Government ‘must not fail’ on convention

Sunil Peck with Labour in Manchester

Disabled people risk losing out on a UN convention promoting and protecting their human rights, even though the government has pledged to ratify it by the end of the year, delegates at a Labour fringe meeting have heard.

The UK government was one of the first to sign up to the United Nations convention designed to promote and protect the human rights of disabled people around the world.

But the convention will not be legally binding in the UK until it has been ratified by the government.

At a fringe meeting on the convention, Anne Begg (pictured), MP for Aberdeen South, said that disabled people’s minister Anne McGuire was pushing to ensure the convention was ratified in full.

But Ms Begg said there may be some compromises, with the government either opting out of some parts of the convention or issuing what are known as “interpretive measures”, in areas such as education.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s disability committee has already called on the government not to take this approach, but to ratify the convention in full.

Ms Begg said that an “interpretive measure” could mean that where the convention talks about a disabled person’s right to inclusive education, a family in the UK would have the right to send their child to a special school if they felt there was better provision there than that available in a mainstream school.

As a former teacher, she said she had favoured an inclusive education system. But since becoming an MP and speaking to the parents of disabled children, she had come to realise the importance of a parent’s right to opt to send their child to a special school.

But Richard Rieser, a member of the United Kingdom’s Disabled People’s Council’s international committee, who was involved in drawing up the convention, said: "My concern if we have any sort of reservation or interpretive declaration is that it will be used as a reason not to go forward towards a fully inclusive society."

He said progress had been made since May in convincing the Departments of Health and of Culture, Media and Sport to ratify the convention in full, although the Ministry of Defence (MoD) was keen to be exempted.

Ms Begg said she hoped the MoD would be "sensible", as this would impinge upon a disabled person’s right to work in the forces.

She said: "If you are flying a plane and you are colour-blind, that may be a serious problem and you maybe should not be flying a plane. But there should be no reason why you cannot fly a plane if you have no legs."

Richard Howett MEP, president of the all-party disability inter-group at the European Parliament and Labour's European disability rights spokesman, said it was crucial that the UK also ratified the optional protocol, a complaints mechanism for the convention.

He said that all 27 countries in the European Union had signed up to the convention but only Spain, Slovenia and Hungary had so far ratified it.

He said that the convention heralded a fairer future and more equality for disabled people in the future.

He said: "This convention is fantastic and makes a difference in Britain, Europe, and the whole of the world, and we should be deeply proud of that and then make sure that its terms are realised."