Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970: 40th Anniversary

Lord Corbett of Castle Vale Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Lords Chamber

Moved By

[Lord Corbett of Castle Vale]

To call attention to the 40th anniversary of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970; and to move for Papers.

[Lord Corbett of Castle Vale]

My Lords, it is a privilege to be asked to open this Back-Bench Labour debate. I am just sorry that the remarks I made about that earlier are still not reflected on the Annunciator, but there we go. It is a great pleasure to see so many dedicated, determined and experienced people from all the fields of disability lined up to speak.

Over the past 40 years, the eight pages of the Act have changed the lives of literally millions of people in the United Kingdom and around the world. There cannot be many Members of Parliament who, having come first in a ballot for the restricted time to launch a Private Member’s Bill, can have had such a profound and long-lasting impact. The author of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act did more than leave a footprint in the sand; he made history. His was the first legislation in the world to enshrine the belief that people with disabilities had rights which should be respected and enforced in law, and to set out a detailed framework of what those rights were and remain. From the bleak, ignored existence of those whom society hid away, this Act offered liberation, recognition and a start on the long road towards equality with all other citizens.

Some might say that this was enough of an achievement—not, however, the father of this Act. He went on in 1974 to gain another first—to become the world’s first Minister for Disabled People. As noble Lords already know, I refer to my much respected noble friend Lord Morris of Manchester, whose determined and passionate commitment has achieved so much over this past 40 years. It was a Labour MP and a Labour Government who put this groundbreaking legislation on the statute book, but I quickly acknowledge that, over the years, others of all political colours and none, in both Houses, have also promoted legislation to bring people with disabilities in from an isolated cold.

The words of my noble friend, in moving the Second Reading of what was then the Bill in another place on 5 December 1969, stand proudly. They are as passionate, dignified and inspirational now as they were 40 years ago. I will not quote the whole of this passage, much as I wanted to, because I suspect at least one other speaker may do so before we have finished, but the ambition he set out for the Bill included that,

“if years cannot be added to the lives of the most severely disabled, at least life can be added to their years”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/12/69; col. 1863.]

What a beautiful use of language to express such an important, although simple, thought.

The Act unlocked doors which had kept people with disabilities ignored, isolated and unheard. It asserted their fundamental right to be assisted to participate fully in society and, crucially, the ways in which this was to be achieved. The Act required local councils for the first time to listen and talk to people with disabilities about their needs and then—this was the important bit—to set out how they were going to meet them. No longer would young people with disabilities be hidden in long-stay geriatric hospital wards, nor elderly people left, ignored and forgotten, in substandard residential homes. The special educational needs of people who were deaf, blind or dyslexic, or those with degrees of autism, would be acknowledged and met. All buildings open to the public would be, for the first time, just that—open to all of the public, including people with disabilities, with toilet facilities for them.

As opposition disability spokesman, I helped the Labour candidate in Nuneaton in the 1997 election. He put me in a wheelchair and took me round some shops to buy a suit. The first was easy to enter but had two steps in the middle of the shop which were impossible to navigate in a wheelchair. The assistants and manager were more puzzled than anything else by why anybody in a wheelchair should want to buy a suit; presumably, they had not seen people in wheelchairs wearing suits before. We made our excuses and left. The second shop had steps at its entrance, which again made wheelchair access impossible. The third had an almost vertical flight of stairs up to the gents’ suit department on the first floor. The owner, to his credit, offered to bring down some suits for me to try on and then did so. However, this had to be done in the women’s changing cubicle, with him holding the curtains across the back of the wheelchair. The candidate and I explained what we were about. Again, to his credit, the owner acknowledged that he had never even considered access for customers using wheelchairs and would do so.

Ignored and forgotten, in 1970 no one accurately knew how many people there were with disabilities. There was little research into their needs or plans to meet them. It was estimated in that year that there were, perhaps, 1.5 million. A survey in 1996-97 revealed that there were 8.5 million. The scarring offence to people with disabilities—sadly, some of this remains—is that they were told what they could not do, rather than being asked what they could. In my experience, people will often do more than is expected of them, but it makes huge sense to ask them before any decisions are taken.

These assumptions about people with disabilities led to a denial of the right to work where this was possible with assistance from employers. We all know that the ability to work, with training for skills and assistance with adaptations, expands life chances, helps individuals to fulfil themselves and makes society stronger. It adds up to the cement and bricks of community building.

Much is changing in the employment available to people with disabilities. Since 1998, there has been a 10 per cent increase in the number of people at work who have disabilities—up from 38 per cent to 48 per cent in 2008. Nothing must be done by this coalition Government to slow this progress. It is also perhaps a recognition that we should think much more about people with different abilities than people with disabilities.

The previous Government’s Access to Work budget was due to rise by £138 million by 2013-14. Last year, this scheme helped around 32,000 people with different abilities to help or get jobs, assisted in part by the IT revolution. One of the challenges for this coalition Government is to understand the importance to people’s lives and our economic health and prosperity of protecting and promoting the opportunities for people with different abilities to help build our future. I assume from the rhetoric of the coalition’s programme for government that this is what the proclaimed aims of freedom, fairness and responsibility imply. It must be the freedom for people with different abilities to access the new jobs that must be created in our low-carbon economy. Fairness implies that they will get all the access they need to get these jobs. All I can say is that they are ready and willing to take this responsibility.

But it is not only about money. Attitudes towards people with different abilities must continue to change, not least as regards people with learning disabilities and mental health conditions. I said earlier that people with different abilities need assistance to help get them into work to gain dignity and self-respect. We need also to help create and sustain the small and medium-sized enterprises that provide 96 out of every 100 jobs in our economy. People with different abilities deserve and demand their place in this process. Some are doing just that. I was told about a woman in her 40s working as a sales rep, who discovered that she had epilepsy. She was her family's main earner and was anxious about what would happen to her job. At her local hospital, an epilepsy nurse told her how to contact the Government’s Access to Work scheme. Her adviser arranged for her to have a paid driver so that she could keep her job and feed her family. That is why I say that this Government should keep their hands off the Access to Work scheme. There are broader backs who can help than this woman's.

I much applaud the charity, Sports Leaders, and know that many in the House do so. It seeks to change lives by encouraging and motivating young people to create and run sports activities in their communities. In schools, colleges and universities, more than 200,000 people a year, including some in prison, learn how to help their local communities to flourish and grow. For example, Sally Wallace is a school sports co-ordinator who fell badly off her bike and spent six months learning how to adapt to life in a wheelchair. She now lives independently at home, has got her job back and works for Priory Sports and Technology College in Preston and five linked primary schools, helping students to achieve Sports Leadership awards.

Reuben was involved in a hit-and-run car accident, resulting in traumatic brain injury, and spent five months in hospital with cognitive and physical difficulties. After rehabilitation at a brain injury centre, he started a 35-hour, level 2 award in community Sports Leadership. He completed the course, and the 10 hours’ volunteering that went with it, last summer. He now lives independently in sheltered accommodation, and coaches in a local gym and, in his spare time, the local football team. He is now training for the 2012 Paralympics, his goals being the 100 metres and the blind seven-a-side football. As somebody said, it can be done.

Emma is profoundly deaf, worked as a daycare assistant and wanted to get more involved in sports. She attended a five-day Sports Leadership coach course, joining a group of deaf and hard-of-hearing people. Since completing the course, Emma has learnt to use her own initiative when creating and administering training sessions. She organises activities, leads and motivates others and, with the skills gained from the course, has secured a work placement at Ramsgate Leisure Centre, if anybody is passing those doors. These are just some examples of what people with different abilities can achieve when their determination is matched by the assistance that they need, the pathway to which was so well laid by my noble friend Lord Morris.

I mention these people because they illustrate how, with assistance, they can overcome medical conditions and go on to succeed in paid and fulfilling employment. The previous Government planned to guarantee 3,500 places on the Access to Work programmes for people with learning disabilities and mental conditions. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Freud, will tell me that the Government will honour these plans as part of their fairness agenda. The scaremongering of the Deputy Prime Minister about the severity of cuts needed in public expenditure has been shown to be hollow. The noble Lord, Lord Razzall, who is no longer in his place, does not seem to have understood this either. The truth—which the Office for Budget Responsibility has confirmed—is that borrowing will be £10 billion less than forecast in March by the previous Government, and next year it will be £8 billion less than forecast. That is enough to protect people with different abilities from the impact of savage cuts.

I want to say this clearly—it repeats what I said in my maiden speech in the other House in November 1974—there is no possible reason or excuse to take away assistance from people with different abilities for whom we have the legal and moral responsibility to assist in becoming fully equal citizens. I have no doubt that I carry the House with me on that.

I turn to some of the challenges ahead. The Government’s Office for Disability Issues published Roadmap 2025, which set out plans across government of how it would seek to assist disabled people to achieve equality. It listed 14 steps, but I shall not list them because I do not have time. They aimed for better service provision for disabled children and set aside £370 million to support short breaks for these children and their families. I hope that the Minister can confirm that that money will not be stolen. The Ministry of Justice and the Department of Health are developing plans to help access to mental health services including learning disability services for offenders. This will partially implement the recommendations of the report of my noble friend Lord Bradley to divert offenders with mental health problems or learning disabilities away from prison into more appropriate services.

There is always more to do, but the progress achieved in the past 40 years must have been unimaginable, even to my noble friend Lord Morris when he set out on his journey. Since then, successive Governments and parliamentarians have worked towards equality for people with different abilities, and that mission remains incomplete.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Corbett of Castle Vale]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that response, which I am sure will be welcomed all around the House. He has made some specific and important commitments and I just want to say to him that all who have taken part in this debate, along with many other noble Lords, will be there assisting him to do his very best to make sure that those commitments are carried out. Not the least of those are two that he mentioned several times. The first is to continue to make progress towards full equality. Secondly, and what I most especially welcome, he has taken the point made from all sides of the House that the most vulnerable must be protected from the impact of the cuts that are going to be made.

I have, if I may, a little task for the government Chief Whip. It is a matter of great regret that we have been denied the views of Conservative Back-Benchers in the debate, but I know that there are many on that side of the House who take an interest in these affairs. Over the weekend, the noble Baroness might want to consider whether she should get the naughty bench out and talk to one or two of her colleagues on Monday morning.

At the start of the debate, I said that there was a distinguished and dedicated cast list and I hope that your Lordships will recognise that in no way did I exaggerate. I want to thank all noble Lords who have made the time to take part in what I think has been an important debate. This is a milestone that deserves to be recognised and, again, I pay tribute to my noble and much respected friend Lord Morris of Manchester. Progress has been made and, while we all know that there is a long way to go, I think that we are going to get there. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion for Papers.

Motion withdrawn.