Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Holds Follow-Up Dialogue on Inquiry Report of the United Kingdom

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities this afternoon held a follow-up dialogue on the inquiry report of the United Kingdom.

Alexandra Gowlland, Deputy Director of the Disability Unit, Equality Hub in the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom and head of the delegation, said the United Kingdom was fully committed to implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This included through legislation such as the Equality Act 2010 in England, Scotland and Wales, and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 in Northern Ireland. Over the last few years, the Government had enacted two landmark pieces of disability legislation: the British Sign Language Act 2022 and the Down Syndrome Act 2022. In 2017, the Government set a goal to see a million more disabled people in employment by 2027. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million, meaning the goal was met early after just five years. The Department for Education provided £27.3 million per year to deliver grants and support to low-income families raising disabled or seriously ill children and young people.

Rosemary Kayess, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur, said the principle of non-regression of rights was established in the Convention. The Committee acknowledged the recent investment in social care, but since 2017 there had been regressions in the standards and principles of the Convention. How did the Governments ensure national consistency in meeting their obligations under the Convention, particularly actively consulting persons with disabilities? What were the plans for a more consultative process to underpin the national strategy?

Laverne Jacobs, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur, said reports had been received that the amounts of benefits were insufficient and people with disabilities in the United Kingdom were living in poverty. A repeated pattern was being seen of persons with disabilities turning to suicide after being denied an adequate standard of living and social protection. What redress would be taken by the Government for those who had experienced trauma as a result of the benefit eligibility process?

In concluding remarks, Ms. Jacobs acknowledged the steps taken, and urged the State party to take immediate steps to remedy the issues highlighted today. Ensuring the human rights model of disability was an important step.

The delegation of the United Kingdom consisted of representatives from the Equality Hub; the Department for Work and Pensions; the Department of Health and Social Care; the Scottish Government; the Welsh Government; and the Northern Ireland Government.

Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, while webcasts of the public meetings can be found here. The programme of work of the Committee’s thirtieth session and other documents related to the session can be found here.

The Committee will next meet in public at 5 p.m. on Friday, 22 March to close its thirtieth session.

Statements by Representatives of the State party

ALEXANDRA GOWLLAND, Deputy Director of the Disability Unit, Equality Hub in the Cabinet Office of the United Kingdom and head of the delegation, said the United Kingdom was fully committed to implementing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. This included through legislation such as the Equality Act 2010 in England, Scotland and Wales, and the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 in Northern Ireland. Over the last few years, the Government had enacted two landmark pieces of disability legislation: the British Sign Language Act and the Down Syndrome Act. In 2021, the Government’s Disability Unit published the National Disability Strategy, bringing together more than 100 commitments across government to set out a long-term vision for disability policy and drive significant improvements to the daily lives of disabled people.

The Government received more than 1,300 written responses to the highly accessible consultation for the new Disability Action Plan from persons with disabilities and their organizations. In February 2024, the Government published the Disability Action Plan together with the independent analysis of the consultation findings. The plan set out 32 practical actions which the Government would take forward over the next 12 months, working closely with persons with disabilities and their organizations, and other government departments and public service providers.

In 2017, the Government set a goal to see a million more disabled people in employment by 2027. Between 2017 and 2022, the number of disabled people in employment increased by 1.3 million, meaning the goal was met early after just five years. The Government had a 10-year vision for adult social care, set out in the “People at the Heart of Care” white paper. Over £195 million had been invested since 2022 to implement reforms to digitise the sector, encourage adoption of new care technologies, establish new local authority oversight, and launch new data collections and surveys. In 2022, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities awarded £20 million to 26 councils in England between 2022 and 2025 for a new programme to improve quality in supported housing. In October 2023, the Disability Unit launched the ‘Ask Don’t Assume’ behaviour-change campaign. Co-created with disabled people, the campaign encouraged people to ask disabled people about their access needs, and to challenge any assumptions they might have about disabled people and their capabilities.

Since 2016, the Government had undertaken several initiatives designed to tackle disability hate crime, including nationwide public awareness campaigns. The Department for Education provided £27.3 million per year to deliver grants and support to low-income families raising disabled or seriously ill children and young people. Since 2015, the Ministry of Justice had invested more than £25 million in support for litigants in person and funding a broad range of free legal support services. Changes had been made to provide British Sign Language interpreters to profoundly deaf jurors in the jury deliberation room to ensure that all profoundly deaf individuals were able to serve as jurors. Each Government department had a dedicated Ministerial Disability Champion, a minister with specific responsibility for driving forward work on disability in their respective departments, and the group met regularly throughout the year. The Disability Unit worked closely with multiple strategic disability stakeholder networks to support and supplement the Government’s engagement with disabled people and their organizations.

CATHERINE MCMEEKEN, Deputy Director for Equalities, Scottish Government, said the human rights bill would be introduced before the end of the parliamentary year. This would strengthen domestic legal protections by making them enforceable in Scots law for the very first time, placing greater incentive for public bodies to remove barriers and support disabled people to fully participate in Scottish society. The introduction of child disability payment in 2021 and adult disability payment in 2022 replaced the United Kingdom’s disability living allowance for children and personal independence payment respectively. The application processes for Scottish disability assistance had been co-designed with disabled people to ensure accessibility. Steady progress had been made towards the goal of halving the disability employment gap in Scotland to 18.7 percentage points by 2038. An investment of £9 million had been announced to reopen the Independent Living Fund in 2024/25. Re-opening the Fund to new entrants would support disabled people with the most complex needs. Up to 1,000 disabled people in Scotland who faced the greatest barriers to independent living would be enabled to access the support they needed to lead independent lives. Additionally, the Transition Fund offered individual grants to support disabled young people to transition into adulthood. Since December 2017, over 5,000 grants worth more than £10 million had been awarded to disabled young people.

LORNA HALL, Deputy Director for Equality and Human Rights, Equality and Human Rights Division, Welsh Government, said the Welsh Government’s Programme for Government set out a commitment to incorporate the Convention into Welsh law. Creating pathways out of poverty through improving skills and supporting access to employment was a key part of Welsh Government actions to help to tackle poverty. Local authorities in Wales had been allocated £585 million through the Shared Prosperity Fund. This funding would be used to deliver vital interventions within communities. In July 2021, the Disability Equality Forum published the ‘Locked Out: Liberating Disabled People’s Lives and Rights in Wales beyond COVID-19’ report, which exposed the inequalities experienced by disabled people in Wales. The Welsh Government responded by establishing the Ministerial-led Disability Rights Taskforce, which worked with disabled people. The working group’s recommendations would support many of the principles set out in the Convention.

DAVID TARR, Director, Social Security Policy, Legislation and Decision Making, Northern Ireland, said a range of mitigation schemes had been introduced in response to welfare reforms that could impact on disabled people. This included financial support for those who saw their benefit reduced or ended, following the introduction of personal independence payment. Despite low levels of unemployment amongst the population, the disability employment gap was 43.3 percentage points. Extensive work had been undertaken to develop a new disability and work strategy for Northern Ireland. The Department for Communities had led work in the development of a new executive disability strategy for Northern Ireland, which would aim to address barriers and inequalities for those in society who were disabled. In January 2023, Department of Health officials approved the draft strategic plan for learning disability to address the growing pressures across learning disability services for children and adults. In December 2023, an updated autism strategy was published to support the needs of autistic people throughout their lives. The Regional Disabled People’s Health and Social Care Forum was established in 2021 to consider, discuss and feed back to the Department of Health on current, emerging, and future strategic policies which could impact on people with a physical, sensory or communication difficulty.

Questions and Comments by Committee Experts

ROSEMARY KAYESS, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur, said the principle of non-regression of rights was established in the Convention. The Committee acknowledged the recent investment in social care, but since 2017 there had been regressions in the standards and principles of the Convention. How did the Governments ensure national consistency in meeting their obligations under the Convention, particularly actively consulting persons with disabilities? What were the plans for a more consultative process to underpin the national strategy?

There was evidence that there were increasing rates of institutionalisation of disabled people. The United Kingdom held obligations to ensure that disabled people were supported to live in the community; how would these obligations be met? What measures had been taken to eliminate restrictive practices and coercion in all institutions? What was being done to end disability-based detention? Was there a national housing and homeless strategy for disability? What measures were intended to counteract hate speech and hostility towards disabled people? How was it ensured that artificial intelligence tools did not have inherent biases? There were disturbing reports that disabled people accessing food banks had been left exposed to exploitation. What measures had been taken to protect disabled people from exploitation?

LAVERNE JACOBS, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur, said there was a significant gap between the Convention’s obligations and persons with disabilities’ lived experiences in the United Kingdom. Persons with disabilities were left in a position where they did not know if they would receive benefits or if they would have enough money to live. Reports had been received that the amounts of benefits were insufficient and people with disabilities in the United Kingdom were living in poverty. What measures would be taken to ensure the amounts provided through social security payments were sufficient to cover the true living costs of persons with disabilities?

A repeated pattern was being seen of persons with disabilities turning to suicide after being denied an adequate standard of living and social protection. What measures would be taken to ensure that the processes designed to measure benefit eligibility were trauma informed? What redress would be taken by the Government for those who had experienced trauma as a result of the benefit eligibility process? What factors were taken into account to determine eligibility for social welfare applicants? To what extent did this process consider factors others than medical functionality? What measures were being taken to ensure the process for benefit eligibility was not trauma inducing? What measures would be taken to ensure persons with disabilities could make choices about living independently in the community? What steps would be taken to address the shortage of personal assistance, and assist the right of persons with disabilities to retain appropriate personal support?

A Committee Expert asked what were some of the biggest factors in the biggest death crisis experienced by the NHS? What had the Government learnt from this tragedy, and how could it be prevented in the future?

Another Expert asked about the steps taken to replace guardianship with supported decision making? Was there a strategy to institutionalise people with psycho-social disabilities? What steps were taken to allow people with disabilities to live independently?

Responses by Representatives of the State Party

The delegation said the United Kingdom was fully committed to the Convention, which the Government had helped develop. The Equality Act 2010 promoted equality for all. Public sector bodies must consider the impact of their key decisions on disabled people. The Government was committed to addressing social and environmental barriers which impacted disabled people. The Government engaged closely with disabled people and their organizations, as evidenced through the Disability Action Plan. The Government was investing 11.5 billion pounds under the affordable homes programme in England, which would include supported housing for a range of vulnerable people.

The Government was committed to improving the lives of disabled people and was delivering the most ambitious disability reform agenda in a generation. The aim was to improve the experience of the benefits system for people with disabilities and health conditions. A whitepaper had been published which set out the vision to transform the benefits system for the future. The welfare system encouraged and supported people into work, while providing a support system for those who needed it most. In the future, removing the work capability assessment would reduce the numbers of assessments people needed to take to apply for benefits. Legislation was being enacted to tackle fraud and error. Each case would be looked at individually by a human with no automated decisions.

Steps had been taken to implement the 10-year vision for social care, which placed people at the heart of care. The safety and care of patients was of paramount importance. The Care Quality Commission was the regulator with powers to enforce standards and ensure compliance by service providers so that the public had care that was safe, regulated and well-led. A national approach was required to ensure mental health care in England was safe. An investigation would be conducted to identify how to improve mental health care. Restrictive practices should only be used as a last resort. The updated mental health bill proposed amendments, including tightening the criteria of when someone could be detained.

Scotland would invest nine million pounds to reopen the Independent Living Fund to enable up to 1,000 of the most disabled people who faced the greatest barriers to independent living to access the support they needed to lead independent lives. Child Disability Payment and Adult Disability Payment were non means tested in Scotland in recognition of the additional societal barriers disabled people and people with long-term health conditions experienced. Disabled people and people with long-term health conditions could access financial support regardless of their employment status or income. The Welsh Government supported the provision of 45,000 disabled facilities grants to adapt disabling environments to restore independent living. An equality action plan was being developed for transport. A programme was in place in Northern Ireland to ensure people could access the food banks. Preparation for a hate crime bill was progressing. The Disability Unit was responsible for the consistent implementation of the Convention across the United Kingdom.

Closing Remarks

LAVERNE JACOBS, Committee Expert and Co-Rapporteur, acknowledged the steps taken, and urged the State party to take immediate steps to remedy the issues highlighted today. Ensuring the human rights model of disability was an important step.