North Wales Assembly Member Mark Isherwood has today backed a proposal for a Bill to incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons into Welsh law.
The purpose of this Bill would be to strengthen rights-based policy approaches to promote the rights of disabled people and use the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled Persons as a framework for future developments.
Speaking in the Debate on the proposal, Mr Isherwood said too many disabled people are having to fight for the support and services they need to enable them to lead an ordinary life, and called for greater integration, independence and empowerment for disabled people.
He said:
“The UK Government has made it clear that it wants the UK to lead a "global race to the top" in rights and standards, not a "competitive race to the bottom".
“However, there is merit in incorporating the UN Convention 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. We will therefore be supporting this legislative proposal.”
Mr Isherwood refereed to the Assembly Debate he led in 2010 supporting Disability Wales’ Independent Living Campaign, which stated “Independent Living enables disabled people to achieve their own goals and live their own lives in the way that they choose for ourselves”, and to the Social Services and Wellbeing Act Part 2 Code of Practice which states that “Local authorities must seek to empower people to produce innovative solutions through local networks and communities” and that this “means putting robust arrangements in place to secure involvement of people in the design and operation of services”.
He added: “Despite this, I hear almost daily from disabled people, communities and carers who are having to fight for the support and services they need to enable them to lead an ordinary life, because highly paid people in power don’t want to share it and believe they know better.
“We've had well-meaning legislation that's supposed to be about designing and delivering services with people rather than for and to them, and yet we hear stories like wheelchair users still being denied access to the coastal path in Flintshire - and the deaf community in Conwy having to go to the Ombudsman after the Council decommissioned their British Sign Language services.
“The reality is that more and more people are falling into avoidable crisis and that there is a need for greater integration, independence and empowerment for disabled people.
“As Disability Wales state, if the UN Convention were incorporated into Welsh Law, this would: raise the profile of disabled people’s rights within Welsh Government; Require consideration of disabled people’s rights in legislation and policy brought forward by Ministers; Establish an accountability framework ensuring strategic implementation and monitoring as well as greater consistency across legislation and policy, and strengthen involvement of disabled people and their representative organisations in informing and influencing policy”.