Ms Amy Hassett:

I am going to do a whistle-stop tour of some of the things about which the last six people have spoken. I could give a long reply but I will not. First, we could have a really involved conversation about the disability allowance. I encourage the committee to engage with us because we have spoken about the allowance a lot recently. Indeed, the fact that 70% of the appeals go through turns my stomach. I am one of these people who has been turned down twice for the allowance. I was successful once on appeal and unsuccessful the second time but for the same reason that Catherine Gallagher has experienced problems. What I can tell the committee from my own experience is that the application process does not capture the lived experience of disability. I could give the committee ten more points about the allowance but will simply encourage members to engage with us because we can provide them with systematic analysis on the vagaries of that system.

As we emerge from Covid, we are, if we are being realistic, about to go into an economic downturn. I want to highlight that to members because those who suffer the most in economic downturns are women and disabled people, plus other individuals of minority backgrounds across the spectrum, but particularly disabled women given the topic of today's debate. We would be really happy to engage with the many different members of this committee who have asked us to on various different issues because we can give more information. The means testing of payments is a significant concern for us.

In terms of representation in public office, in the UK there are specific funding resources for disabled candidates when they run for public office but that does not happen here. That is a major barrier but it is a minor change that we could make. Indeed, there is a lot more that needs to be done regarding this issue.

On engaging people in local government, I would caution for and against having a single disabled person because it is absolutely impossible for any one disabled person to represent the views of all disabled people and experiences are so diverse. For me, as a physically disabled person, it is very difficult to explain what it is like to be neurodiverse or know what reasonable accommodations are appropriate.

My final point is on mental health. Disabled people have found the pandemic incredibly difficult. We were the first to go into quarantine and we will be the last to emerge. In our opening statement, we mentioned our Disabled is not a Dirty Word campaign. We ran the campaign because we have been absolutely horrified and heartbroken by the language that is being used about disabled people such as that Covid is not dangerous if one does not have an underlying condition or Covid only affects people who have an underlying condition or are disabled. I wish to point out that Covid will make people disabled. Covid has disproportionately affected people who are disabled. We also know that Covid has killed a disproportionate number of disabled people. So, in terms of mental health, we stress that the mental health system must be overhauled. I urge the committee to please bear in mind that mental health issues are a massive problem, issue and concern for disabled people, particularly disabled women.