Nem Kearns:

To address Deputy Tully’s point on whether the consultation is happening across Departments and various bodies, the answer is “No”. The Deputy is correct. There is still an over-reliance on an outlook of “These are the people we have always spoken to, so these are the people we will continue to speak to".

I wish to raise, particularly in light of today’s topic and DWI's work, that we are finding that with large charities and service providers on the disability side but, equally, when it comes issues affecting women and gender minority people, it does not occur to people to talk to disabled people or we are seen as too niche or too small. It is as if since they cannot talk to everybody, they will not talk to disabled women and disabled people. That is a huge issue. We know that there are massive structural issues of inequality for disabled women. In addition, one in four women is disabled. It should not be a numbers game, but we are not a dismissible, niche problem. That attitudinal change needs to both be pushed and to happen. There is an equality gap between disabled men and disabled women and that is only growing. It will continue without active, focused, targeted work on it.