Prynhawn Da/Good afternoon and thank you to Disability Wales for inviting me to speak at today’s the Disabled People’s Manifesto launch event.
Today is the United Nations International Day of Disabled People, the annual celebration of Disabled People.
This year’s theme, ‘Not all Disabilities are Visible’, also focuses on spreading awareness and understanding of impairments that are not immediately apparent, such as mental illness, chronic pain or fatigue, sight or hearing loss, autism, ADHD, learning differences, diabetes, brain injuries, neurological conditions, and cognitive dysfunctions, among others.
I myself am a hearing aid wearer.
I Chair a number of Cross Party Groups in the Welsh Parliament, including those on Disability, Autism and Neurological Conditions.
The purpose of the Cross Party Group on Disability is to address key pan-impairment disability equality issues including implementation of the Social Model of Disability and the right to Independent Living.
According to the World Health Organization World Report on Disability, “15 per cent of the world’s population, or more than 1 billion people, are living with disability. Of this number, it’s estimated 450 million are living with a mental or neurological condition— and two-thirds of these people will not seek professional medical help, largely due to stigma, discrimination and neglect”.
“Another 69 million individuals are estimated to sustain Traumatic Brain Injuries each year worldwide, while one in 160 children are identified as on the autism spectrum”.
Of course, many people with neurodiverse conditions also remain undiagnosed.
As the Disability Wales “Bring Us Our Rights: The Disabled People Manifesto” being launched today states:
“Undoubtedly Wales has made progress regarding the rights of disabled people. The social model of disability has been adopted by the Welsh Government on issues related to disabled people and the Framework for Action on Disability: the Right to Independent Living (2019) sets out its ambition to create a more equal, inclusive Wales. However, this is not translating to the everyday lives of disabled people in Wales.”
The Welsh Government’s “Action on Disability: The Right to Independent Living Framework and Action Plan”, states:
“It is vital that local authorities, local health boards, NHS trusts, the third sector, businesses and other service providers work co-productively with disabled people and representative organisations led by disabled people to identify problems and solutions and make the most of opportunities to improve services.
“Co-production is an important concept for this framework because the Welsh Government recognises that services cannot be improved to fully meet the needs of disabled people unless they are actively involved in the design and delivery of those services”.
All public authorities have a duty under the 2010 UK Equality Act to ensure they meet the needs of disabled people, and actively involve disabled people in the design and delivery of their services.
The UK Equality Act also states that "service providers must think ahead and take steps to address barriers that impede disabled people” and “you should not wait until a disabled person experiences difficulties using a service”.
I know from both my own casework and my work as Chair of the Cross Party Groups on Disability, Autism and Neurological Conditions, that too many Welsh Public Bodies continue to tell Disabled people what they can have, rather than work with them to agree their needs and ask them what they want to achieve, and that this is damaging, costly and entirely avoidable.
This applies in particular to people with hidden impairments.
The Social Model of Disability should be guiding everything done by service providers in all sectors, recognising that people are not disabled by their impairments, but by the barriers to access and inclusion which society places in their way – and that we must work with disabled people to remove these, seeing the world through their eyes, giving them the voice, choice, control and independence they seek and deserve.
As the Disability Wales Manifesto states “the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (UNCRDP) comprehensively sets out the rights of disabled people and provides a framework for action on how these rights are protected and enforced. The Convention is designed to serve as a policy making tool with an ‘explicit, social development dimension’.”
As I have stated in the Senedd “there is merit in incorporating the UN Declaration into Welsh law in order to strengthen and promote the rights of disabled people, as the Welsh Government did with Children’s rights by incorporating the Convention on the Rights of the Child into Welsh Law in 2011”.
AND as I said in the Senedd this week, the Welsh Government must “ensure that Public Bodies involve disabled people in the design, evaluation and review of services in accordance with both the Equality Act and your own legislation”.