EHRC faces renewed attack

Disabled delegates at the Liberal Democrat conference have continued to attack the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) for its lack of focus on disability issues.

The comments came after Trevor Phillips, the head of the EHRC, was forced to defend its work on disability.

Mr Phillips (pictured) had been questioned at a fringe event over why he had primarily focused on examples of race and gender while setting out the EHRC’s agenda.

When pressed afterwards by Disability Now on whether the fight for disability equality had been diluted in the EHRC, he had told us: “Some of the race and gender stakeholders say the same thing, but the real question is what is it people think we ought to be doing that we’re not?

“If people want to go around saying this, it would help if they said what more we should be doing to convince them that we’re bothered.”

So Disability Now approached a number of disabled delegates at the conference to ask them this question.

Susan Clarkson, from Salford, said: “I want to be consulted. I have offered to give feedback on many occasions but have never heard anything back from the commission. I know they have a disability committee, but I think more disabled people should be involved in what they are doing.”

Fred Dunford, from Meon Valley, Hampshire, said: “The law says we ought to have access but there seem to be a lot of get-out clauses. The commission should be more sternly reminding businesses…about the law.”

Vaughan Bruce, from Yorkshire, said the EHRC should be “taking a more proactive role in taking on test cases in terms of discrimination by small business operators, hotels and public authorities. If you’re disabled in this country, you’re disadvantaged. The only way you change culture is by pushing people up against the wall and taking them to the cleaners.”

Jill Allen-King, from Southend, said: “It seems that people within the commission are not as happy as they’d like to be about the way disability is being taken forward.

“The Disability Rights Commission got a lot more done because it was specific to disability. It stands to reason that when you’re amalgamating three things together, you’re not going to give as much attention to each. Disability always comes to the bottom of the list. It’s women first, then ethnic minorities and then disabled people.”

Robert Adamson, from Thirsk, north Yorkshire, added: “I think disabled people have been up against it for so long, that they almost expect to be let down and discriminated against and put last. I think the commission needs to be sensitive to that.”

Pic Credit: Abi Hardwick