Petition to increase disabled representation

Pressure group Disability Politics UK is urging people to sign an e-petition to help increase the number of disabled MPs.

The e-petition reads in part: “There are a handful of disabled MPs but there would need to be 65 disabled MPs to be representative of the number of disabled people in the population.

Letting MPs serve on a job share basis would enable more people from under-represented groups to stand for Parliament.

We ask that the law be changed to allow MPs to serve on a job share basis.”

Labour MP John McDonnell is presenting a 10 minute rule Bill to the House of Commons on 20 November to change the law to enable MPs to job share.

Detailed legal advice about job sharing for MPs has been obtained by the Equality and Human Rights Commission from Karon Monaghan QC. In her advice, Monaghan said: “A legal challenge to the restriction on access to elected office as a Member of Parliament, permitting only single, full-time constituency representatives, would be difficult in view of the broader legal context and the constitutional norms addressing election to Parliament.

"However, and subject to the evidence I identify below, there are reasonable prospects of establishing that a bar on the accepting of nominations from proposed job-sharers is indirectly discriminatory and constitutes a failure to comply with the duty to make adjustments (s19 and s20-s21, Equality Act 2010).”

The petition can be signed at: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/38829

www.disabilitypolitics.org.uk/index.html