she said “plays a vital role in delivering better life outcomes, improved well-being and health and greater independence for disabled people”.
She again sought to take credit for legislation that was introduced through a private members’ bill, this time the Supported Housing (Regulatory Oversight) Act, which the government “supported”.
On disability hate crime – something which she said was “completely unacceptable” – she highlighted awareness campaigns in 2018 and 2019, but failed to mention the government’s repeated failure to introduce tougher laws, as recommended by the Law Commission more than two years ago.
Gowlland also pointed to new laws from 2022 that allowed Deaf jurors to be assisted by British Sign Language interpreters in the jury deliberation room, without mentioning that the government had only acted after a judicial review of its failure to remove a ban and more than two decades of campaigning by Deaf activists.
In its evidence to the committee on Monday, the Scottish government highlighted policies such as its introduction of the new adult disability payment and child disability payment to replace personal independence payment, its decision to reopen the Independent Living Fund to new entrants, its introduction of free personal care, and its plans for a National Care Service.
The Welsh government spoke of its commitment to incorporate the UN convention into Welsh law, and how it commissioned a study of the effects of the response to the pandemic on disabled people, led by DPOs, which became the Locked Out report, and subsequently set up a Disability Rights Taskforce.
It also spoke of the Welsh government’s commitment to embedding the social model of disability “into everything it does” and how it was working on the taskforce in co-production with disabled people.
The Northern Ireland government pointed to its work on a disability and work strategy, and a new disability strategy, and its plans for a new hate crime bill, a draft strategic plan for learning disability, and an updated autism strategy.
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