United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Matt Rodda Excerpts

Thursday 24th February 2022 Westminster Hall

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I thank everyone who has contributed today. I highlight in particular the work of the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), and congratulate colleagues from across the House, including my hon. Friends the Members for Battersea (Marsha De Cordova), for Vauxhall (Florence Eshalomi) and for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), and, indeed, the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), on their contributions. I am grateful to them for raising such important issues.

I also pay tribute both to disabled people and to the organisations that represent them. In particular, I thank those who carry out important work in the constituency of Reading East, which I have the privilege of representing, both in the town of Reading and in the neighbouring town of Woodley.

It is important that the decisions we take in this House are led by disabled people and experts, and informed by experience. As we have heard, in 2009 the UK pledged to follow the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities, on the basis that it protects and promotes the human rights of disabled people, including by eliminating disability discrimination, enabling disabled people to live independently in the community, ensuring an inclusive education system and that disabled people are protected from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse. I am glad that that there is agreement across the House on that, and we are right to seek to take it forward. I believe that we must go much further in our efforts to uphold human rights and equality for disabled people, and that is why the UN convention on the rights of disabled people should now be incorporated into British law.

I should also add that I am proud of the last Labour Government’s record on improving the lives of people with disabilities, whether in cutting NHS waiting times, introducing free bus travel—a subject very dear to my heart, as those who know me well may remember—and introducing the Equality Act 2010. We know that well-designed policies, implemented and resourced well, and delivered properly, can transform the lives of disabled people.

I also pay tribute to the individual efforts of many Ministers and Government staff and Back Benchers during the years of the coalition and Conservative Governments. However—and I would like the Minister to reflect on this—there is so much more we should be doing.

Figures published last month show that 1 million more disabled people are trapped in hardship than were a decade before. Data from the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that 3.8 million disabled people live in poverty. We have heard eloquently from colleagues today about the pressure that that puts on disabled people and their families. I am sure that that is a trend that colleagues across the House would like to reverse.

As the hon. Member for Motherwell and Wishaw said, it is worth considering that a recent report by the Oxford University disability law and policy project and the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights found that there has been a

“failure of the government to implement properly its legal duties with respect to the rights of people with disabilities.”

That is set against the backdrop of a significant lack of appropriate support for disabled people during the pandemic. Almost 2 million ill and disabled people did not receive any additional support, despite the fact that disabled people on average face additional costs of £583 per month. In addition, as was said earlier, while universal credit was temporarily increased by £20 a week—we supported that decision and indeed campaigned for it to continue—it is important to note that other social security support such as the employment and support allowance and the jobseeker’s allowance were not increased. The pandemic has hit everyone in our community, but it is wrong that it should have a particularly hard impact on disabled people. I am afraid that that lack of support is part of a wider picture of the Government failing to give disabled people the support that they need.

I appreciate the point you made earlier, Mr Stringer, about the sub judice nature of some of the issues with the national strategy for disabled people, so I will try to stick to the ruling that you rightly made, but I will say that there were two years of delay before the strategy was published in July 2021. Even when it did arrive, it appeared not to be the bold strategy that so many people had looked forward to, but more a series of unrelated announcements, with only £4 million of extra money pledged for disabled people, which amounts to just under £30 for each disabled person in the UK, a relatively modest amount. Disabled people and the organisations representing them said that they felt excluded from the process and had not been consulted when the strategy was drawn up.

That is all deeply disappointing. The Government could and should do so much better. I ask the Minister to look at that again in much greater detail with her colleagues—I appreciate that it is not her area of responsibility—and, collectively, to change their approach fundamentally, to give disabled people the support that they so clearly need.

Eliminating disability discrimination, enabling disabled people to live independently in the community, ensuring an inclusive education system and that disabled people are protected from all forms of exploitation, violence and abuse must be a priority for all of us. The Government should now incorporate the UN convention into UK law. That important legal change will have real effect in the everyday lives of disabled people.

It has been a privilege to speak today and to contribute to this important debate. Once again, I thank colleagues from across the House who have also contributed, and I thank disabled people and the organisations that represent them. I hope that the Minister will take on board the points made by colleagues from across the House and respond by letting us know how the Government plan to address these very serious issues.