Bore Da/Good Morning and thank you to Disability Wales for inviting me to speech at today’s Disabled Access to Politics event where I have been asked to focus on the need for more disabled people to stand for election in the May 2022 local Elections, my experience as a prominent disabled person in politics, any barriers I faced and what reasonable adjustments assisted me on the way.
I was first elected to what was then the National Assembly for Wales in 2003, leaving my position as Area Manager for a Building Society in North Wales.
Six years previously, when I was shouting at a new UK Government Minister on the TV screen, my wife told me to “shut up or do something about it”, so I did!
I re-joined my Party, became an Executive Member of my Local Association, was elected as a Community Councillor, and stood in the 2001 UK General Election, before finally entering front line politics in 2003.
By this time my wife and I had 6 children, one of whom we had had to battle to get a Statement of Special Educational Needs for – two of our children have neuro-diverse conditions, one lost her hearing, two are Cancer Survivors and one has had to wear glasses since he was tiny.
Like my Father, I was by now personally dependent on hearing aids.
Fortunately, the then Assembly was very supportive and has always provided me with the equipment I need to follow proceedings in the Chamber and Committee. However, I had to persuade the Assembly Commission - our Parliamentary Service - to extend this to Cross Party Group and other meetings held on the Parliamentary Estate.
I am now in my 5th term as a Member of the Opposition and Shadow Cabinet in what is now the Welsh Parliament or Senedd, representing North Wales.
Although the Welsh Parliament prides itself on being disability accessible, they’ve had to be reminded frequently that barriers to disability access exist or have been designed in because of an apparent failure to involve lived experience.
And the Senedd has still not had a Member who is a wheelchair user in its almost 23 year existence.
As this summer’s UK Government “Barriers to elected office for disabled people” report states “disabled people, who make up around 1 in 5 of the UK population, are thought to be under-represented in politics at different levels of government, both across the UK and internationally” and that the number of disabled people in politics across all levels of Government “are almost always below 1 in 5”, confirming that disabled people are underrepresented.
The report also finds that “disabled people face a number of barriers when participating in party politics, including venue accessibility, lack of interpretation, inaccessible formatting of materials, lack of facilities, and cultural barriers - including a lack of awareness, knowledge and interest on the part of some local parties to make politics more accessible for disabled people”.
The Welsh Local Government Association is right to be promoting and supporting greater diversity, including a “Be a Councillor” website, mentoring programmes, a commitment to the “Civility in Public Life” campaign and a wide package of training, development and support for councillors when elected - and to encourage all political parties, through the WLGA Political Groups, to commit to proactive and coordinated activities to improve diversity in local government democracy.
Speaking in the Senedd Debate on Equality, Local Government and Communities Committee Inquiry into Diversity in local government in 2019, I stated: We heard that Access to Elected Office Funds already exist in England and Scotland to assist disabled people to stand for election, but, no such fund currently exists in Wales.
“There was widespread support in the evidence for such a fund in Wales, with the Equality and Human Rights Commission telling us: ‘I think it’s really important that we don’t fall behind in Wales in providing that support’.”
The Welsh Government has since launched the Access to Elected Office Fund to support disabled people to stand for elected office.
Since becoming a Member of the Senedd, I have been honoured to become the Patron or equivalent for a number of Disability Charities.
I also work very closely with the sector as the voluntary, elected Chair of several Cross Party Groups, equivalent to All Party Groups in Westminster, including those on Disability, Autism, Death Issues, and Hospices and Palliative Care.
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.
At a meeting of the Cross Party Autism Group in November 2014, members of the Autism Community from across Wales told us that the Welsh Government’s Autism Strategy was not delivering and people were being pushed into further crisis. The meeting voted unanimously for an Autism Act.
On January 21st 2015 I led an Individual Members Debate which called on the Welsh Government to introduce an Autism Act for Wales.
Members voted in favour.
I led a debate calling on the Welsh Government to bring forward an autism (Wales) bill during the fifth Assembly term in October 2016, but the Welsh Government defeated this.
I was therefore delighted when my colleague, Paul Davies, Leader of the Opposition, brought forward proposals for his Member proposed Autism (Wales) Bill.
Unfortunately, despite extensive work, wide engagement and consultation on this by Paul, the Autism (Wales) Bill did not progress past its initial stages due to a lack of support from the Welsh Government.
When I led an Assembly Debate on Independent Living in May 2010, I stated that Disability Wales’ “Independent Living Campaign for Wales”:
“aims to raise awareness and understanding of what Independent Living means for disabled people in Wales - and calls for a National Strategy for Independent Living”.
Adding, “as the Campaign states, Independent Living enables disabled people to achieve their own goals and live their own lives in the way that they choose for ourselves.
“It offers practical solutions for removing the barriers to equality and social inclusion that disable them -
- tackling the many issues that prevent them from having the same choices, opportunities, access and control that non-disabled people have.
“Dignity and Justice includes having choices of where, what, when, how, who with, you live your life.
“The best approach everyone should take to disability equality is, ‘No decisions made about us without us’. “
When I led the first Assembly debate on Co-Production in November 2013, I stated:
“Co-producing public services with users and communities goes beyond models of service-user consultation to better delivery of health, social services and other services to an ageing population, to people facing illness and disability, to the economically inactive, and to those living in social isolation.
“It is about prevention and reablement via personal and community responsibility and localism”.
“As the Wales Council for Voluntary Action report on citizen-directed support for vulnerable groups stated, this ‘is about people being in control of the support they need to live the life they choose’.”
Also in 2013, my Member Proposed Bill on Community Care (Direct Payments) (Wales) was designed to offer carers and service users choice, control and independence - allowing people to choose whether they want to be in control - and giving them the support to do this.
The Deputy Minister stated that she would like the principles in my Bill to be taken forward in the Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Bill – and I therefore agreed to withdraw my motion and work with the Welsh Government on this.
The subsequent Social Services and Wellbeing (Wales) Act places a specific duty on local authorities to promote the involvement of people in the design and delivery of care and support services.
The Act’s Part 2 Code of Practice and guidance states that well-being includes key aspects of independent living, as expressed in the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People, and that:
“the approach to promoting people’s well-being, is one that recognises that care and support can contribute to the removal of barriers in line with the social model of disability - recognising “the rights of disabled people to participate fully in all aspects of life”.
The Well-being of Future Generations (Wales) Act sets out the 5 Ways of Working that the public bodies listed in the Act must demonstrate in order to show that they have applied this principle, which include : “involving the people that services or activities are going to benefit or affect from as early a stage as possible”.
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”.
As you will probably be aware, the 2010 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”.
Of course, none of the above will happen unless its implementation by Welsh Public Bodies is monitored and enforced. I know from my own casework that too many officials in 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.
I therefore encourage national and local Public Bodies to incorporate the Social Model of Disability into everything they do, from legislation to service design - 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.