Conventional wisdom? The United Nations on disability rights

Last Tuesday it felt for a moment like I’d travelled back in time. I was in Birmingham for a workshop on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities.

As a Brummie this meant a return to the city I grew up in, and as a former member of Birmingham Disability Rights Group, we held our meetings in the same building and talked about a lot of the same things back in the 1980s.

So what’s changed?

The Government now has to report to the UN on how it’s implementing the measures set out in the convention, and we were gathered to help shape that report.

The Department of Health is ultimately responsible for this “self-evaluation” but RADAR, the national disability network, has been closely involved in talking to individuals and disability groups.

Some people might worry that the United Nations is being naïve in adopting a “self-evaluation” approach, but RADAR is a vocal campaigning organisation who won’t support an unrealistic assessment.

Not only that, the UN actively welcomes separate submissions from key groups and will compare them against the “official” verdict, which keeps the pressure on the Government to be honest.

What does the convention itself say? Well as you would expect it underpins the whole equality agenda.

Perhaps especially worth noting is Article 20. Anyone who’s had any recent dealings with Guide Dogs will recognise phrases like “ensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities” and “ensuring that services and facilities for the general population are available on an equal basis to persons with disabilities”.

Our campaigns against shared streets and for the introduction of talking buses clearly support Article 20; whether the Government sees it that way is another matter.

The UN convention may well be a force for good, but proposed cuts to mobility benefits pose a real challenge to people with disabilities.

So while one Government department prepares its report to the United Nations, another is putting the finishing touches to a Welfare Reform Bill expected to be published next week, which could mean cuts of £1billion to Disability Living Allowance.

Heading back in time once more and to paraphrase the Clash’s 1982 single Know Your Rights – Joe Strummer should maybe sing “You have the right to mobility…….so long as it doesn’t cost too much!”