Invisible Disabilities and Accessibility Challenges

Debate between Bill Grant and Angela Crawley

Wednesday 5th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Angela Crawley]

I wholeheartedly agree. Fundamentally, this is all I want the Minister to take home today. I genuinely want us to be able to work cross-party across the House to get this right, because this is not simply about levelling this at the Government. We all have a responsibility to make the system work better.

As the Minister knows, I am a member of the Women and Equalities Committee, and we have consistently argued that more can be done to support disabled people. I think he would agree that there is always more that we could do within the built environment to support those with a disability. It is often not the disability itself that disabling; it is the built environment and the structures within society that disable the individual.

[Bill Grant]

Is it not the case that the Scottish Government had the opportunity to recreate a Scottish social security system? The hon. Lady has spent some time berating the current system, yet the opportunity was gifted to the Scottish Government, as it should have been, through devolution.

[Angela Crawley]

The hon. Gentleman knows fine well that there is a Scottish social security service, and the approval ratings and general success of the implementation of that system provide evidence that where this is done correctly and with an ethos of integrity and respect, it works far better than an interrogative system that implies that people must prove that they are disabled. Frankly, I would expect more from the hon. Gentleman, who often makes the case in this House that it is the responsibility of the Scottish Government and Scottish taxpayers to mitigate this Conservative Government’s austerity measures. He knows that that is an inconceivable and ridiculous notion.

Once more, I call on the Government to define specifically what “reasonable adjustments” are, because too many employers are unable to provide the level of support required because “reasonable adjustments” have not been exactly defined. For that matter, the Equality Act 2010 is often not being enforced, particularly across Government Departments and in outside bodies that are accountable to the Government. There is more that the Minister can do to ensure that the Equality Act works for people and that the definition of “reasonable adjustments” is clear so that employers can support people.

We need to have a shift in the way we look at disability in this country. We should commend the companies and employers who are making the changes needed to help disabled people to continue into work, but we also need to ensure that the people who require welfare support are actually receiving it and not being excluded owing to processes that are not fit for purpose. The Minister has heard me make these asks several times, and I know that he is probably tired of hearing me make them, but I urge him to speak to his colleagues across the Departments —specifically, given his remit, to the Department for Work and Pensions—and to champion reforms with those disabilities in mind. If the true measure of a society can be found in how it treats its weakest members, right now we are coming up short. So, before yet another reshuffle and yet another Prime Minister, I urge this Minister to make a lasting impact and improve the lives of disabled people.