Responding to the United Nations report on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, our Chair, David Isaac, has said:
This is a damning assessment by UN experts of the failure to protect disabled people’s rights across many areas of life in the UK. We have long urged the Government to make changes and the UN recommendations are further proof that immediate action must be taken.
Drastic cuts to health and social care budgets have had an impact on disabled people’s ability to live independently; barriers to accessing justice persist and there are significant gaps in legal protection for disability rights. If government is serious about delivering a fair and equal society it must involve disability groups to help design and implement new policies to ensure that disabled people are no longer treated like second class citizens.
We stand ready to work with the UK and devolved governments, as well as Disabled People’s Organisations, to ensure that disability rights are prioritised.
