The rights of disabled people in the United Kingdom are threatened by a lack of domestic laws to enforce them, together with government reforms of benefits and cuts to public services, an influential committee of MPs and peers concluded this week.

The parliament’s joint committee on human rights called on the government to do more to implement the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which the previous Labour government ratified in April 2009.

The committee’s chairman, the Labour MP Hywel Francis, said, “We are concerned to learn that the right of disabled people to independent living may be at risk through the cumulative impact of current reforms. Even though the UK ratified the convention in 2009 with cross party support, the government is unable …