International Development and Disability

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I call Liz McInnes.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Havard.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Order. May I just say that you are not a Front-Bench spokesperson—are you?

[Liz McInnes]

No, I am not. This is my first Westminster Hall debate.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Exactly. I am trying to be helpful to you in terms of convention; I am not trying to be difficult. Normally, you would sit in a seat for a normal Member and speak from there.

[Liz McInnes]

I am happy to do so.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Sorry to be procedural at this stage. [Interruption.] That is smashing. Thank you for your help. You will soon catch on to the strange ways within the circus.

[Liz McInnes]

This is almost a maiden speech again.

People with disabilities make up one of the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups within society throughout the world. Sightsavers estimates that one in five of the world’s poorest people are disabled and that 80% of those people live in developing countries. They are routinely denied their most basic human rights; they are cut off and unable to benefit from mainstream education, employment and health care services. For far too many disabled people, having a disability means they will never receive an education, never have employment and never be independent.

The vast majority of disabled people in developing countries live in extreme poverty. Global efforts to address poverty cannot afford to ignore people with disabilities, yet they are frequently left behind in the international development debate. Estimates by Sightsavers indicate that unemployment among disabled people is as high as 80% in some countries. For disabled children, mortality is as high as 80% in countries where mortality rates for children under five as a whole have decreased to below 20%. Furthermore, 90% of disabled children in developing countries do not attend school.

The millennium development goals, set in 2000, did not explicitly address disability issues at all. One of the goals set was to achieve universal primary education. The deadline for achieving that goal is next year. Significant progress has been made in many parts of the world, but there has been no progress at all for many disabled children. The education goal will not be met because, as Handicap International notes, 19 million disabled children still do not go to school.

Over the next nine months, we must ensure that the sustainable development goals, which will succeed the millennium development goals from September 2015, focus greater attention on those who live with and are affected by disability. World leaders meet in January to begin formal negotiation on the new goals. The UK Government, alongside other Governments, must ensure the retention under the education goal of a target from the Open Working Group outcome document that explicitly targets tackling disparities in provision of education in relation to disability. We must learn lessons from the past, when disabled children were failed when it came to access to education.

We want the UK Government and the Department for International Development to consider disability as a central component of all their development programmes and to target explicitly the needs of disabled people. A good start would be to ensure that all buildings and facilities that DFID funds are accessible to disabled people. Disability has too often been an afterthought; for example, it was only in late 2013 that DFID announced that schools built with its funding would have to be wheelchair accessible.

It is not only in education that global agreements have failed disabled people; being disabled means you are less likely to access health care and less likely to work. In 2012, a joint publication by the World Health Organisation and the Liverpool John Moores university centre for public health reported that a child with a disability is three to four times more likely to be a victim of physical or sexual violence. In nearly all cases, disabled people are the most marginalised, vulnerable and poorest group in developing countries.

Violence against women and girls with a disability is of particular concern. The Violence Against Women with Disabilities Working Group has reported that disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic violence and other forms of gender-based and sexual violence as non-disabled women and more likely to experience abuse over a longer period of time and to suffer more severe injuries as a result of that violence.

We must recognise that disability is diverse and ensure that we have an explicit focus on all types of disability, including motor and sensory disabilities, and mental health.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In a time of political and economic unrest across the whole world, when disabled people are more marginalised than any other group, it is important that we focus our attention on them. Some 80% of people with disabilities live in developing countries and 20% of those with severe disabilities live in the poorest part of the world. Charities do great work. The Minister, who is newly appointed, is responsive to hon. Members’ opinions. Does the hon. Lady feel, as I and many others outside the Chamber do, that disability issues should be key in the Department’s official role wherever it acts or has influence across the world?

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady answers, I will help her. Normally, when there is an intervention, we sit down—you did at the end. The intervention was a bit long; they are not normally that long. It is your debate, and you would normally tell me if someone else wished to speak. If other Members do not wish to make a speech I am happy to take interventions, but they should be short and to the point.

[Liz McInnes]

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his intervention.

As the World Health Organisation notes, the global estimate for disability is on the rise because of the ageing population and the rapid spread of chronic diseases, as well as improvements in the methodologies used to measure disability. Disability therefore requires urgent consideration and action from policy makers in development.

Additionally, we must not forget carers. Disability does not affect only those who suffer from it directly; there is also a significant impact on those caring for people with disabilities. We in turn must do more to support them, so that we can ensure that a child’s ability to go to school is not predetermined by whether their parent has a disability. When it is, that leads to a cycle of deprivation of opportunity for millions of children and young people around the world.

In nearly all cases, disabled people are the most marginalised and vulnerable and poorest group in developing countries. We want the UK Government and the Department for International Development to provide more support to organisations for disabled people in developing countries and to include more disabled people and groups in the design and delivery of programmes.

Disability has been absent from the development agenda for far too long. As the world meets over the next nine months to finalise the sustainable development goals—the successor to the millennium development goals—we must ensure that we learn lessons from our past mistakes and make explicit reference to targeting the needs of disabled people.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I remind hon. Members that they can intervene on him if they wish, to reinforce a point or get, perhaps, a better answer than the one they think he is giving them—although I am sure that, as ever, he will give comprehensive answers.