1 Introduction
1. We launched our inquiry into the right to independent
living for disabled people in February 2011. We sought to examine
various aspects of the right to independent living within the
framework of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities (UNCRPD, or "the Disabilities Convention").
The UNCRPD is the newest treaty in the UN human rights framework,
and was ratified by the UK in 2009. It builds on existing human
rights treaties including the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic
Social and Cultural Rights. Its purpose is to "promote,
protect and ensure the full enjoyment of all human rights and
fundamental freedoms by all persons with disabilities, and to
promote respect for their inherent dignity." The very existence
of the Disabilities Convention is premised on the acceptance by
the international community that governments need to take positive
steps to remove the obstacles which all too often prevent people
with disabilities from enjoying the human rights to which they
are entitled.
2. The right to independent living is specifically
enshrined in Article 19 of the UNCRPD, which states that "State
Parties to this Convention recognise the equal right of persons
with disabilities to live in the community with choices equal
to others, and shall take effective and appropriate measures to
facilitate full enjoyment by persons with disabilities of this
right and their full inclusion and participation in the Community".
However, as the UK Government acknowledges in its first compliance
report which it recently submitted to the UN Committee on the
Rights of Persons with Disabilities ("the UN Disabilities
Committee"),[1] independent
living underpins the rights set out in many of the other articles
of the Convention. [2]
The UK's approach to independent living therefore "goes well
beyond the right as described in Article 19 and encompasses increasing
choice and control, removing barriers and inclusion in the community."
3. Independent living, described by the Office for
Disability Issues as being "about disabled people having
the same level of choice, control and freedom in their
daily lives as any other person", was placed at the heart
of the last Government's policy on disability. Each of the
three main political parties expressed its approval for the Independent
Living Strategy, which the then Government published in 2008,
which set out actions aimed at improving the choice and control
disabled people had over the services they needed to live their
daily lives. In June 2010, the current Government explained
that they were looking at ways of taking the Independent Living
Strategy forward. The Government's Disability Strategy, which
the Minister for Disabled People told us would build on the Independent
Living Strategy[3], is
due to be published later this year. In December 2011, the Government
published a discussion document, Fulfilling Potential,
in order to receive feedback from disabled people and disabled
people's organisations on realising aspirations, increasing individual
control and changing attitudes and behaviours. However, this
document does not invite feedback on human rights or other legislative
rights for disabled people.[4]
4. This inquiry was conducted during a period of
fundamental reform to many of the arrangements which underpin
independent living in the UK, and in the context of significant
reductions in public spending. Important developments in the area
of independent living include the rolling out of the previous
Government's replacement of Incapacity Benefit with Employment
and Support Allowance and the introduction of a Work Capability
Assessment, and the current Government's Welfare Reform Bill,[5]
which introduces Universal Credit, replaces Disability Living
Allowance with Personal Independence Payments and makes changes
to the housing benefit system. Other developments include the
closure of the Independent Living Fund, changes to the provision
of adult social care, and various reforms in the name of the "Big
Society" and "localism". These changes will all
affect disabled people and may, both individually and cumulatively,
have a significant impact on the ability of disabled people to
enjoy independent living as protected by the Disabilities Convention
generally and by Article 19 in particular.
5. The Disabilities Convention is innovative in promoting
a model of "subsidiarity" with respect to implementation
and monitoring, whereby the traditional approach to treaty monitoring
is augmented by requiring States to establish a domestic framework
to promote and monitor implementation of the Convention[6]
including designated leadership within the Government, an independent
framework to promote, protect and monitor implementation, and
the active involvement of civil society—and disabled people's
organisations in particular—in both implementation and monitoring.
This model is designed to encourage a domestic dialogue regarding
implementation of the Convention and to promote mainstreaming.
6. Effective parliamentary oversight has an important
role to play in giving effect to the principle of subsidiarity.
It is first and foremost for the national authorities to determine
what measures the state is required to take in order to implement
the obligations it has assumed in the Convention, and Parliament
plays an important role in scrutinising the adequacy of the steps
which have been taken by the Government and testing the justifications
for taking apparently backward steps or for not going further
to implement the obligations. Those exercises in parliamentary
scrutiny at the national level help to ensure that scrutiny of
states' compliance reports by the international treaty bodies
is properly informed and, where appropriate, pays due respect
to the outcome of national democratic processes. The democratic
legitimacy of the international system for the protection of human
rights increasingly depends on national parliaments taking this
role seriously.[7]
7. By holding this inquiry we have sought to build
on the work of our predecessor Committee in this respect. That
Committee examined the Disabilities Convention during its inquiry
into the human rights of adults with learning disabilities,[8]
and recommended that the UK ratify the Convention. It also scrutinised
the Convention itself, prior to its ratification,[9]
and subjected the Government's proposed reservations and interpretative
declarations to rigorous parliamentary scrutiny.[10]
The UN Convention requires the Government to take steps to ensure
that reforms and spending decisions are consistent with its obligations.
In our inquiry we have sought to examine the degree to which
such steps have been taken and identify the potential implications
of the reforms for disabled people's right to live independently
and to be included in the community. In addition to informing
domestic developments, our Report is also intended to make a parliamentary
contribution to the forthcoming scrutiny of the UK's performance
by the UN Disabilities Committee.
1 The UN Disabilities Committee is the body responsible
for monitoring states' compliance with their obligations under
the treaty. Back
2
UK Initial Report on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons
with Disabilities, Office for Disability Issues, November
2011 http://odi.dwp.gov.uk/docs/disabled-people-and-legislation/uk-initial-report.pdf,
para. 173.The Report was submitted on 24 November 2011. Back
3
Q 246 Back
4
Fulfilling Potential: a discussion document, Office for
Disability Issues, 1 December 2011 Back
5
See also our Report on the Bill, Legislative Scrutiny: Welfare
Reform Bill, 21st Report 2010-12, HL 233 HC 1704 Back
6
Article 33 Back
7
The Inter-Parliamentary Union has published a very useful Handbook
for Parliamentarians on the Disabilities Convention, From Exclusion
to Equality: realizing the rights of persons with disabilities
(2007) which is designed to assist parliamentarians to perform
their important task of seeking to give practical effect to the
rights recognised in the Convention. Back
8
A Life Like any Other? Human Rights and Adults with Learning
Disabilities, Joint Committee on Human Rights, Seventh Report
of Session 2007-08, HL Paper 40-I/HC 73-I. Back
9
The UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities,
Joint Committee on Human Rights, First Report of Session 2008-09,
HL Paper 9/HC 93. Back
10
UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: Reservations
and Interpretative Declaration, Joint Committee on Human Rights,
Twelfth Report of Session 2008-09, HL Paper 70/HC 397. Back
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