Conversation

Sarah Ludford

@SarahLudford

Nov 2, 2021

“

@FCDOGovUK

minister

@JamesCleverly

said he was ‘deeply disappointed & frustrated’ Ms Elharrar could not access the summit. ‘The COP venue is designed to be accessible for all’.” So why could wheelchair-using minister

@KElharrar

not in fact get inside? Full explanation owed.

Quote Tweet

Randeep Ramesh

@tianran

Nov 2, 2021

COP26: Wheelchair-using minister unable to attend summit bbc.co.uk/news/world-591

Sarah Ludford

@SarahLudford

George Eustice has just told

@BBCr4today

that the Israelis ‘failed to communicate the access needs’ for

@KElharrar

. Not the most gracious of responses for the #COP26 host to blame the guest.

8:23 AM · Nov 2, 2021

I have pushed my wife in a wheelchair or we have used her scooter for over 30years. There are occasional problems but generally venues bend over backwards to help. Not everyone has wheelchairs, it's not unreasonable to check ahead as you would for many other things.

Michael Hocken 〓〓

@ManOnTheGreen

Nov 2, 2021

The Israeli delegation *had* checked ahead many times, each time flagging the ministers’s specific needs. This is a serious failure of process.

@AlokSharma_RDG

should assume full responsibility & not blame others. We must do everything possible to stop this ever happening again.

Show replies

should be ashamed of his response. Automatically blaming the other (& ignoring the truth that the Israeli delegation *had* flagged Minister’s needs) may be ‘the Tory thing’ now, but it shows a lack of character & of understanding of the realities of disability.

Richard

@rikyoung123

Nov 2, 2021

Pretty poor. It's 2021 - you'd expect accessibility to have been there by default at any professional conference/exhibition venue and not something to be explicit requested in advance.