Covronavirus, Disability and Access to Services
(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)
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The Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee is introducing the debate and will probably take a little longer, but if Back-Bench contributions could be kept to about five minutes, hopefully we can get through everybody on the list without my having to impose a formal time limit. I call Caroline Nokes to move the motion.
Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) (Con)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Women and Equalities Committee, “Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report”, HC 1050.
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham, and I thank my colleagues on the Committee for their work on both the inquiry and the report. I am pleased to see the hon. Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne), for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson) and for Lanark and Hamilton East (Angela Crawley) participating in the debate.
With your indulgence, Sir Graham, I would like to highlight that some of the issues we will discuss concern children with special educational needs, and when it comes to autistic spectrum disorders, there was one Member of this House who championed the issue, spoke in pretty much every debate on the subject, and chaired the all-party parliamentary group on autism. Cheryl Gillan is already much missed in this place, not least by me today. I know that she was a real expert and spoke with passion and knowledge in debates such as the one we are having today. I am sure she would have been present to put on record her thoughts about access to services for children with autistic spectrum disorders.
Relevant to this debate is our interim report, published in September last year, which was intended to inform the first six-monthly review of the Coronavirus Act 2020 temporary provisions. I will start by drawing attention to an important outstanding issue in this context—one that has not received a great deal of attention. The temporary provisions included unused provisions that relaxed requirements for sectioning under the Mental Health Act 1983, provisions that curtailed or restricted hard-won rights of disabled people to get the care and support that they needed in their everyday lives—the so-called Care Act 2014 easements—and a power to modify duties under the Children and Families Act 2014 in relation to assessment and provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
We welcomed the Government’s decision last year to repeal the unused Mental Health Act 1983 provisions. We very much welcome the recent decision to remove the Care Act 2014 easement provisions, and we look forward to this happening as swiftly as possible. Perhaps my hon. Friend the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will chase that up with the Minister for Care at the Department for Health and Social Care. Although the easements were not widely used, their availability in statute exacerbated a perception, which has existed among disabled people right from the outset of this crisis, that their rights are somehow seen as less important than other people’s.
The outstanding issue from our interim report is that one of the temporary provisions affecting young disabled people remains in place. The power to modify education, health and care plan duties was used by way of national notices issued by the Secretary of State for Education in May, June and July. The power remains available in the Coronavirus Act. My view is that this power must be removed.
We are in a very different place in the pandemic. As the Minister for Children and Families acknowledged in a recent letter to me, there is much less need for the additional flexibilities, yet the power is being retained, for the time being, as a contingency. The Government have said they will act to remove temporary provisions as soon as they are no longer necessary. They have done so in relation to the mental health and social care provisions. It is an important matter of principle: the Government must not hold on to emergency powers a moment longer than they absolutely need to. Removing the power to modify duties in relation to children’s and young people’s education, health and care needs would send a clear message to children and their families that the Government fully support their right to receive the provision they need. I see no reasonable justification for keeping the Secretary of State’s power to modify duties in statute any longer.
Over the last year, my Committee’s work has emphasised the unequal impacts of the pandemic on three groups of people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010; women, groups of black and minority ethnic people, and disabled people—the subject of the debate today, who have received, sadly, relatively little attention. Yet the adverse effects on disabled people have been starkly disproportionate, including tragically high death rates. The chance of dying from covid was more than three times greater for someone with a disability than for someone who was not disabled. The chance of dying for a person with a learning disability was probably more than six times greater than that of the general population. A young person aged between 18 and 34 with a learning disability was some 30 times more likely to die than a young non-disabled person.
Our inquiry heard evidence about decisions and policies that might have contributed to those tragic statistics, such as a relative slowness to protect people in a range of social care settings, and a lack of clear and accessible information for disabled people. That is why we called for a discrete independent inquiry into the causes, including the decisions made by Government. The response, “Now is not the time,” will inevitably start to wear thin. The Government should commit to an independent inquiry, including into what led to disabled people feeling the brunt of the pandemic, and they should set out a timetable not just for its start but for its completion. They should do so now.
A major theme in our full report was the Government’s consultation and communications with disabled people during the pandemic. We heard that disabled people felt excluded and ignored. Witnesses pointed out that effective consultation with disabled people could have made it possible to avoid some of the problems that they faced early in the pandemic, such as a lack of accessible food shopping. Disability charities told us that the Government were talking to them, but in broadcast mode—not listening and not resolving problems effectively. When the Government did communicate with disabled people, their communications were not always psychologically informed, and too often they exacerbated disabled people’s already heightened anxieties. There was confusing guidance on shielding, and it was sometimes poorly thought through and poorly timed—for example, a text message sent at the weekend before important changes to guidance were issued on the Monday.
I want to see evidence that the Government have learned from what happened. Right from the outset, from the Prime Minister’s letter to the nation in March explaining the need to stay at home, communications have not been fully accessible. There were no accessible versions of that letter for several days. I know that a great deal of work is going on in the Cabinet Office to provide the shopping list of accessible communications asks put forward by disability charities last year; but the Government could and should go further and faster. I find it utterly incomprehensible, for example, that the Government have still not arranged in-person British Sign Language interpretation of their televised covid briefings. I raised that issue with the Prime Minister at the Liaison Committee in January, and the hon. Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) raised it again very effectively at Prime Minister’s Question Time yesterday. On neither occasion was a proper response forthcoming. The reasons relied on in written responses—that there is not enough space in Downing Street, or that there is not enough time to make arrangements—are weak. Surely the Government could have found space during the recent media suite refit. I am unsurprised that campaigners have resorted to judicial review, but I am surprised that the Government have not sought to resolve the issues swiftly and simply by finding both the space and the inclination to include a BSL interpreter.
Practices in health and social care added to disabled people’s perceptions that their lives were less valued than others. The guidelines issued by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence on the use of the clinical frailty scale in making decisions about who should receive critical care if NHS resources had been overwhelmed were potentially discriminatory against disabled people. We heard from disabled people that, while they accepted that the guidelines were swiftly amended, it left a very bad taste.
Extremely concerning issues about the inappropriate use of “do not attempt resuscitation” notices, or DNARs, have been much more prolonged. The Government asked the Care Quality Commission to investigate in October last year, and last month the CQC found that that hundreds of inappropriate DNARs had been applied. These issues demonstrate a deeply worrying lack of concern for the rights of some groups of disabled people.
We all understand the pressures that people were under early in the pandemic, but more than 10 years on from the Equality Act 2010, it is shocking that disabled people’s rights were not properly considered in the formulation of policies and practices in health and social care. That is why we recommended a robust response to prevent such mistakes being repeated. We called on the Government to allow the Equality and Human Rights Commission to issue a statutory code of practice on the public sector equality duty, to provide greater legal certainty about the actions that public authorities must take to prevent discrimination. Greater certainty would provide more effective protection, so the Government’s dismissal of our recommendation is extremely disappointing. Their argument that the status quo is sufficient flies in the face of recent experience. If there is not a statutory code of practice, how will the Government prevent these issues from arising in future public health crises? Again, we have to learn from experience.
The pandemic has very clearly emphasised and exacerbated known systemic problems affecting disabled people. We know that the SEND system is facing a crisis. The aims of the Children and Families Act reforms have never been consistently achieved. Services for children with SEND are too often inadequate. In too many places, the integrated education, health and care services envisaged in the 2014 Act have never materialised.
I speak as a member of the Bill Committee that way back in 2012 or 2013 scrutinised the Bill that became that Act. We spoke endlessly in our debates about parents having to fight to get their children the services they need. However, parents are still struggling in an overly bureaucratic system and the evidence that they gave us through our inquiry was that they are still using the word “fight” when describing their attempt to get their children’s needs assessed and provided for. The Government acknowledged that in announcing their SEND review, but that was in September 2019, more than 18 months ago. The experience of children with SEND and their families during the pandemic must provide the impetus to sort these problems out. We called for the review outcome to be published in the first quarter of this year, but we are still waiting. The Government’s response to our report acknowledges the importance of these issues. The Government say they need more time to get the reforms right. Of course time is needed to grapple with the complex issues in the SEND system, but if much more time elapses people will start to question whether SEND is the priority that it ought to be.
The same is true of the review of adult social care. There is no doubt that the devastating experience of the pandemic in social care settings was exacerbated by systemic issues of funding, of workforce—including pay and staff turnover—and a lack of proper integration with NHS services. That is why we were disappointed in the spending review settlement for social care and disappointed that there was nothing on social care in the Budget. We only know that the Government intend to bring forward their proposals for social care later this year. That needs to happen sooner rather than later.
There are positives in the Government’s response and I do not denigrate the hard work that is undeniably going on in the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs in relation to disabled people’s access to food and in the Cabinet Office on accessible communications; and the work that the Disability Unit is putting into the national strategy for disabled people. The Government have opportunities in the national strategy, the social care review and their SEND review to understand the particular problems faced by disabled people, their carers and their families in the pandemic, to understand the part they have played in those problems, and to start putting things right and restoring trust. I urge my hon. Friend the Minister in his response to make it clear that the Government will grasp those opportunities and do so in a timely fashion.
Tulip Siddiq (Hampstead and Kilburn) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the Women and Equalities Committee for its work on the report, which shines a light on issues that, sadly, have been too often overlooked throughout the pandemic. Before I get to the main points raised with me in the last year by my disabled constituents, I will echo the Committee’s findings about systemic issues in the SEND system and the way in which covid-19, and in my view the Government’s inadequate response to it, has exacerbated them.
The report correctly concludes that there must be targeted support for pupils with SEND to recover, and fundamental reform of the broken SEND system. I share the Committee’s hope that the Government’s SEND review will bring forth a blueprint for reform at the earliest opportunity. I feel that disabled people, much like children, have been an afterthought for the Government in the pandemic even though they have been disproportionally affected by the virus in health and social terms. We have seen that particularly in engagement and communications this past year, which the report rightly focuses on as a key issue facing disabled people.
Straight after the very first coronavirus press conference on 16 March 2020, I wrote to the Prime Minister requesting a British Sign Language interpreter. We eventually got one for the BBC coverage, but, despite the hefty £2.6 million price tag for the flash new press suite at Downing Street, no one thought to make provision for a BSL interpreter, as the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) said. Similarly, at the start of the crisis, it took weeks for written Government communications to be available in accessible formats or large fonts. As evidence gathered by the Committee shows, many deaf people and people with learning disabilities were not properly informed about what was happening around them or about the latest public health advice as Britain was plunged into lockdown. Lessons should have been learned from those early failures, but I am afraid that recent failures to provide BSL interpretation for Government communications indicate that they were not.
Face masks are another issue for deaf people and the hard of hearing. They are of course essential to protecting us against coronavirus, but they can be profoundly isolating for those who rely on lip-reading and facial expressions to communicate. In Parliament last year I raised several times the importance of rolling out clear face masks—those with a transparent strip over the mouth. Like the Committee, I was pleased to see procurement of clear face masks for NHS trusts towards the end of last year, and I echo the Committee’s call for a proper evaluation of the roll-out and an assessment of need across services. However, I remain concerned that the Department for Education’s guidance continues to state that there is
“currently very limited evidence regarding the effectiveness or safety of transparent face coverings”
given that they have been rolled out in health and care settings. I urge Ministers to take another look at that guidance to avoid teachers being unnecessarily put off using clear face masks and impeding the education of children with hearing loss.
I want to focus briefly on “do not attempt resuscitation” notices being issued without consent, which in the last year has, perhaps more than anything else, sowed mistrust among the disabled community and made many feel their lives were valued less than others’. During the first wave of coronavirus, some people with learning disabilities were told, shockingly, without prior consultation, that they would not be resuscitated if they were to fall ill from covid-19. The Care Quality Commission found that, since March 2020, more than 500 DNAR decisions were made without being agreed with the individual or their family beforehand and, in some cases, such decisions caused potentially avoidable deaths.
Given the outcry when that first happened, I was appalled to hear reports from Mencap that the same practice was happening again at the start of this year. As one constituent, who has been a care home operator and seen this issue affect elderly people in hospitals, wrote to me,
“imagine the horror and terrible stress now imposed on parents or relatives to think that their child or adult will not be given the absolute best care and may be abandoned by the NHS in their hour of most need”.
The truth is it that this is unimaginable, and it is something that we have fought to address.
I urge Ministers to heed the advice of the CQC by making urgent and wide-ranging improvements to care planning, including better training and information storage, and creating better oversight structures. What struck me most when reading this report is that there seems to be no one at the highest levels of Government actively thinking about the impact of policies and communications on disabled people. This failure to consider the needs of disabled people has to change, and I hope that this report and this debate can be part of that push to ensure that disabled people are properly represented and accounted for in policy making and Government decision taking, especially at moments of crisis.
Abena Oppong-Asare (Erith and Thamesmead) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) and her Committee for producing such an important report and for securing this debate.
I welcome the Committee’s approach to looking at the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on people with protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010. Although the pandemic has affected everyone, it is clear that those groups in society that already faced structural barriers and discrimination have been hardest hit. It is for this reason that last year I worked with an organisation in my local area to produce a report on the effect of the pandemic on people in Erith and Thamesmead with one or more protected characteristics.
In April last year, I met members and representatives from Inclusion London and the Greenwich Association of Disabled People to discuss the local and regional impacts of covid-19 on disabled people. In the time available to me, I will set out a few of our key findings relating to disabled people in my constituency, and steps that I believe the Government must now take.
A number of organisations and individuals have raised concerns about measures in the Coronavirus Act 2020 relating to the Care Act, the Mental Health Act and the Children and Families Act. I am pleased that the Government have now listened and ended the provisions related to the Care Act, but I know that there are still concerns about the risk to disabled young people due to the easements to the Children and Families Act.
Research by Inclusion London has found that only 32% of disabled children received all the SEND provision in their education and health care plan, with the rest either receiving some or none of their usual provision. As we move into the recovery stage of this crisis, I urge the Government to look at this again, and to ensure that disabled people and young children are able to access the support that they need for their education.
Erith and Thamesmead constituents have raised a number of concerns about access to food for disabled people during the pandemic. For example, disabled people who usually rely on supermarket deliveries, but who are not considered clinically extremely vulnerable, struggle to access delivery slots. Food parcels provided by the Government did not take into consideration accessibility needs, such as mobility and available cooking appliances. There were also limited supermarket delivery slots, which meant people were unable to shop at cheaper supermarkets, so grocery outgoings increased for some people. That is something the Royal National Institute of Blind People has also reported.
I welcome the guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission to ensure that food retailers make reasonable adjustments for disabled people throughout the pandemic. However, the Government must do more to ensure that disabled people are properly supported in any future pandemic or emergency.
Many constituents have raised concerns about mobility and travel accessibility during the pandemic. Issues included: being unable to access support on public transport due to social distancing; problems visiting certain locations, such as supermarkets, with carers due to one-person shopping rules; and difficulty in hiring personal assistants during the pandemic.
Finally, looking towards the future, disabled people have been disproportionately impacted by the effects of the pandemic on employment. According to Inclusion London, over 37% of disabled people have experienced financial difficulties or employment issues due to covid-19, including problems with the Access to Work scheme, discrimination in the workplace and failure by employers to make reasonable adjustments. I fully support the Committee’s call for an independent inquiry into the profoundly adverse effects that the pandemic has had on disabled people, including the stark disparity of the death rate. We should look into the decisions and policies of the Government and public authorities.
As we begin to recover from the coronavirus, we need to see increased funding for health and care services that are tailored towards disabled people. I strongly believe that legacy benefits should have been uplifted in line with universal credit and that neither should be cut later this year. I want the Government to fund user-led organisations to a level that recognises their essential role in ensuring that all public and private services are accessible to disabled people. A national strategy for disabled people is needed now more than ever, and must contain a long-term plan for employment and accessibility at work. As we begin our social and economic recovery, the Government must ensure that disabled people are never again left behind. Sadly, they have been too often over the last year.
Kate Osborne (Jarrow) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for leading this extremely important debate, and I thank the members of the Women and Equalities Committee, of which I am a member, and, most especially, the witnesses who gave evidence to help form this report.
Yesterday, as other hon. Members have already mentioned, I was pleased to see my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, Deptford (Vicky Foxcroft) highlight at Prime Minister’s questions how disabled people have been overlooked in something that could and should be easily fixed: the lack of a BSL interpreter during Government televised briefings. That is one of the report’s recommendations that I hope will be put in place very soon. We know that this lack of thought for disabled people during the televised briefings is symptomatic of the wider issues that we highlighted in the report.
Throughout the pandemic, disabled people have faced problems with unequal access to food and potentially discriminatory practices in health and social care services. On top of that, the existing systemic problems in education for children and young people with special educational needs have worsened. The pandemic has shone a light on the pre-existing inequalities in the UK and, if we are to build back fairer, we need the fullest possible understanding of why existing inequalities were highlighted and/or reinforced because of the pandemic, so that we do not leave people behind as we recover.
That is why it is so important that this report is listened to in full and why there must now be an independent inquiry into how Government policy and decisions led to disabled people being disproportionately affected by the pandemic. It is disappointing that the Government’s response to the report has not committed to this expert-led inquiry. I hope that the Minister can give a more detailed response and explain the reasons why there is no commitment from the Government on this.
On the report’s wider recommendations, it is pleasing that several were accepted by the Government, but four were rejected and 10 were accepted in part or in principle. For me, one of the most concerning is the lack of commitment to include access to food in future emergency situations within the forthcoming national strategy for disabled people. I hope that the Minister can clear up whether the Government agree with the report’s recommendation that access to food must be included in the national strategy, and explain how they plan to consult with disabled people on the struggles that many have faced in accessing food during the pandemic.
On health and social care, the report recommends a code of practice that lays out what the NHS and local authorities must do, unlike the current situation, where they are told only what they should do. Can the Minister explain the Government’s reasoning for rejecting this proposal, and why they believe that a code of practice would not make life better for disabled people and staff in the NHS and local authorities? The report highlights how the pandemic has exacerbated the pre-existing crisis in provision for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities. Can the Minister update us on any progress the Government have made on their SEND review, which was supposed to be published in the spring?
The report widely acknowledges the problems created by a lack of ring-fenced funding for children with SEND in mainstream schools, and evidence that these pupils consistently make less progress than other pupils with the same starting points. It is disappointing that the Government rejected the recommendation that funding be increased to allow for pupils with SEND in mainstream schools to receive £240 per child, ring-fenced for their catch-up support in this academic year. I hope that the Minister can give further explanation as to why the Government have not committed to ring-fencing funding for pupils with SEND in mainstream schools.
In conclusion, although it is welcome that a number of the report’s findings and recommendations have been accepted or will be looked at further, it is still worrying that a number have been rejected. It is also worrying that there is a lack of commitment to an independent inquiry. It is vital that the Government learn from their mistakes in regard to disabled people’s experiences of the pandemic, and it is essential that effective mechanisms are put in place by which disabled people can influence policies and practices that affect them, and ensure that hard-won equality rights are not eroded but built upon.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) [V]
I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for securing this important debate, and to the Women and Equalities Committee for their report. I fully support the Committee’s call for an independent inquiry into the causes of adverse outcomes for disabled people.
From delayed and confusing guidance over shielding to difficulties accessing food, many disabled people have felt abandoned throughout the crisis. To this day, as we have already heard, we are waiting for the live British Sign Language interpretation of the Government’s press briefings on TV. One of my constituents in Bath was born with a rare and incurable breathing problem, and is in a high-risk group. Despite registering as extremely vulnerable on the Government’s website to receive food parcels in March last year, she did not receive her parcel until mid-June. Of the Government’s guidance about ending shielding, another constituent said:
“I don’t understand anything the Prime Minister said at all. It is so confusing. Why can’t they just say this in basic language?”
One of the most obvious failures we see again and again is that services are being designed for disabled people without actually consulting them. This pandemic has hit disabled people particularly hard, and in so many ways. In employment, disabled people have been disproportionately affected by furlough, reduced hours and redundancies. Despite this, the Chancellor’s plan for jobs made only one reference to disabled people, and contained nothing to address the specific challenges facing them. Recent figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that the number of disability employment advisors has fallen by 32% during the pandemic, at a time when knowledge of the barriers faced by disabled people will be even more necessary. Everyone should have the right to secure employment. I sincerely hope that promotion of inclusive workplace practices will be a top priority in the Government’s national strategy for disabled people. We need a targeted strategy to tackle barriers to work for disabled people as we emerge from the pandemic.
Covid has also exposed how isolated some disabled people can be. Many of those with mental health difficulties in Bath have already been struggling without face-to-face care. The value of our social care sector and its workforce has never been clearer, and I pay tribute in particular to the 7.3 million unpaid carers in the UK, without whom the pressures on adult social care services would be even greater. Many are facing extreme financial hardship. The Liberal Democrats are calling for carer’s allowance to be raised by £1,000 a year—the same as the uplift in universal credit. The underfunding of social care was a problem long before covid. Now its effects will be felt even more severely. I support the Select Committee’s recommendations, which highlight that the £300 million in additional grant funding for local authority social care budgets falls far short of what is needed.
We are now 25 years on from the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Unless we truly recognise the value of the social care sector, we risk going backwards on the progress we have made towards equality for disabled people.
Kim Johnson (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. This pandemic has been one of poverty and inequality. Pre-existing health, housing, employment and income inequalities have combined to form a perfect storm for disabled people.
In my role on the Women and Equalities Committee, I have listened to so many heartbreaking and shocking stories of the barriers that disabled people have faced during the pandemic. Disabled people have overwhelmingly been abandoned without the basic support they need to survive or live in dignity—from the suspension of local authority’s legal responsibilities to provide basic social care, to the reduction of access to activities and day centres, to an increase in isolation and loneliness, and difficulties in accessing healthcare, education and even food.
Mencap’s “My Health, My Life” report into inaccessible healthcare during covid highlighted some truly shocking realities faced by people with a learning disability during the pandemic. Some people with a learning disability were told that they may not receive life-saving treatment. Some were encouraged to avoid hospital and were asked to consent to DNRs. Overstretched and under-resourced hospitals meant there was a reduction in learning disability nurses, and some acute learning disability nurses were redeployed to other units.
While we welcome the Government’s commitment in their written response to the report to more funding for local authorities, their reference to the recent hike in the social care council precept raised concerns that they intend to place the burden for social care on those least able to pay for it. Such an approach is both unfair and completely unable to meet the scale of the challenge. This Government are in denial of the social care crisis that we are facing.
Can the Minister explain how this Government can claim a levelling-up agenda while forcing the costs of the crisis in social care on to the worst-off through this regressive taxation? About 60% of people in the UK who have died from coronavirus are disabled. Will the Minister please explain in clear terms why the Government have not taken up our report’s recommendation for an independent inquiry into the disproportionate deaths and adverse outcomes for disabled people from the pandemic? Also, why did the Government reject the recommendation for a statutory code of practice on the public sector equality duty?
We are having this debate in the most tragic of circumstances. What will it take for this Government to act? Disabled people’s lives must be valued equally. This Government have a responsibility to take action against the disadvantage and discrimination that put the mental and physical health of disabled people at risk. To do that, the Government must commit to full and transparent engagement with disabled people and groups about their concerns during the pandemic when forming a proposed national strategy for disabled people, upholding the principle of “nothing about us without us”.
Everyone has the fundamental right to live in safety and in dignity, with full access to health, social care and education. The report and the evidence we have heard has shown that we have failed disabled people by not upholding these basic rights during the pandemic. The report must be a turning point. The Government must investigate their failures, involve disabled people in developing a national strategy to uphold, protect and strength the rights of disabled people, and commit to significant and progressive funding to tackle our crisis in social care and ensure that disabled people can live in safety and in dignity.
Kirsten Oswald (East Renfrewshire) (SNP) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I am grateful to the Women and Equalities Committee for all its work. It is also a pleasure to follow such a powerful speech advocating for the rights of disabled people. For too many disabled people, the pandemic has raised new challenges and barriers to accessing services as they go about their daily lives. We need to be clear that equality for disabled people should be central to what we do here every day, but the attitude of Westminster and the Tory Government towards disabled people is nothing short of a disgrace. Scotland has not voted for a right-wing Tory Government for decades, but the harmful policies that they inflict daily on disabled people come none the less.
The SNP’s manifesto includes a disability manifesto, and I am sure that anyone watching its launch this morning—there was a BSL interpreter and subtitles; perhaps the Prime Minister could take note of that— will have thought very deeply about that. It focuses on strengthening rights and opportunities, investing in the NHS, supporting disabled young people, a commissioner for autism, fairer social security, improving accessibility and employment representation. Those critical steps matter all the more now because of the disproportionate impact of covid on disabled people. The UK Government’s response to the Select Committee report landed in inboxes only last night. I am afraid that does not speak well of the Tory Government’s priorities or their views of this important issue.
All of us surely know, from our constituency work and from discussions with local and national organisations, about the impact of covid on disabled people and on existing inequalities. Along with my hon. Friend the Member for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), I have had extremely useful meetings with organisations such as Epilepsy Action, looking specifically at how we can support people through this period. More locally, I have had great cause to value the excellent work of East Renfrewshire Disability Action, Cosgrove Care and Include Me 2 Club, among so many other excellent third sector and voluntary groups making a huge impact on the ground. That work has been vital, along with the work of NHS and care professionals, because of the stark fact that disabled people were more likely than non-disabled people to have died of covid-19.
We know that nearly half of all people in poverty in the UK are disabled or live with someone who is disabled, and we can easily predict a very challenging period ahead because of decisions this Government are taking, which we know will disproportionately impact on people with disabilities. We know that 82% of disabled claimants have had to spend more money than normal during the pandemic as a result of increased costs. Two thirds of those disabled claimants have had to go without essential items at some point during the pandemic, and almost half say that they have been unable to meet financial commitments such as rent and household bills. Those are the most fundamental things, so we should not be surprised to learn from research by Scope that disabled people were increasingly worried about extra utilities costs because of the pandemic.
In that context, there is no exaggeration when I say that Westminster’s policies are damaging lives, and the Government’s response to the report does not give me great confidence that that will change. I am hugely concerned at the prospect of people who receive universal credit facing benefit cuts later this year, when unemployment is likely to hit its peak, and that is before we get on to the lack of support for people on legacy benefits, including many disabled people. The SNP has been very clear that failing to extend an equivalent uplift to legacy benefits is discriminatory to the core and disproportionately impacts on disabled claimants.
The Social Market Foundation and Scope have found that, despite decades of reforms and political promises from successive Westminster Governments, more than four in 10 of all people in homes relying on disability benefits live in poverty. There can be no more compelling evidence that the UK Government must commit to making permanent the £20 uplift to universal credit and to extending it to other legacy benefits. The system is simply not fit for purpose, and that includes the work capability assessments. The SNP welcomed the suspension of face-to-face assessments, but some have started again and the anxiety and practical issues that that has caused cannot be underestimated.
To conclude, I would like to focus briefly on the issue of work. For so many disabled people, the disability employment gap and the challenges of work are so important and will become so much more pressing as we move out of the pandemic period. This is a time for the UK Government to step up and look at what is happening in Scotland and to show the leadership that will allow flexible, sustainable and continued work for many disabled people.
Marion Fellows (Motherwell and Wishaw) (SNP) [V]
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I thank the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for securing this important debate, and I thank the members of the Women and Equalities Committee and those who further contributed to this report. I also want to thank the right hon. Lady for her tribute to Dame Cheryl Gillan, who is indeed sorely missed.
It is important to note that the coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on people with disabilities and has in fact exacerbated the inequalities that they face. Disabled people are more likely to have died as a result of covid-19. Notwithstanding this Government’s aversion to independent judge-led inquiries, there must be one on this issue. We must understand why people with disabilities were so much more affected than others. Is it because of poverty? A recently published report by the Social Market Foundation, commissioned by Scope, revealed that almost half of all people in poverty in the UK are disabled or live with someone who is disabled. The Disability Benefits Consortium reports that 82% of disabled benefit claimants have had to spend “more money than normal” during the pandemic. Almost two thirds have had to go without essential items, and almost half report being unable to pay basic bills for rent and utilities.
Scope recently reported on difficulties with employment and support allowance, such as work capability assessments not being scheduled before the end of the 365-day period. This means that entitlement to the supplementary benefits that claimants should receive is withheld and they can become between £54 and £39 a week worse off. If someone then has to claim universal credit instead, they face a five-week wait. If they have earnings above the threshold, they might not qualify at all, leaving them without adequate support.
The SNP has repeatedly called for the £20 per week uplift in universal credit to be applied to legacy benefits such as ESA, but the Government have completely refused to do so. When that lifeline ends, 700,000 UK families will be pushed into poverty when their incomes fall by £1,000 a year.
The UK Government have had difficulty in communicating with people with disabilities, as pointed out in the report. Even an easy thing to do such as having a BSL signer at No. 10 briefings during the pandemic was not in place, whereas in Scotland the daily briefings with the First Minister were signed from the start. It is not hard to arrange, but the lack of that basic tool for the deaf community reveals a lack of thought on the best way to communicate directly with deaf members of the population who need to understand what is going on. They feel cut off at the best of times.
The report notes that the use of “do not resuscitate” notices, which emerged in the early days of the pandemic, is “deeply concerning”. These issues caused disabled people great distress and anxiety and left them feeling that their lives were less valued than others. Indeed, one of my staff was deeply affected by the rising panic on UK forums where this was being discussed. I was really pleased that I could reassure her that such a practice was not being carried out in Scotland. Bad communication makes bad situations worse.
People with disabilities must never be othered by Government, which is why the SNP Scottish Government have built a social security system based on the principle of dignity and respect. As set out in their Budget, the Scottish Government have committed £3.5 billion in benefits to support people with disabilities in 2020-21. Those payments will reach more than 800,000 people. The money will go directly to the people in Scotland who need it most.
The first disability assistance benefit to be introduced by the Scottish Government was the child winter heating assistance annual payment of £200. That is the only annual winter heating payment for children in the UK, and it represents a £2.9 million investment in the health and wellbeing of the most severely disabled children and young people. Payments have already been made to people who are able to benefit from the care component of child disability living allowance.
The Cabinet Office disability unit is developing a national strategy for disabled people, and the Minister for Care has said that that will be published “later this spring”, but later this spring is not an exact enough date. We need to know when it will be published. May I suggest that the Minister look at what the Scottish Government have already done in publishing a delivery plan called “A Fairer Scotland for Disabled People”? That is our delivery plan to incorporate the United Nations convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. It covers the period from 2016 to 2021, and it aims to make equality of opportunity, access to services and independent living a reality for all disabled people in Scotland.
The Scottish SNP Government are already delivering things such as free bus travel for disabled people and have protected the disabled students allowance and bursaries. They have changed the rules on war disablement pensions so that they are exempt from the assessment of income. The Scottish Government will continue to fund support payments to severely disabled people, enabling them to live as independently as possible. This Government should do as much.
Angela Crawley (Lanark and Hamilton East) (SNP) [V]
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Graham, and to have the opportunity to discuss the Women and Equalities Committee report on the unequal impact of covid in relation to disability and access to services.
I put on record my thanks to the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for her leadership, and to my Committee colleagues, the hon. Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), as well as all those who contributed their work on the issue. As a member of the Committee, I am pleased that the report puts on record the lived experience of disabled people throughout the pandemic, which has exacerbated the inequalities they face. One of the report’s most import findings is, sadly, the fact that disabled people are more likely than non-disabled people to have died of covid-19 in the past year. At this time of mourning, it is worth remembering them. I hope the Government will take seriously the report’s recommendations.
Many disabled people came before the Committee to describe their lived experience of the issues of food insecurity and the struggle to access online shopping delivery slots. Ultimately, the UK Government must ensure that they continue to make their messaging, whether on the pandemic or on other Government announcements and communications, accessible, through BSL interpreters and in other formats. Today, we have heard the SNP’s announcement in its manifesto in relation to such commitments.
It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friends the Members for East Renfrewshire (Kirsten Oswald) and for Motherwell and Wishaw (Marion Fellows), who highlighted the fact that this is a tale of two Governments. In relation to the forthcoming elections to the Scottish Parliament, the First Minister has announced that the Scottish Government have introduced the first social security system of any devolved Government and that the SNP will continue to address the issues of social care by investing £800 million in a national care service over the next Parliament, as well as many, many more commitments to reduce inequality and to improve the life chances of many Scots.
The manifesto also contains announcements on the four-day working week and a pilot on greater flexible working, for which I have been calling for some years. The benefits outweigh all of the associated costs by reducing the gender pay gap, allowing those with disabilities to maintain working lives and improving the life-work balance of so many families.
The report summarises what we now know is for many people and for many lives the long-term impact of covid. Following on from the report, we need to highlight and bring attention to the need to prepare for the issue of long covid, and to consider the response the Government make to that. Today, the SNP has made a commitment to work with GPs to co-ordinate a multidisciplinary response on the issue of long covid. I call on the Minister to consider what more his Government can do to ensure that they are supporting those suffering from long covid.
As we listen to each of those who have contributed to the debate, it is worth noting that the report makes it clear that in many respects the UK Government have failed disabled people throughout this pandemic. I call on the Minister to consider what more his Government can do, specifically on issues of food insecurity. As we have heard, many disabled people who relied on others to shop for them or to deliver food to them during the national pandemic faced struggles to access online shopping and delivery slots, as well as websites and telephone lines that were inaccessible to people with sensory impairment. On accessibility, the report recommends that Ministers and officials involved in communicating public health messages to disabled people should undergo training on psychologically informed communications that fully take into account and emphasise disabled people’s lived experience.
The report highlights that many of the issues in the social care sector have been exposed and exacerbated by the pandemic, such as the lack of long-term sustainable funding and workforce issues, including low pay and high staff turnover. Often, poor integration of NHS services meant that many people were even further impacted on by an already inequitable system.
Finally, it is worth noting that as we make our way through the vaccination programme and can see a way out of this pandemic, covid might continue to impact on the lives and life chances of many disabled people. There is little research at this point on the effects of long covid, but I am sure I am not alone in hearing from constituents about the effects of this virus on previously fit and healthy people. Long covid is an invisible illness that needs much more medical research and support, and the Government should provide desperately needed support to those experiencing the long-term impact of the health effects of the viral infection.
This really is a tale of two Governments and a matter of choices, so I hope that we will see a real commitment from this Government and this Minister to improve the life chances and opportunities of those most adversely affected by long covid, and of all those experiencing disabilities who are affected by the adverse impacts of the covid pandemic.
Sir Graham Brady (in the Chair)
Before I call the shadow Minister, I thank everybody who has participated for being considerate in their use of time, which has made it possible to let everybody have their say.
Charlotte Nichols (Warrington North) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir Graham. May I begin by thanking the Women and Equalities Committee for its invaluable work in writing this incredibly important and serious report? The right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes), who is the Chair of the Committee, made a number of vital points in her opening address, which I hope the Minister will respond to fully. I thank the Labour Members of the Committee, including my hon. Friends the Members for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) and for Liverpool, Riverside (Kim Johnson), for their robust contributions both to the report and to this debate. I join them in thanking the individuals and organisations that contributed evidence to the inquiry so that the Committee could provide the focus and consideration that the Government have failed to give to the lived experience of disabled people in this country.
The whole country has looked to the Government for action to keep us safe, and they have a particular obligation to protect the most vulnerable, who have been especially exposed to the virus. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead (Abena Oppong-Asare) highlighted that the virus has exacerbated existing inequalities. Although the past year has been difficult, depressing and frightening for us all, disabled people have suffered even more than the rest. I join her in paying tribute to the work of Inclusion London, which I have also met recently, in highlighting the multiple injustices that disabled people have faced during this pandemic.
As the report states, the Office for National Statistics found in September that almost 60% of deaths with coronavirus were of disabled people, even though they make up only around 16% of the country’s population. In November, Public Health England estimated that the death rate with coronavirus of people with learning disabilities might be more than 6.3 times higher than that of the general population. The report clearly sets out a number of areas where disabled people were unfortunately let down by a Government who should have done better to protect them. Instead, they were failed. The report sets out how too often they were an afterthought throughout the pandemic.
On the provision of food, 60% of disabled people struggled to access essential supplies in the early months of the pandemic, but the report notes that the Government’s definition of “clinically extremely vulnerable”—those medically shielding—“was an inappropriate proxy” for disabled people who needed help accessing food. That influenced the policies of the supermarkets, as the British Retail Consortium made it clear that it had been directed by the Government to prioritise the clinically extremely vulnerable group for online deliveries. We all know that demand for delivery slots increased vastly, and many disabled people who were not considered clinically extremely vulnerable had to rely on community volunteers. We thank everyone who stepped up to assist in that way, but it is not the standard of support that disabled people deserve.
The report calls for a Government assessment of the effectiveness of using the clinically extremely vulnerable definition for food provision, and we would welcome that assessment as well, because, in the words of the report, the definition
“may have contributed to some supermarkets overlooking their legal obligations to make reasonable adjustments for the broader population of disabled people”.
The report quotes the evidence of Fazilet Hadi of Disability Rights UK, who said that
“tens of thousands of other…disabled people felt that, for various reasons, maybe not medical, they could not go out either. It may have been that they were blind or had learning disabilities and felt social distancing would have been difficult. […] it might have been because they could not stand in queues for a long time. There are a whole host of reasons.”
That is why Labour agrees with the report that the Government need to adopt a social model of disability that recognises the challenges of lived experience that go beyond medical impairments to consideration of how we remove societal barriers.
The Government’s response to the report does not address that issue, even though it was the subject of a specific recommendation. Will the Minister explain why the Government did not recognise this issue sooner and urge supermarkets to use definitions other than “clinically extremely vulnerable”? When the NICE guidelines for critical care put too much emphasis on the clinical frailty scale, a revised set was published four days later. Why could the Government not make adjustments as they saw the real world impacts of their decisions?
I have discussed a number of the impacts on people with learning disabilities before, such as in a debate in December. At that time, the Minister for Social Care assured me that the blanket “do not resuscitate” orders were unacceptable and had been stopped, that the CQC was reviewing them and that an updated framework required GPs to review all such decisions for people with learning disabilities, to make sure that they are appropriate. My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) was absolutely right to highlight the horror it has caused disabled people and their families to learn that they may not receive the care that they deserve and should be able to expect in their time of greatest need.
The CQC has since reported, saying that
“poor record keeping and lack of audits meant that we could not always be assured that…decisions…were being made on individual assessments. Once…decisions were in place, it varied whether providers and local systems reviewed them.”
The CQC also said that of the 508 decisions put in place during the pandemic that had not been agreed in discussion with the person, their relative or carer, around a third— 180 out of 508—were still in place by mid-December. Is the Minister confident that all of these decisions have now been properly reviewed?
My hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside powerfully raised the crisis in social care and its impact on disabled people, alongside the harmful easements in the restrictions under the Coronavirus Act that affect the quality of care that they can expect to receive and the impact on their dignity. The report highlights the Government’s initial focus on the health service at the expense of social care, and the lack of personal protective equipment provision. That speaks to the Government’s ongoing neglect, as spending on adult social care has fallen in real terms by 2.1% since 2010-11, despite an increase in demand. Adult social care needs both funding and reform.
My hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow spoke at length about the impact on children with special educational needs or disabilities during the pandemic. On SEND, the report sets out how many children and young people received little or no support for three months, and it stresses the importance of the Government’s SEND review. I hope that the Minister can tell us in his response what scope the review will have to consider the focus on SEND in mainstream schools, including funding arrangements, and when the review is expected to be published.
Across all of these areas, the report says that
“we have been disappointed…with the Government’s attention to equality issues.”
It will not come as a surprise to those of us who see Ministers’ attitudes to equalities as just another opportunity to wage their tired and divisive “war on woke”, but this is where we see the real world impact.
The report states that, because of the need to restore disabled people’s confidence that their needs are given equal consideration, the Government
“should consent to the Equality and Human Rights Commission issuing a statutory Code of Practice on the Public Sector Equality Duty.”
Labour supports that call.
One issue not mentioned in the report, but which has a massive impact on disabled people, is the Government’s failure to uplift legacy social security benefits, even in line with the temporary £20 increase in universal credit. They have failed to support more than 1.9 million disabled people who have faced increased costs as a result of the pandemic, such as to pay for PPE for their carers. That once again exposes the fact that the Government’s priorities do not include the most vulnerable. There is some unintentional comedy in the report, about consultation:
“Ministers described a very positive, inclusive approach with open lines of communication.”
Most witnesses had a different perspective.
All of us understand and, indeed, sympathise about the difficulties of setting up new rules and systems in a hurry at the beginning of the pandemic, but Ministers should learn from mistakes and not deny reality. Something that has been raised in the debate by several hon. Members, and repeatedly with the Government over months, is the question why they—and not least the Prime Minister—have been so resistant to having British Sign Language interpreters at the briefings. The report makes it clear that that has been alienating and dangerous for deaf people, and people with hearing difficulties.
My hon. Friend the Member for Hampstead and Kilburn rightly raised the question of other barriers that deaf people face, including the lack of provision of clear face coverings in public sector settings, which made communication extremely difficult for those who rely on lip-reading. My hon. Friend the Member for Erith and Thamesmead also raised important issues about the adverse effects in connection with accessibility of public transport—something that the shadow Women and Equalities and Transport teams have raised with the Government—particularly for such things as pre-booked passenger assistance.
The lack of progress in those areas says much about how the needs of disabled people have been overlooked or neglected during the crisis. The Select Committee report calls for a separate independent inquiry on the impact on disabled people, once the situation is stable, as I hope it now is. I look forward to the findings of that inquiry, so that disabled people cannot be overlooked again. I look forward to the Minister setting out a timeline for the beginning and conclusion of the inquiry. We cannot accept more delay while the needs of our disabled constituents continue to be unmet by the Government.
The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir Graham. I, too, want to put on record my personal tribute to Cheryl Gillan—a sad loss. No parliamentarian did more to champion the rights and opportunities of those with autism, and it was a great pleasure for me as the Minister for Disabled People to meet and work with her, and respond to her comprehensive, proactive and constructive letters, asks and challenges. With my ministerial hat on, I would say that her greatest legacy is how much she achieved for those who were reliant on having that strong voice in Parliament.
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) who not only spoke passionately in the debate but has, through her excellent chairmanship of the Women and Equalities Committee, held the Government and the whole of Parliament to account on a number of serious issues. She is a formidable parliamentarian, and is held in the highest regard among colleagues. Frankly, it is staggering that she is not in the Cabinet helping to lead the challenges that are often raised, and on which we must keep a laser focus.
The unprecedented challenges of covid have impacted all, including disabled people, as has been highlighted by the important report by the Women and Equalities Committee. In my role as the Minister for Disabled People I welcome the opportunity to talk through the measures that the Government have put in place for disabled people throughout the pandemic, and how we are responding to those serious recommendations. My involvement in my cross-Government capacity, and that of the Disability Unit for which I am responsible, is to influence and shape Government policies, sharing our subject matter expertise, data, and knowledge of lived experiences and connecting relevant stakeholders with colleagues across Government to reach the best outcomes for disabled people.
Before I turn to the specific points raised by my right hon. Friend and the report, I would like to say how proud I am of the roll-out of the vaccination programme, which was an absolutely key issue and ask of the disability stakeholders that I regularly meet with. The Government are now offering vaccines to all those aged over 45, those on the learning disability register or clinically extremely vulnerable people, and health and social care staff. I am very pleased that my own Department has linked with NHS services in England to share data on over 600,000 carers, allowing the NHS to invite those carers to book an appointment for a vaccine. This is a huge achievement, and makes a significant impact on the lives of disabled people as they navigate this pandemic. This is a good example of cross-Government work.
Turning to the specific points raised, from the very start of the pandemic, we have ensured that the views of disabled people and their families and carers have been taken into account when considering how best to support disabled people and link through to the relevant Ministers, Departments and agencies. Casting our minds back to the beginning of the pandemic, there was real concern about access to food and medicine, as a number of the people who have spoken in this debate have highlighted. In normal circumstances, Governments would typically take 12 to 18 months to develop policies, engaging, consulting and piloting before implementing new legislation. However, with the challenges of covid, that time was simply not available.
Therefore, by connecting key stakeholders with real lived experience, we were able to help relevant Ministers and Departments develop responses quickly. For example, we linked stakeholders including Disability Rights UK, Scope, Sense, Leonard Cheshire and the RNIB with the Minister for farming, fishing and food, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Victoria Prentis), and her officials to engage through the food vulnerability stakeholder group. Within days, they were able to resolve this potentially serious issue, as the Committee report highlights. This is an example of best practice. Several speakers raised the challenge faced by those who did not get included in the clinically extremely vulnerable list, but an additional scheme was organised through 305 local authorities, Age UK, Mind, Scope and RNIB, which were able to then make referrals for priority online shopping slots. Again, these important changes were vital.
More widely, to identify potential issues and areas of real lived experiences, we have an extensive programme of engagement. I regularly meet with the Disability Charities Consortium, which includes Scope, Leonard Cheshire, Disability Rights UK, the National Autistic Society, Mind, Mencap, Sense, RNIB, RNID and the Business Disability Forum. That includes being joined by relevant ministerial colleagues to discuss aspects of the pandemic’s impact on disabled people. During covid-19, this forum’s work has included meetings with the Minister for Covid Vaccine Deployment, my hon. Friend the Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim Zahawi); the Minister for Care, my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid Kent (Helen Whately); and the Minister for Civil Society. It has been a real opportunity to share their expertise and help shape the urgent new policies that are needed to support those who are most vulnerable in society.
Furthermore, the Cabinet Office covid-19 taskforce considers disproportionately impacted groups, including disabled people, through policy development to tackle the pandemic. They do this through close working with the Equalities Hub and, within it, the Disability Unit, co-ordinating with other Government Departments and wider stakeholders to ensure a holistic approach to policy implications and delivery. In addition, we have regular stakeholder engagement through our regional network, which includes disabled people, carers, and crucially those with real lived experiences.
Turning to accessibility, I reaffirm that it is vital that public information on covid-19 is accessible to all, and we have made key strides in this area. These are things I was challenged on during my stakeholder engagement, and I happily raise these across Government. The Government are committed to providing both key covid-related guidance and communications in alternative formats, including large print, easy read, British Sign Language and audio. Most recently, this has covered ensuring that national restrictions, vaccination testing and the Government’s road map are accessible. We have now established BSL interpretation at the No. 10 press conference via the BBC News channel and iPlayer, available on all TV packages as part of Freeview. Accessible information is also available on the Government’s social media channels.
A significant further improvement, following the Committee’s report, is that the Cabinet Office now has a senior lead for accessible communications as part of the national resilience communications hub, who meets with a group of disability charities on a monthly basis. The group is briefed on the latest covid-19 guidance, including accessible versions, and works to ensure that communications to disabled people continue to be accessible and timely. Most recently, we held bespoke briefing sessions with the disability communications working group on 25 March, explaining the road map and communications activity, enabling charities to brief their audiences, prepare and share accessible communications through their network. I have personally pushed hard for that and I thank the Women and Equalities Committee for its support on the need for this vital additional layer of support.
Turning to health and social care, as we have seen, the covid-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the NHS and social care systems. Recognising the challenges in care settings, the Department of Health and Social Care made £546 million available in its adult social care winter plan, including money for vital infection control measures to ensure that disabled people getting social care and support are kept as safe as possible. The Government has also made £4.6 billion available to local authorities to address pressures on local services, including adult social care. Furthermore, the Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention announced £500 million for mental health recovery, of which £31 million will be used to support learning disability and autism services, alongside an additional £3.6 million announced by the Minister for Care for disability voluntary sector organisations to provide practical support to disabled people to mitigate the impacts of covid-19.
I know many disabled people and their families have raised concerns about easements to the Care Act, which were introduced as a temporary measure to help local authorities continue to meet the most urgent and acute needs in the face of covid-19, when local authorities were experiencing extraordinary pressures. The measure was used sparingly and has now ended. In response to concerns about the use of “do not resuscitate” decisions and the clinical frailty scale, the Government recognised the issues and guidance was changed strongly and quickly.
It is important to recognise the particular challenges the covid-19 outbreak has had on families of children with disabilities or serious illnesses. Supporting vulnerable children is a priority for this Government and has been central to our response throughout the pandemic. Turning to the work done by the Minister for Children and Families, the Government provided £40.8 million for the family fund in 2020-21, which supported more than 90,000 low-income families who are raising children who are disabled or seriously ill.
I know there are concerns about the legal duties to provide support to children and young people with education, health and care plans. The Secretary of State for Education has not used this power since July last year and has made it clear that he would need a compelling reason before doing so again.
Caroline Nokes
I thank the Minister for giving way on the point about the Secretary of State for Education’s powers. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made it clear that he would require a compelling reason to use them, but he has not used them, he does not plan to use them and there is much less need to use them. Will my hon. Friend indicate whether there might be a timescale for when they are going to go?
Justin Tomlinson
That is a fair challenge. I do not have the answer, but I will certainly make sure that the Secretary of State for Education gives a clear response to that question.
While the covid-19 pandemic has unavoidably delayed the completion of the special educational needs and disabilities review, the Secretary of State for Education is clear that it remains a key priority for this Government. It is vital that we deliver on our promises to children and young people and the DFE intends to publish proposals for consultation in the coming months.
Several speakers talked about the importance of disability employment. I am incredibly proud, as the Minister for Disabled People, to have presided over record disability employment. In normal times, when I have the pleasure of travelling around the country on visits, when I talk to young disabled people and say, “If you were the Minister, what would be the single thing that you would want to see?” the answer is nearly always, “I just want to have the same opportunities that my friends have for work and career progression.” I have never lost sight of that. I speak as somebody who has employed and benefited from employing disabled people, both prior to being an MP and as an MP. We have faced unprecedented challenges, but we have not lessened our ambition to have a million more disabled people in work by 2027. I want to reiterate that that has not changed.
During covid, we have made changes to the support provided. We have recently announced over 300 more disability employment advisers, taking the figure to over 1,000. We continue to review our Work and Health programme. All of the plan for jobs is fully inclusive, and we have made changes to schemes such as Access to Work, where we now provide support within the workplace. We will keep that beyond covid-19, which will perhaps open up opportunities for more people who have not been able to access work opportunities up to now. I am proud that we have reached 20,000 employers signed up to Disability Confident. The equivalent of 11.2 million employees are now represented by businesses in the Disability Confident scheme, sharing best practice about helping disabled people into work, to progress in work and be retained in work. That is very much a priority for me and the Department.
While there will undoubtedly be opportunities to learn from our covid-19 response in the longer term, the overall picture is that the Government have moved fast and flexibly to provide support for disabled people in these unprecedented times. The importance of cross-Government work linked to and supported by those with real lived experiences is absolutely clear, as it allows us to move faster and more flexibly to provide support to those most in need, including those with disabilities.
To ensure that that notion is embedded at the heart of the Government, we now have ministerial disability champions in every Department, with whom I meet regularly, with the full authority of the Prime Minister. They are genuinely enthused, engaged and determined to play their part on behalf of their respective Departments. In our forthcoming ambitious national strategy for disabled people, we will demonstrate the very real and vital focus on cross-Government work to remove barriers and create a fully inclusive society as we return to normality.
In conclusion, I thank all the staff and volunteers across the country working on the frontline, and in particular those supporting people with disabilities, as we navigate these challenges. I thank again my right hon. Friend and her Committee for their fantastic ongoing work, the Committee’s important report and the recommendations it made. The Government and I personally take them very seriously, and we are acting on them.
Caroline Nokes
I put on record my thanks to all hon. Members who contributed to the debate. I recognise that lots of Government Departments are very much in the frame here, whether it be the DHSC, the DWP, the DFE or, indeed, DEFRA, and my hon. Friend the Minister has not done a bad job of answering for all of them. However, what has been singularly lacking is the provision to him by those Departments of dates. When might we see an independent inquiry? When might we see the SEND review from the DFE? When might we see measures to integrate health and social care effectively from the DHSC? I ask him in particular to take back to fellow Ministers the message we heard repeatedly from colleagues about social care, the lack of attention on it, and the impact that has had on the lived experience of way too many disabled people up and down the country in every single one of our constituencies.
As my hon. Friend the Minister said, the pandemic gave the Government an unprecedented challenge, and in many instances there was really good cross-Government working to rise to the challenge. What Members need now is some sort of assurance that lessons have been learned and will continue to be learned because, should another public health crisis like covid hit us in future, we cannot afford to have disabled people pushed to the back of the queue, have their needs forgotten and feel, as too many of those who spoke to us of their lived experiences said, forgotten, marginalised and as if they did not matter. I urge him to ensure that that sensation is not left with them.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the Fourth Report of the Women and Equalities Committee, “Unequal impact? Coronavirus, disability and access to services: full Report”, HC 1050.