Business and Planning Bill

Debate between Baroness Grey-Thompson and Lord Naseby

Report stage & Report stage (Hansard) & Report stage (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 20th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Naseby (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I have taken part in every stage of this Bill and I believe that we must never forget that its basic principle is to get the economy going and in particular to help the hospitality industry. I do not know how it was for anyone else, but over this last weekend less than half the pubs in Bedfordshire were open to cater for people who wanted to go out on Friday or Saturday evening. Why were they not open? Either they did not have the space or they had not managed to get organised, et cetera. Against that, I pay tribute to what my noble friend Lord Blencathra, and the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Low, have done to ensure that the Government of the day have taken note of the challenges for disabled people. They have worked tirelessly on this and I say a great personal thank you to them. It is good that my noble friend on the Front Bench has listened and that we now have Amendment 16 before us.

The only other point I want to make is about guidance notes. I have been the chairman and the leader of a local authority and there is nothing worse than guidance notes that are out of date. They do not need to be 300 pages long; they need to be probably 20 clear and short statements of what is necessary in an emergency situation.

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB) [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, and others for continuing to raise the issue of access for disabled people, and I too will not rehearse my arguments again. I welcome the Government’s amendment and I have two questions for the noble Earl the Minister. How will this provision be monitored to ensure that reasonable access is not something that is provided from day one, which is what usually happens when the intention is good, but swiftly erodes as we move further out of lockdown, potentially leaving disabled people with a much poorer level of access than they currently have? My second question is: how will disabled people be able to make a complaint and be listened to if their access has been diminished?