Human Rights Council 40: Disabilities
The UK remains dedicated to ensuring the full inclusion and participation of disabled people in all aspects of life, including entering and remaining in work.
Thank you Mr President,
The UK thanks the distinguished panellists for their presentations.
Habilitation and rehabilitation measures are key to ensuring the independence of disabled people, and their full inclusion and participation in all aspects of life. They enable an individual to maximise their potential to live a full and active life within their family, social networks, education and the workplace. Services and programmes in the areas of health, employment, education and social services enable them to do so.
We are committed to supporting disabled people into work. Our Access to Work scheme can support the costs faced by a disabled person or their employer in providing, among other things, accessible equipment or software that can help the disabled person to enter or remain in work. The UK Equality Act 2010 imposes a duty on employers and service providers to make reasonable adjustments for disabled people, so that they are not placed at a substantial disadvantage to non-disabled people. We have seen that work contributes to good physical and mental health and also to building independence.
We are working hard to ensure the provision of support to disabled people, including through strong legislation, but we recognise that more needs to be done. We remain committed to providing habilitation and rehabilitation support to disabled people and in a manner that is consistent with a human rights-based approach.
We would like to ask the panellists: what measures can states take to overcome the attitudinal and environmental barriers stated in the report that prevent the meaningful participation of persons with disabilities in society?
Thank you Mr President.