London Assembly backs Lib Dem call for a Disability Equality Champion

The Greater London Assembly yesterday backed a Lib Dem motion calling for the city's Mayor to appoint a Disability Equality Champion. The Champion's role would be to help make London a better place to live for Disabled Londoners including through the creation of a Disability Action Plan.

The Action Plan would create specific targets and monitoring mechanisms to ensure Disability Equality is central to all functions of the Greater London Authority and ensure disability equality and co-production is taken into account in all its plans and policies.

Hina Bokhari, said:

“All Disabled Londoners should be able to live in an inclusive city free from discrimination, a city where there are no disabling barriers preventing them from fully participating in society. 

“Disabled people are often only consulted by decision-makers once policies have already been developed, resulting in discriminatory policies that perpetuate structural inequalities.

“Our proposal would eliminate that problem. With the Mayor appointing a Disability Equality Champion with lived experience we would be developing a model of co-creation of policy with disabled Londoners and their organisations.

“The GLA can and should be trailblazers with policy making in this way and we hope to receive a positive response from the Mayor in due course.”

The motion, proposed by Lib Dem Hina Bokhari AM and seconded by her fellow Lib Dem Gareth Roberts AM, reads:

This Assembly notes:

• There are 1.2 million Disabled people in London. Disabled people are not a homogenous group: they have different impairments, have different genders, sexual orientations, come from different backgrounds, and live different lives.
• Yet all Disabled Londoners should be able to live in an inclusive city free from discrimination, a city where there are no disabling barriers preventing them from fully participating in society.
• Societal infrastructure, such as housing, transport and the street environment, consistently fail to meet Disabled people’s varied needs because of the lack of meaningful engagement with the Disabled community during policy formulation and implementation.
• While we recognise some progress has been made towards including Disabled Londoners in policy making – such as through TfL’s ‘All Aboard’ research panel – to achieve true justice and equity for the Disabled community, we believe the Mayor should do much more. He must ensure all Deputy Mayors and functional bodies within the GLA Group work together to develop plans that address the specific needs of Disabled people from the outset.
• This Assembly reaffirms its commitment to the social model of disability which sees people with impairments and health conditions as being Disabled by how society is run and organised.
• It also recognises that Disabled people are experts by experience and know the solutions that are needed to tackle the challenges they face in society. We recognise the value and the need for the GLA and all the functional bodies within the GLA Group to meaningfully engage and co-produce our policies and programmes with Disabled Londoners and Disabled People’s Organisations.

We therefore call on the Mayor to:

• Appoint a Disability Equality Champion who would lead on making London a better place to live for Disabled Londoners. A Disability Equality Champion would be responsible for developing specific GLA disability policies and programmes and would work closely with Deputy Mayors to ensure disability equality and co- production is embedded into all their plans and policies.
• Establish an effective co-production mechanism where lived experience is recognised and Disabled Londoners and their organisations play an active role in developing policies that affect their lives.
• Appoint a Champion who would lead the strategic development of a London Disability Action Plan. This would bring together a coordinated list of actions to improve the lives of Disabled Londoners, with specific targets and monitoring mechanisms to ensure Disability equality is central to all functions of the GLA group.
• Ensure a Disability Equality Champion has a role separate to the one undertaken by the Deputy Mayor for Communities and Social Justice in order to take a broad, cross- cutting and non-political role across the GLA group.”

The motion was amended to include an independent review of "floating" bus stops and then passed with cross-party support.