• Skip to main content
  • Skip to secondary menu
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
  • About DNS
  • Subscribe to DNS
  • Advertise with DNS
  • Support DNS
  • Contact DNS

Disability News Service

the country's only news agency specialising in disability issues

  • Home
  • Independent Living
    • Arts, Culture and Sport
    • Crime
    • Education
    • Employment
    • Housing
    • Transport
  • Activism & Campaigning
  • Benefits & Poverty
  • Politics
  • Human Rights
You are here: Home / Politics / New non-disabled chair of parliamentary disability group dodges questions
About 30 people standing together, with several holding up One in Five signs

New non-disabled chair of parliamentary disability group dodges questions

By John Pring on 30th October 2015 Category: Politics

Listen

Campaigners are calling on the parliamentary group set up to campaign on disability rights to ensure that a disabled politician is appointed to help lead its work.

Disability News Service (DNS) revealed last week that the all-party parliamentary disability group (APPDG) had selected a non-disabled person as its chair for the first time since it was set up in 1969.

The new chair of the all-party group is the SNP MP and clinical psychologist Dr Lisa Cameron.

But now the Scottish-based, cross-party campaign group One in Five has written to Cameron to ask the APPDG to appoint a disabled person as co-chair.

Jamie Szymkowiak, a disabled member of the SNP, and disabled Labour activist Pam Duncan-Glancy have told Cameron they understand how few disabled MPs there are.

But they add in the letter: “If no-one comes forward, we hope the group will ask why. Is the role inaccessible, does it put too much pressure on, could it be a job share opportunity, are MPs afraid to ‘come out’ as disabled?”

They say that if it is not possible to find a disabled parliamentarian to co-chair the APPDG, the group should “put addressing the issue of the under-representation of disabled people in politics front and centre of their work by encouraging and empowering disabled politicians of the future.”

Szymkowiak said: “The fact that this is the first time in its near 50-year history the all-party parliamentary disability group is being chaired by a non-disabled person highlights how under-represented disabled people are.

“The under-representation of disabled people in politics is not only a sad indictment of our time and letting disabled people across the UK down, but it’s letting down the very structures that are meant to be there to emancipate disabled people in the first place. 

“Disabled people have a right to represent themselves, and we can represent ourselves.”

New rules introduced by MPs in May mean that only an MP can chair an all-party group, but the rules do allow a peer to join them as co-chair.

The group’s previous co-chairs were both disabled people, the crossbench peer Baroness [Jane] Campbell and Labour’s Anne McGuire, who retired as an MP in May.

One in Five has called on the APPDG to sign its charter and help it gain the backing of every Westminster-based political party for its campaign to make politics more inclusive and accessible to disabled people.

The Scottish Conservative Party, the Scottish Greens, the Scottish Labour Party, the Scottish Liberal Democrats, the Scottish National Party and the Scottish Socialist Party have all signed up to the charter.

For the second week running, Cameron has failed to return calls from DNS asking her to comment on her appointment as APPDG chair.

Picture: cross-party MSPs at One In Five’s launch outside the Scottish parliament in April, and One in Five ambassadors Jamie Szymkowiak (front left, holding green sign) and Pam Duncan-Glancy (front left, in wheelchair)

Share this post:

Share on TwitterShare on FacebookShare on WhatsAppShare on Reddit

Tags: APPDG Dr Lisa Cameron Jamie Szymkowiak One in Five

Related

Anger over government’s plastic straw ban plan
25th October 2018
Knee-jerk responses to plastic straw campaigns ‘risk isolating disabled customers’
22nd February 2018
Scottish government lays out 93 actions to help country meet UN obligations
8th December 2016

Primary Sidebar

Subscribe to the free Access London Theatre Guide

Access

Latest Stories

Disability discrimination in Met police is ‘baked into the system’, says report

Evidence mounts of disability benefits white paper’s fatal flaws

Court orders second Jodey Whiting inquest to probe consequences of DWP’s actions

‘Nonsensical’ disability benefits white paper sparks return of Spartacus

Concern over expansion of supported internship scheme ‘with potential for exploitation’

Labour ‘shares concerns’ about government’s work capability assessment plans

‘Heartless’ reforms to disability benefits ‘defy logic’

DWP white paper offers mix of ‘human catastrophe’ and overdue reforms

DWP figures show 600,000 could be missing out on disability benefits

DLA ‘disallowances’ plummeted after death of Philippa Day, DWP figures show

Advice and Information

Readspeaker

Footer

The International Standard Serial Number for Disability News Service is: ISSN 2398-8924

  • Accessibility Statement
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site map
  • Facebook
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2023 Disability News Service

Site development by A Bright Clear Web