The UK’s Women and Equalities Committee (WEC) released a report Wednesday warning the government that their strategy to improve the lives of disabled people in the UK was inadequate. They described the strategy as “un-coordinated” and urged the government to rethink their plans into a longer-term, more organized approach.
The National Disability Strategy, published in July 2021, set out the government’s plans “to transform the everyday lives of disabled people.” Although ministers claimed it was “the biggest listening exercise with disabled people in recent history,” the strategy was then held to be unlawful by the High Court in January 2022 due to failures in its consultation process.
The WEC then launched their inquiry into the government’s National Disability Strategy in May 2022, to be split into three separate reports. The first, published Wednesday, stated, “[T]he National Disability Strategy does not resemble a strategy.” The report highlighted many issues with the strategy, noting its failure to create a long-term plan with clear goals. The WEC described it as “a list consisting mainly of pre-existing departmental actions with minimal strategic thinking behind how those actions interact.” Its lack of engagement with disabled people and organizations representing disabled people was also emphasized. Disabled people’s organizations told the WEC that “they had no meaningful input” in the strategy and that disabled people felt excluded from the process.
In addition to this, the report highlighted the government’s failure to implement a UN Committee’s recommendations on how to combat the “grave or systematic violations” of disabled people’s rights in the UK. Although the recommendations were issued seven years ago, they have not been addressed by the government. And, when given the opportunity to give evidence regarding these recommendations to the UN in August 2023, the government refused to do so.
A number of recommendations were laid out by the WEC to improve the strategy. They urged the government to create a plan to be integrated into different policy areas and to allow disabled people and organizations representing them to be involved in its creation. In order to make the strategy long term, the WEC recommended developing a ten-year strategy with clear targets and timescales, including an action plan for the first five years. Finally, the committee recommended that the Disability Unit should “have the final say on all disability policy sitting in . . . to ensure that the whole of Government works towards the same long-term strategic objectives.”
Following this report, another two reports will be published to examine the inequalities faced by those with learning disabilities and autism, as well as disabled people’s access to products and service.
