Disabled People

Lord Ashley of Stoke Excerpts

Tuesday 27th July 2010 Lords Chamber

Asked By

[Lord Ashley of Stoke]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have discussed disability issues with the Royal Association of Disability and Rehabilitation.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, my department engages regularly with RADAR to discuss disability issues. Ministers and officials at the Department for Work and Pensions are committed to a constructive dialogue with RADAR and will seek RADAR’s continued involvement in the Government’s disability equality agenda.

[Lord Ashley of Stoke]

I thank the Minister for that response. Can he be a little more forthcoming and tell us how often these meetings are held?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I believe the Minister for Disabled People, my honourable friend Maria Miller, phoned the chief executive of RADAR in her first week in office. RADAR then attended a round table event that she hosted last month. RADAR is a member of a group of organisations that meets regularly—four times a year—with the Minister. The first meeting of that organisation is tomorrow. RADAR is also a member of the Right to Control Advisory Group, which meets every six weeks with the Office for Disability Issues. There are also ad hoc meetings between RADAR and Ministers and officials across government.

[Lord Ashley of Stoke]

I welcome the discussions but that does not tell me what the Minister has said.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, to make it clear, we have a regular dialogue with RADAR and the whole disability lobby. I know that my honourable friend Maria Miller has seen 15 different lobby groups so far.

Disabled People: UN Convention

Lord Ashley of Stoke Excerpts

Monday 5th July 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, when we look at our obligations under the convention, we are clearly looking at a journey towards complete equality for disabled people. It would be naive to claim that within one bound we shall produce total equality. This has been a long journey, which started many years ago. We are committed to press on and make sure that as we move ahead we produce greater equality and improve the lot of disabled people steadily as the years progress.

[Lord Ashley of Stoke]

The Minister’s assurances are welcome, but how do the Government explain the reservations that they have made? It is not so much the question of individual reservations, but the cumulative effect of all four of them. It gives the impression that the British Government are not interested and certainly are only lukewarm towards the issues covered by the four reservations to the convention. How does the Minister square that?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we have four reservations on this convention, and there are two ways of looking at that. A large number of countries have signed—145 of them, and 87 have ratified. We have taken this convention with great seriousness and looked through the implications of applying it, rather than looking at it as a purely aspirational matter. Of those four reservations, we are working extremely hard to ensure that we can remove two.

Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970: 40th Anniversary

Lord Ashley of Stoke Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashley of Stoke]

My Lords, it is difficult at this stage in the debate to avoid repetition. Inevitably, much of what I wanted to say has already been said, but I warmly endorse the praise for my noble friend Lord Corbett. I thought that his was a brilliant speech, and he said much of what many Members would want to say.

So far as the powers of the poet are concerned, the noble Lord, Lord Morris, was a marvellous guide and driver, combining the two functions in one set of activities. We are all very grateful to him for his marvellous work on that. The Bill will be a perpetual monument to his hard work in piloting it through all its stages in the House of Commons. In retrospect, that was far more difficult than it appeared—I appreciate that.

Of course, it was a team effort, which was one of the main reasons for the passage of the Bill to an Act. I add my tribute to some of the team players mentioned by my noble friend Lord Morris. In addition to the Labour MPs Lewis Carter-Jones, Laurence Pavitt and Fred Evans, there were Conservative activists who worked extensively, such as John Hannam, Neil Marten, John Astor, John Page, Jim Prior and the late Davina Darcy de Knayth, who my noble friend Lord Morris also mentioned.

We worked harmoniously during the passage of the Bill—there was no friction—and yet I would not want people to think that we were sentimental. One of the problems about disability is that some people tend to speak in dulcet, sentimental terms about the subject. They say, “We support the principle of your Bill but regret we can’t support the Bill itself”. Even the present Prime Minister, David Cameron, fell into that trap. In correspondence with him a few years ago, when I tried to persuade him to support my Bill on independent living for disabled people, he said,

“although we are unable to support your Bill, we fully share your aims and aspirations and would hope to play a constructive role in realising them under a future Conservative government”.

It is good that there is so much good will there, but when it comes to the crunch where do we stand? I will write to the Prime Minister following this debate to ask him how far he has got in supporting those sentiments.

In the course of the Bill we rejected sentimentality and had a tough, hard-edged argument. One of the many achievements of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, which is rarely understood, was that it led to the foundation and success of the All-Party Group on Disability. That group has grown in influence over the years. On a personal note, I served on it for 40 years, until I retired a few weeks ago. It is now in the extremely competent hands of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, and carries on with its influential and unostentatious work for disabled people.

One of the main achievements of the Act was that it drew attention to the subject of disability, which had hitherto been ignored completely. That meant that disabled people had been ignored as well. The Act became a hallmark and a point of reference that was absolutely crucial to progress. No one can doubt that disability is now a mainstream subject. Plenty of people are determined that it should remain so. Disabled people deserve all the attention that they can get. The Act of the noble Lord, Lord Morris, remains a major contribution to their health and welfare.