Dear Claire

I am writing to you in your capacity as the Minister of State for Disabled People, Work and Health.

My name is Jennifer. I am 42 years old and have Fibromyalgia along with other chronic health conditions. As a result of my Fibromyalgia diagnosis and exacerbated by the lockdown’s in 2020 I have also developed social anxiety. My doctor, who is wonderful, prescribed that I should get a cat to help alleviate the mental distress caused by the impact on my mental and physical health. In June 2020 I got Amani, a ragdoll cat, and she has been a lifesaver and life line for me ever since.

Amani came with me on 14 September 2022 to attend the lying in state of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. While all the details regarding accessibility that were published on the DCMS website referred to support and assistance dogs, all involved were understanding of Amani and accepted her registration as my support animal (I have Amani registered with the Emotional Support Animal Registry UK) and I believe she may have been the first feline assistance animal to enter the Parliamentary Buildings. Amani accompanies me everywhere and for the most part I have not experienced any admittance issues until July/August of this year when I tried to attend a film at Haslemere Hall. I was featured on our regional BBC News, South Today, in the local newspaper, The Haslemere Herald, and on BBC Radio Surrey. This admittance issue remains unresolved and I am including the correspondence between me and the venue for your information.

This brings to me to the reason I am writing to you. As you are aware there have been a lot of issues around the admittance of Guide Dogs to places, most recently a Sainsbury’s store making a blind customer leave the store. When it comes to emotional support animals, most people who have challenged me have stated that they don’t have any legal rights of access. I appreciate that animals themselves do not have any rights of access to places but under the Equality Act 2010 where an animal is in support of a protected class they do, as to exclude the animal is to exclude the handler and excluding someone on the basis of a protected class is discrimination. More awareness and training is needed for businesses about the rights of disabled people under the Equality Act 2010. Emotional Support Animals (ESA) are a relatively new group of assistance animals to be seen in public here in the UK but under the Equality Act 2010, ESA handlers have the same rights and protections as assistance and support dogs do. ESA’s aren’t subject to the same intense task based training as task-orientated assistance animals are as due to the very nature of what they do, alleviate mental stress, no such training is needed. However, in order to maintain a regular standard, I as an ESA handler, would not be opposed to some sort of behaviour assessment process regulated by a governing body of some kind. I have had Amani for over 2 years now and I spent a lot of time getting her used to wearing a harness and being out and about with me. She is very relaxed when we are out and people are very surprised at how well behaved she is. As a society we are very accepting of dogs in public and as assistance/support animals but they are not the only animal type that can offer emotional support.

I understand that the Government’s priority at this present time is the cost of living crisis but it would be a travesty if this issue for those of us who need assistance/support animals gets lost in the chaos. Those of us with assistance/support animals find our companions to be a lifeline to living a life of independence. Those of us with disabilities, both hidden and visible, have a daily fight to prove that we are able enough to do things. It is tiring to be constantly fighting just to live a good quality of life. Government guidance on what is and is not acceptable for assistance/support animals (emotional or task based) would go a long way to helping to alleviate some of that daily stress.

I will be volunteering for the Guide Dogs UK’s High Street Heroes campaign when it is rescheduled. Supporting guide dogs admittance to businesses will go a long way to help with the admittance of other support animals.

I hope that in your tenure as the Minister for Disabled People we can count on you to have our backs with these and other issues we face on a daily basis.

I look forward to hearing from, and hopefully working, with you in the near future.

Kind regards
Jennifer Watson

Sent on Monday 24 October 2022 via email