Assisted dying, or voluntary euthanasia as it was once known before being cleverly re-framed, is a confusing issue.

This is because several different strands of the campaign for voluntary euthanasia are presently underway at once.  In Parliament a Private Members Bill aims to make lawful the giving of assistance to people to bring about their death, but only where they are already very near dying naturally and in 'unbearable suffering'.  In the Courts various people including Tony Nicklinson...

Writing in the Guardian Newspaper yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said of UK foreign policy that ‘stepping back (from our commitment to human rights) simply for commercial expediency would be walking away from our beliefs.’  Today a Liberal Democrat Minister (Jo Swinson MP) will walk away from her Party’s beliefs and seek to ensure that a central feature of the UK’s domestic human rights protection is repealed – despite the clear will of the House of Lords -  simply for ...

I don’t know if others share my unease when they read headlines such as ‘brain damaged amputee fit for work, say Atos and see Twitter ignite with indignation?

I would feel equally indignant reading that a person with brain damage who has had a limb amputated – a soldier returning from Afghanistan say – should be presumed to be de facto ‘unfit for work’ for such blanket assumptions, which allow a person to be judged by particular personal characteristics and not their merit, are t...

During debates in the House of Commons and House of Lords regarding repeal of the EHRC’s ‘General Duty’, debate centred on the ‘political’ or ‘symbolic’ significance of the duty.  It is of course foolish to treat something with political or symbolic significance as unimportant.  As Lord Low noted during Committee stage in the Lords ‘if its inclusion has symbolic value, is it not the case that its removal will have symbolic value also?’ The approach government has sought to t...

The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill will soon return to the House of Commons, led by the Liberal Democrat Minister Jo Swinson MP on behalf of the Liberal Democrat Business Secretary Vince Cable MP. 

It seems very probable that the coalition government will seek to overturn the amendment to s57 of the Bill won by Baroness Jane Campbell last week and supported by prominent Liberal Democrat Peers to prevent repeal of the ‘General Duty’ of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

T...

I’ve spent the past few months working with Parliamentarians to seek to put a stop to government plans to repeal the EHRC’s ‘General Duty’.  I won’t go back over the arguments why, but those arguments did prove persuasive last week when the House of Lords voted 217 – 166 in support of Baroness Jane Campbell’s amendment to keep the General Duty on the statute book.   The Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, as amended, now goes back to the House of Commons.

I occupy a peculiar...

This afternoon (4^th March 2013) Peers voted 217-166 in support of Baroness Jane Campbell’s amendment to s57 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, opposing the government’s planned repeal of the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s General Duty.   

In addition to Baroness Campbell’s powerful speech a range of impassioned interventions came from all sides of the House including Baroness Thornton, Baroness Lister, Baroness Hollis, Lord Lloyd, Baroness Hussein-Ece and Lord Morr...

This afternoon Members of the House of Lords will debate reforms to the Equality and Human Rights Commission.  Baroness Campbell has tabled an amendment opposing the government’s proposal to repeal the 'General Duty' of the EHRC on grounds that doing so will fundamentally change the purpose, role and scope for independent action by the organisation.  The General Duty says that the EHRC ‘shall discharge its functions with a view to encouraging and supporting a society in which:

people's a...

‘we are about to witness the first steps of the dismantling of our dreams of an independent future for all disabled people. The question we need to ask is how did this happen?’

Mike Oliver, Welfare and the wisdom of the past, Disability Now, February 2013 

The brilliance of the social model of disability was always also its inherent weakness: its simplicity.

It was and is too easily read as suggesting that all of the factors excluding disabled people from equal participation in societ...

Introduction – independent living in a time of austerity

We start with an apparent dichotomy – the demand to advance disabled people’s right to independent living yet having to do so in the context both of the financial climate we are in and increasing demand for ever more scarce resources as we all live longer lives.

Many of us may disagree with the economic and other policies of the Government in Westminster and their impact at local level – that they are cutting too far, too fast...

"We are calling time on equality impact assessments." David Cameron, Prime Minister

"Equality Impact Assessments are not under threat from the Coalition Government" Jo Swinson, Minister for Business, Innovation and Skills

Jo Swinson MP’s latest blog (Equality is more than just ticking boxes), apparently written to reassure concerned Liberal Democrats (check out the comments thread – it has failed miserably), exposes the complete lack of coherence – intellectual or otherwise – u...

In 2013 we should call for legislation to protect and promote independent living.

The Independent Living Strategy 2009 promised that government would review the case for such legislation ‘if sufficient progress has not been made against the outcomes by 2013’.  The strategy enjoyed cross Party support. There can be little doubt that this test has been met.  Moreover, on many of the outcomes the picture is one of regression.

The final report of the Joint Committee on Human Rights’ (JCH...

Once upon a time Britain led the way in promoting rights and independence for disabled people. That was the country I grew up in; I remember the horror when conditions for disabled children in foreign orphanages were exposed, pitiful little bundles of bones often tied to their cots, staring vacantly at their bars and walls, wizened like ancient beings who'd seen nothing but cruelty their entire lives. 

I remember ramps being built, institutions shut down, rights being created, laws being ma...

Today, 3 December, is the United Nations International Day of Persons with Disabilities.  Observed since 1992, the day aims to promote an understanding of disability issues and build respect for the dignity, rights and well-being of disabled people around the world.  It also seeks to increase awareness of gains to be derived from the integration of disabled people in every aspect of political, social, economic and cultural life.   Marking this year’s international day, the UN Secretary Gene...

Disabled people enrich our country in many significant ways - as parents and carers, community activists and teachers, sportsmen and women, local councillors and Ministers of State, as leaders of business, inventors, academics and scientists, musicians, actors, writers and artists.    Through their active contribution, disabled people generate wealth, strengthen families and communities, educate and entertain and help our country to progress.

Like the majority of people, all most disabled pe...

What are we to make of the fact that only 35 of the 1000 ex-employees of recently closed Remploy factories have so far found new employment?

Liam Byrne deduces that it is a consequence of the lack of jobs in the economy and therefore the decent thing to do is to halt further closures.  

This would suggest that in a more buoyant economy the figure would be far higher. Yet there is little evidence that many more ex-factory workers found work following the closure of 28 factories under Labour ...

Many will feel morally conflicted about some prisoners having the vote, but it is important to rise above the noise and recognise that the issue has been primed to achieve other ends.   

Those calling for a UK Bill of Rights have come to do so under the intellectual window-dressing of ‘subsidiarity’ – that the protection of human rights should be primarily a matter for nation States.  This is an entirely respectable aim which should enjoy universal support.  Yet this version of subsidi...

Last week Minister for Women and Equalities, Maria Miller wrote to the Guardian newspaper to ‘explain’ (read: misinform) why the government wished to focus the EHRC on its ‘unique role’, which it has conveniently discovered will only require a quarter of its original budget to deliver.  It was good to see the Commission fight back, but they desperately need people to rally to their cause and resist reforms which – irrespective of what you feel about the Commission’s past performan...

Maria Miller has written a letter to the Guardian making her case for reform of the Equality and Human Rights Commission following critical reports by Hugh Muir in the wake of some of the existing Commissioners being rejected for re-appointment.    She begins 'Strange goings on would indeed suggest something needs explaining - so perhaps you will let me as secretary of state responsible for women and equalities, explain?' 

But she fails to explain, because if she had she would have corrected...

Behind some subtle differences in rhetoric and degree, there is little to distinguish the attitudes and approach of the major parties towards disability and welfare.  Here’s Ed Miliband in his Party Conference speech:

‘You see I think it is incredibly important that to be One Nation we must show compassion and support for all those who cannot work. Particularly the disabled men and women of our country. But in order to do so, those who can work have a responsibility to do so. We can’t ...

In 2006, the UK Parliament willed into existence a statutory equality and human rights body to encourage and support the development of a society in which there is respect for the protection and promotion of each individual’s human rights, for the dignity and worth of each individual, in which people can achieve their potential unhindered by discrimination and enjoy equality of opportunity and in which there is mutual respect between groups.

The ‘general duty’ of the Equality and Human...

The Home Office recently published its response to the response to its consultation on reform of the Equality and Human Rights Commission.  Here are 10 things people should note regarding the Government’s plans:

The government's plans fundamentally change the nature and purpose of the Commission.  

By repealing section 3 of the Equality Act 2006 the Commission will cease to be agent of social change harnessing the law and its powers to address entrenched inequalities. Instead (insofar as ...

Message from Baroness Jane Campbell                         ...

"We will create a new presumption - backed up by new rights for public service users and a new system of independent ajudication - that public services should be open to a range of providers competing to offer better services"