Britain must offer disabled people opportunity, not simply admire our resilience

The government has just published a report that lays out in stark terms why disability benefits are not fit for purpose. It makes glum reading and it must be dealt with - but there is a way forward that isn’t just about financial support.

First and foremost, I know the value of a national disability charity that is listened to, heeded and seen as the mother ship for disabled people, as we move forward towards a world where disability does not equal inequality. Things are better but much work is still to be done. Scope represents ALL 16 million disabled people and their families. They are our kin, and we love them unconditionally. But we must always ask: What do we have and what do we need?

The answer can be summed up in the three words Chris McCausland used after winning Strictly Come Dancing: resilience, support and opportunity. Chris's victory delighted millions because it appeared almost miraculous. To many disabled people, it wasn't miraculous at all. It was the culmination of years spent learning skills the rest of the country never sees. Every journey, every staircase, every unfamiliar room, every obstacle had been part of his training long before he took to the dance floor.

That points to one of the biggest misunderstandings about disability. People imagine that putting a blindfold on for five minutes tells them what it's like to be blind. It doesn't. Sitting in a wheelchair for an afternoon doesn't explain life as a wheelchair user. Disability isn't an experience. It's an education. Every day you learn. You adapt. You fail. You adapt again.

Resilience is often described as though disabled people somehow chose it from a menu. Mostly, there is no alternative. If you want to work, raise a family, travel, pay your bills or simply get to the shops, you become resilient because life insists upon it. I know because I have lived it. When I was sixteen, a consultant at Moorfields told me I would be blind by the age of thirty-five. Nobody hands you resilience that afternoon. You just begin learning.

Support comes next. Years later, when I finally admitted to the owner of a recording studio in rural France that my eyesight was failing, I expected the conversation to end. Instead, he said, "No problem. We can work around that." Those eight words changed my life. Not because they made me a better record producer, but because they allowed me to do the job in the first place. Support is too often seen as charity. It isn't. Support is a performance multiplier. It removes unnecessary barriers so that talent can emerge.

For years I had hidden my deteriorating eyesight because I thought I had to prove I could cope alone. Once someone stopped asking whether I could do the job and started asking what I needed to do it well, everything changed. That is the lesson employers still sometimes miss. Support is not lowering standards. It is enabling people to reach them.

Finally, opportunity. Support means little if no one is prepared to give you your chance. At the start of my career in the music industry I applied for well over a hundred jobs in Britain and secured just one interview, so I turned to France and got work there. Later, one person was prepared to back me with a loan to build a recording studio after forty others had turned me down. Without those opportunities there would have been no hit records, no Diamond Life by Sade and no career.

Disabled people do not need pity. They need the chance to compete. Strictly didn't ask viewers to admire a brave blind comedian. It simply said, "Here are the rules. Off you go", and Chris McCausland won, fair and square.

During my time at Scope, I have met thousands of disabled people. They differ in every imaginable way except one. Given genuine opportunity, they almost always exceed expectations. Not because they are superheroes. Not because disability is somehow a gift. But because years spent adapting, solving problems and refusing to give up have equipped them with qualities every employer says they want.

Disabled people already possess resilience. Support removes unnecessary friction. Opportunity releases capability. Get those three things right and everybody benefits.

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Sir Robin Millar CBE is an internationally renowned British music producer, businessman and campaigner for disabled people.

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