In 2009 the UK Government ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD). Article 19 of the Convention concerns the right of disabled people to live independently in the community and requires government to put in place legal and practical measures to enable disabled people to exercise choice about where and with who they live and to overcome isolation through increased participation in community life. 

Clearly Disability Living Allowance and its successor the 'Personal Independence Payment' is a key plank of the UK's approach to meeting its obligations.  As such any proposals for legislative reform, such as that to deny disabled people living in residential care homes access to the personal mobility component of the new benefit, must comply with the Convention.

Personal mobility is not an end in itself. It is the means to a wide number of other ends. Having control over one’s own mobility is not simply about visiting family and friends. It’s about being in control, being spontaneous and free. It's about coming and going as one pleases. It’s about pursuing a life rather than just living. It's about having the flexibility to go to work, to go for a drink after work and to stay out all night if you want to. It’s about liberation. It’s why young people aspire to own a car. It’s one reason why Thelma and Louise was such a popular film.

 It’s also about being safe. Does the Government not recognise the relationship between power and what happened at Winterbourne View? Does it not understand that taking the power of free mobility away renders people vulnerable to abuse by dent of the simple fact that their tormentors know they cannot escape?

Looking at the the proposed reforms through the lens of the UNCRPD, allows us to consider the real impact on the enjoyment of the rights set out in the Convention, to which the UK is bound in international law. In doing so we need to look beyond Article 19, at the effect on the enjoyment of other Convention rights, whether general principles such as the right to dignity, autonomy and to full participation and inclusion in society or specific articles including freedom from torture, cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, freedom from exploitation, violence and abuse, personal mobility, access to education, health and employment, adequate standard of living and social protection and participation in cultural life, leisure and sport.

In doing so, it seems obvious that those living in residential care generally face the greatest barriers with respect to the enjoyment of such basic freedoms.  This is by virtue of the simple fact that the support they require for daily living itself lacks mobility - it is located in one place - it happens 'behind closed doors' and without independence access to financial resources residents do not enjoy the means to access the outside world freely.

Justice dictates that a government committed to 'freedom, fairness and responsibility' would recognise those living in such situations as having the greatest case to receive the support they need to overcome such barriers and to redress the lack of power they face.

How people access this support is a critical factor.  Replacing a nationally determined entitlement (to the mobility component of DLA) for those living in residential care homes with a 21st Century form of 'parish relief' can only be considered regressive.  Mobility without individual choice and control is a dead end, not the means to the end it should be to accord with the rights set out in the UNCRPD.  It is a return to the 'Sunshine Bus' and has no place in our modern world. 

Further, it is unclear how the government proposes to square its commitment to localism with a guarantee that disabled people living in residential care homes will receive mobility support from their local authority, especially when all evidence indicates that local services will soon resemble a skeleton at best.  Given DLA/PIP is a UK-wide benefit, it is also unclear how government proposes to guarantee provision for mobility in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.  If such a guarantee can be given, then why does it matter where the money comes from? Surely the (not negligible) costs of reform are then avoidable?

Although a key principle of international human rights law is non-regression, this does not mean that the UNCRPD prevents government from reforming public policy.  Indeed their may be aspects of the PIP proposals which accord more closely with the UNCRPD than the present DLA. At a time of fiscal retrenchment such as now it also doesn’t prevent government reducing the amount it spends on particular programmes or benefits. What the UNCRPD does demand however is proportionality and transparency.  Government should be in a position to set out clearly and transparently why the proposed reform provides a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim (and what that 'aim' is), the impact it is expected to have – both positive and negative – and what mitigations will be put in place in relation to any negative effects.
 
Sadly, the Low review has been launched precisely because the government has failed these tests. Hopefully the review itself can draw on the Convention as a key point of reference in its deliberations.  

Fairness and freedom depend on it.