Support for automatic access to Blue Badge Scheme for people with MND

Lothian MSP Miles Briggs has given his support to the campaign for people with Motor Neurone Disease (MND) to receive automatic access to the Blue Badge scheme.

Yesterday’s debate at the Scottish Parliament was secured by Borders MSP Rachel Hamilton whose motion which congratulates Doddie Weir on receiving his OBE and call for automatic access to the Blue Badge scheme for people with MND.

Automatic access to the scheme is argued to be the most appropriate course due to nature of the disease, which leads to a rapid deterioration in a person’s physical ability.

Miles Briggs MSP remembered his friend, the late Gordon Aikman, whose campaign a few years ago achieved so much in raising awareness of MND. Gordon’s legacy lives on in many ways, including the improved provision of MND specialist nurses across the country and in the Gordon Aikman scholarships.

Lothian MSP Briggs also paid tribute to the significant amount of money for research into MND that Fernando Ricksen and his supporters and the Rangers Supporters Family have raised – and that offers more hope for a cure in the future, which is something, everyone clearly wants to see work prioritised towards helping achieve.

Miles Briggs, Scottish Conservative Lothian MSP, said: “I warmly congratulate Doddie Weir on receiving his OBE and commend him for all his campaigning work which is truly inspirational and which I know will make a huge difference to people with MND in the future. 

“I fully support the call for those diagnosed with MND – which we know can be such a rapidly progressing condition – to be given automatic access to a Blue Badge without having to go through a bureaucratic and potentially lengthy application process.

“People diagnosed with MND fear the loss of their independence and their mobility and providing them with a blue badge has the potential to help significantly by providing them with easier parking and greater accessibility.”

Doddie Weir, MND campaigner and former Scottish Rugby Player, said: “Not everyone (with MND) has six months to wait for the blue badge system to kick in and I believe everyone who is diagnosed with motor neurone disease should automatically be entitled to a blue badge.

“This will enable families to live a dignified and as full a life as possible while coping with this terrible disease.”

Motion S5M-18066: Rachael Hamilton, Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, Date Lodged: 03/07/2019

Congratulates Doddie Weir OBE and Calls for Automatic Access to Blue Badge Scheme for People with MND

That the Parliament congratulates Doddie Weir on receiving his OBE from The Queen at the Palace of Holyroodhouse;

recognises that he received his award for services to motor neurone disease (MND) research, rugby and the Borders community;

notes calls for the Scottish Government to change the criteria for the Blue Badge scheme to allow people with MND to have automatic access, rather than through the lengthy process of an assessment;

further notes the view that automatic access is the most appropriate way due to the nature of the disease, which leads to a rapid deterioration in a person’s physical ability;

notes that Doddie and The Scotsman back the campaign to give people with MND automatic access to a Blue Badge, and believes that people with the condition, and their families, should be able to live their lives as fully as possible and in a dignified way.