Evidence submitted to the UN is on behalf of the 16 million Deaf and disabled people across the four nations.
Disabled people are the world’s largest minority and yet we are always pushed to sidelines, marginalised, excluded, discriminated and oppressed.
The opportunity to present evidence to the United Nations is a chance to get some attention focused on our issues and for us to do what disabled people do best – to come together, collectivise our power and fight back.
We have some ideas for what people can do to make a noise over this weekend leading up to the session and on Monday itself but we also want your input, your ideas, your creativity up and running throughout:
- Watch the livestream of the session from 8 am British and Irish time: https://media.un.org/en/webtv/schedule/2023-08-28
- Comment on social media while you watch. UN procedures are quite specific and restricted in what they allow. It is inevitable that given everything we are facing some issues will get left out or not get the attention you think they deserve. We invite you to fill in the gaps on social media.
- Twitter-storm from 8am tomorrow (Monday 28 August). See see suggested tweets below the main post.
- Get the hashtag #WheresTom trending – highlighting the government’s decision not to appear before the UN Committee. We welcome memes, pictures, videos, anything you fancy.
Other hashtags to use are #CRDP23 and #Disabilitytwitter
[Please note we’re using the abbreviation CRDP not CRPD].
Tag in @UNHumanRights @VotePursglove and any relevant government departments.
- Share your stories on social media to give the lived experience behind the statistics and the evidence being presented.
- Email your MP asking them to call on the government to enshrine the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Disabled People in domestic legislation. Find the template at the very end of this post.
The issues included in our shadow report and that we will be raising relate to very serious matters that are deliberately causing considerable harm to Deaf and disabled people. It’s important that we keep out spirits up so we are encouraging people to have fun with this.
Suggested stats and quotes for Twitterstorm 8am Monday 28 August
Hashtags: #CRDP23 #WheresTom #DisabilityTwitter
@VotePursglove @EHRC @DWPgovuk @DHSCgovuk
- 590 additional suicides linked to the WCA over just three years
- Three-quarters of disabled workers are paid less than £15 an hour
- One in seven workers with Long Covid lose their jobs
- Two in three workers with Long Covid experience discrimination at work
- Over one million benefit sanctions imposed on disabled people
- Over 230,000 disabled adults affected by loss of severe/enhance disability premium
- Over 330,000 disabled people hit by the bedroom tax
- 18,000 severely disabled people affected by Independent Living Fund closure
- Around 1.2 million disabled people hit by social care cuts
- Over 166,000 disabled people in social care debt
- Over 66,000 disabled people subject to debt collection for social care charges
- 2,030 autistic people and people with learning difficulties incarcerated as inpatients
- 1,500 crimes against patients over just 6 months caught on CCTV at Muckamore Abbey
- 2000 deaths of patients in Essex mental health hospitals
- Over 365,000 disabled people living in unsuitable housing in England
- Over 102,000 disabled people lost their Motability cars
- 250,000 children in the UK denied treatment for mental distress
- 7.2 million people in households with a disabled member are living in poverty
- Over 430,000 disabled people currently waiting for a PIP review
- 429,000 disabled people affected by £30 per week cut to ESA
- 1,650,000 disabled people denied £20 per week Universal Credit pandemic uplift
- Over 380,000 former DLA recipients turned down for PIP
- More than 10,000 households with a disabled member hit by lowering of the benefit cap
- Over 330,000 excess deaths in Great Britain linked to austerity welfare reform
- 23,662 additional deaths over five years due social care cuts
- disabled job seekers 26 – 53% more likely to be sanctioned
- Disabled claimants twice as likely to leave benefit system & have no recorded income after a sanction
- 75% appeals successful for both ESA and PIP June – April 2019
- High Court ruled changes to PIP regulations were “blatantly discriminatory” December 2017
- Quality of benefit assessment reports of “systematic poor quality”
- “access to justice has deteriorated” in England and Wales – @EHRC
- “In England, households with more disabilities suffer much larger losses …largely because of social care cuts” – @EHRC
- “neither the overall scale of spending cuts in England, nor their precise impact on protected groups, was inevitable” – @EHRC
- Benefit assessments leave dis ppl feeling worthless and “dehumanised” – @commonsworkpen
- “[Social care] system with a growing disconnect between the care to which people are entitled, and the ability of councils to meet those needs” – @LGOmbudsman
- “Complaints about English social care increasingly due to funding constraints” – @LGOmbudsman
- Faults not one-off staff errors, but increasingly caused by council measures in response to squeezed resources – @LGOmbudsman
- Percentage of cases upheld shown a relentless rise over the last decade – @LGOmbudsman
For references see the shadow report: https://www.inclusionlondon.org.uk/campaigns-and-policy/uncrdp/crdp23/crdp23/
Draft letter to MPs re: UN CRPD Incorporation into UK Law
Add your name and address
Dear MP….
Re: UN CRPD Incorporation into UK Law
I am writing to you as your constituent to ask you to urge the Government to enshrine the UN Convention on the Rights of Disabled People (CRPD) into UK Law. In the run up to the next election we are asking every political party standing to make this a central feature of your manifestos and to commit to coproducing policies for disability equality with our representative Deaf and Disabled People’s organisations (DDPOs).
This is an urgent task as Disabled people’s rights, living standards and independent living are all under attack. Successive Government’s since 2010 have pursued policies which led the UN Disability Committee to declare in 2016 that “grave and systematic” rights violations had taken place.
A new shadow report compiled as written evidence for a follow up by the Committee describes how disabled people’s living standards have deteriorated further since 2016.
Continued cuts to support for disabled people living in the community have led to us becoming segregated away from society from within their own homes.
In England, more than one in four (28%) people who had asked for a social care assessment had been waiting six months or more to get one. Delayed assessments have helped to precipitate a situation in which an estimated 2.6 million people in England aged over 50 are now living with some unmet need for care. That means millions struggling to do ordinary things like going to the toilet, eating, dressing or washing because they require some help to do so.
A recent report by a disabled people-led Commission in Lewisham found that 20% of respondents didn’t always have access to food and drink, could not wash (or be washed) regularly and couldn’t go to the toilet when needed.
Continued cuts to support for disabled people living in the community have led to disabled people becoming segregated away from society from within their own homes.
While being included in the community is much more than social care it is the crisis in social care which dominates our lives. It is the major factor that is killing Disabled people disproportionately to the rest of the UK population. Disabled people are dying on waiting lists, either waiting to be assessed or waiting for services. These deaths are caused by ongoing cuts to state support over the last 13 years. iAccording to Age UK 28,890 older Disabled people died in 2021/22, the latest year for which figures are available, without ever receiving the care and support they were waiting for. This equates to 79 deaths a day, 554 a week, and 2408 a month. Local authorities are planning another £2.5 billion cuts over next 2 years including social care cuts of £467 million, which will exacerbate this already dire situation.
The UK Government signed and ratified the CRPD in 2008 but has failed to incorporate its articles into UK law, leaving its implementation trapped on paper. If the rights enshrined in the Convention are to be realised then it needs to pass onto the statute book with properly resourced and independent monitoring.
That’s why I am calling on you to support our campaign to have the UN CRPD incorporated into UK law.
Yours sincerely
Your name and address
