Last week Bruce Adamson, Chief Executive of the Scottish Commission for People with Learning Disabilities, gave evidence to the UK Commission on the Right to Food as part of a panel on legislation and the roadmap towards a right to food in Scotland. 

The discussion explored how Scotland could move from warm words and policy commitments to enforceable rights, practical delivery and real accountability. 

People with learning disabilities are at particular risk of food insecurity. Recent UK research from Trussell found that 43% of people with a learning difficulty or disability experienced food insecurity. SCLD and the Fraser of Allander Institute have highlighted deep financial insecurity among people with learning disabilities in Scotland, with many living below the Minimum Income Standard. 

This is not accidental. Food insecurity for people with learning disabilities is produced by connected systemic failures: very low employment rates, inaccessible social security, additional costs, inadequate social care, inaccessible transport and lack of support for ordinary daily life. 

The right to food is already part of the international human rights framework. It sits within the right to an adequate standard of living. For disabled people, the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities recognises the right to adequate food and social protection. Food insecurity impacts on other rights such as the rights to health, education, development, and social security. 

Food must be available, accessible, adequate, and sustainable. Food insecurity for people with learning disabilities is not just about whether food exists. It is about whether good food is available locally, accessible in practice, adequate and acceptable to the person, and supported in a sustainable way. If someone cannot get to a supermarket, if information is not accessible, if they cannot afford fresh food, cannot cook without support, or they are forced to rely on expensive convenience food because the system around them is inaccessible, then their right to an adequate standard of living is being breached. The right to food means enough income, accessible support, dignified choice, inclusive services, independent advocacy and enforceable duties. 

Scotland’s incorporation of the UNCRC showed what is possible when rights are brought into domestic law. Incorporation does not, by itself, put food on the table. But it changes the question for public bodies. They can no longer ask only whether a policy is well intentioned. They must ask whether decisions are compatible with children’s rights, whether children have been heard, and whether budgets and services are helping or harming children’s lives. 

This matters for school meals, child poverty planning, holiday food provision, local transport, social care, public procurement and Good Food Nation plans. 

The Scottish Government has committed to continuing the unfinished work on the Scottish Human Rights Bill, which would give domestic enforceability to the rights in UN Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities, and the Internation Covenant on Economic, Social and culture rights. The right to food is already recognised in international human rights law through Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which protects the right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food, and the fundamental right to be free from hunger. General Comment 12 makes clear that this is not a narrow right to calories or emergency food. It means everyone must have physical and economic access, at all times, to food that is available, accessible, adequate, acceptable and sustainable. States have duties to respect, protect and fulfil the right: they must not make access to food worse, must regulate others where their actions undermine food access, and must take positive steps to ensure people can obtain food with dignity. 

For people with learning disabilities, the UNCRPD gives this right practical meaning. Article 28 recognises disabled people’s right to an adequate standard of living, including adequate food and social protection, while Articles 9, 19, 21 and 27 link food security to accessibility, independent living, accessible information, and work. A rights-based approach therefore asks not only whether food exists, but whether a person with a learning disability can afford it, get to it, understand their choices, prepare it with support if needed, and eat with dignity. If someone is pushed into hunger or expensive convenience food because income, transport, social care, information, employment support or advocacy are inaccessible, that is not a personal failing; it is a rights failure. 

The session took place on the eve of the fifth anniversary of the European Child Guarantee which requires EU countries to focus resources on drivers of poverty and inequality, and is demonstrating good practice that the UK could adopt.  

SCLD also highlighted concerns about the impact of welfare reform on young people with learning disabilities moving into adulthood. Proposals to delay access to the Universal Credit health element until age 22, alongside expectations that almost all young people should be in work, education or training, risk pushing young people with learning disabilities into poverty if accessible support is not in place. 

This comes 7 years on from United Nations Report of the Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty Philip Alston’s scathing critique of UK austerity and welfare policies, notably Universal Credit. It found that government policies had inflicted “misery” and systematically immiserated parts of the population, despite the UK being one of the world’s richest countries 

A right to food law must be enforceable, practical and rooted in lived experience. It should require action on income, social security, employment, social care, transport, accessible advice, advocacy, and local food access. 

It must also recognise that people with learning disabilities are often invisible in general poverty data, but very visible in the experience of poverty.