12 October 2017

What: A parliamentary debate on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities is secured by SNP MP and disabled people’s spokesperson Deirdre Brock. Brock says the government’s austerity policies are responsible for causing disabled people “a river of human misery”. But Penny Mordaunt, the minister for disabled people, fails to deal with any of the substantive concerns and instead says she wants to “promote” its disability policies so that they could be a “catalyst for change elsewhere in the world”.  She adds: “Our work promotes change elsewhere in the world, which is why we would like the UN to recognise what we have been doing.”

Why significant: Shows the ongoing failure of the UK government to acknowledge the most serious concerns about its domestic record on disability.