International Day of Persons with Disabilities

Debate between Debbie Abrahams and Jonathan Davies

Tuesday 3rd December 2024 Commons Chamber

[Jonathan Davies (Mid Derbyshire) (Lab)]

I recently met with an organisation called Deaf-initely Women, which supports deaf and hard of hearing women in Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire. It became apparent to me that the voices of those women are not being heard in the way that services are designed. I wondered whether my hon. Friend might reflect on that as part of her speech.

[Debbie Abrahams]

Again, that is a very important point. We have seen the decimation of services—social services, but also those in the charity sector—so my hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise that point.

The investigating committee found that the Government had implemented a policy aimed at reforming their welfare system, and that those reforms had been justified in the context of austerity measures to achieve consolidation of fiscal and budgetary policy. However, the impact assessments conducted by the Government prior to the implementation of several of their welfare reform measures expressly foresaw an adverse impact on disabled people, but those assessments were ignored. Evidence gathered nationally by many disabled people’s organisations, charities, academics and many more showed the adverse and disproportionate effects of those welfare reform measures on persons with disabilities.

The impacts on the health of disabled people were also documented in a 2021 report assessing the health effects of the Welfare Reform and Work Act 2016. This should have been a wake-up call for the Government of the day, but unfortunately, even after the tragic deaths of dozens if not hundreds of disabled social security claimants over the past five years, the UN committee published a follow-up report in March this year in which it said that

“no significant progress has been made in the state party concerning the situation of persons with disabilities addressed in the inquiry proceedings”.

That report stated that while some measures had been taken to address the committee’s recommendations, there were also

“signs of regression in the standards and principles of the convention”.

As my right hon. Friend the Minister will be aware, the committee has asked for a report by March 2029 to update it on the implementation of those recommendations. I know that he takes this issue very seriously, but despite the introduction of the Disability Discrimination Act 30 years ago, we have seen other areas of discrimination against disabled people. The Office for National Statistics conducted qualitative research that examined the experiences that people with disabilities had with activities, goods and services in the UK. It found barriers including physical access, restrictive building layouts, inaccessible online services, poor information provision and inflexible design of customer services that do not consider accessibility for a broad range of needs.

Our train network does not have level access, about which we heard Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson make a plea in the summer, when what she was put through was outrageous. When I had a presentation on the trans-Pennine route upgrade, I was absolutely shocked to find that the rolling stock, which is yet to be commissioned, is not going to provide level access. It is absolute nonsense that that is not even in the design for that procurement, so we must do better. Given that the new rolling stock will not be out until 2029, I am hoping there will be time for people to think again, because that is just not good enough.

The difference in education outcomes is also shocking. According to the ONS, only a quarter of disabled people aged 21 to 64 have a degree or equivalent as their highest qualification compared with nearly 43% of non-disabled people. In addition, disabled people are almost three times more likely to have no qualifications than non-disabled people. Disabled people are also less likely to have GCSE grades of C and higher in comparison with non-disabled people. We know that disabled people do not have the same experience of UK schools as their non-disabled counterparts, and that barriers exist for these children across the educational system. I remember doing some work on this in my own constituency, and it was quite shocking to see the difficulties that disabled children face.

The cost of living crisis has hit disabled people harder than the wider population. Many disabled people have vital equipment that is expensive to run. The extra costs are estimated at over £975 a month on average. Imagine if that additional cost was one that everybody had to face, because we would really feel the pinch. A survey carried out by Sense found that 85% of people with complex disabilities are worried about this rising cost of living. If we look at employment, we need to remember that the disability employment gap sits at nearly 30%, as it has for many years. According to the ONS, there are 2.2 million disabled people who want to work but need support to get into work. Disabled jobseekers can face barriers on seeking employment, including from employers who believe that it is too difficult, risky or expensive to hire someone with disabilities. All organisations need to understand the challenges faced by disabled jobseekers.