Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Disabled Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I must apologise to the House for not getting my name down and for further taking up the time of your Lordships this morning, but I want to speak in the gap to indicate my strong support for the noble Lord who is bringing forward this Bill. I meant to sign up but I was working hard on something else and I am afraid that I took my eye off the ball—so I am sorry about that.

I commend the noble Lord on the thoroughness of his research and the excellent briefing that he has provided for us. In saying that, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if I say that there is one thing I do not quite agree with in his excellent briefing. Unless I have it wrong, at one point he says that there is no legal requirement to remove steps and replace them with ramps and that no one is compelling businesses to carry out their duty to make reasonable adjustments. I agree with the second part of that statement more than the first. With respect to the noble Lord, there is a duty. It does not refer to steps as such, but most of what the noble Lord wants to achieve would comfortably be covered by the reasonable adjustment duty. So far as service providers are concerned, it is anticipatory: that is to say, it is owed to disabled people generally. The service provider needs to make adjustments in anticipation of disabled people coming along and cannot fulfil their duty by simply waiting until a disabled person turns up. This is not the case for employers, but that is not a problem because the noble Lord’s Bill is about service providers. So there is a duty—but, like the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Bolton, I believe that the real issue is with enforcement. This Bill should not be necessary; it should have been widely, if not generally, complied with already.

I served on the National Disability Council, which advised the Government on the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 as soon as it came into force, and later on the Disability Rights Commission, which had rather stronger powers. One thing I remember from those days is that the DDA came in in three stages. The duty to remove policies, procedures and practices which discriminated against disabled people came in straightaway; the duty to provide auxiliary aids and services, such as hearing loops, came in after four years; and the duty to remove or alter physical features that discriminated against disabled people came in after eight years. So the removal of steps and the provision of ramps should have been fully implemented and complied with as long ago as 2003.

So there is a duty; the real issue is with enforcement. In a very conciliatory part of his speech—indeed, it was all conciliatory—the noble Lord said that he would be willing to do a deal with the Government in Committee over his Bill if they would agree to bring in regulations that would give effect to the provisions of his Bill. I suggest that the power to make these regulations is already there in the Equality Act. Section 22 lists a number of matters on which regulations may be made, and I shall mention three of them. Regulations may be made on,

“matters to be taken into account in deciding whether it is reasonable … to take a step”—

that is, “step” in the sense of actions that service providers have to take, not physical steps—

“things which are, or which are not, to be treated as physical features”,

and,

“things which are, or which are not, to be treated as alterations of physical features”.

If the Government were to use this regulation-making power, I do not pretend that it would necessarily be a magic bullet, but I suggest to the Minister, and I would like to hear her view on this, that if the Government would give serious consideration to making such regulations, it could take us a significant step closer to getting service providers’ compliance with their duties under the Act and with the duty that the Bill is seeking to lay upon them.

Cannabis

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 7th September 2017 Grand Committee

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I echo the congratulations offered by the noble Lord, Lord Teverson, to the noble Baroness, Lady Meacher, on securing this debate and for all her tireless work to secure a more rational policy on the regulation of drugs, from founding the all-party group, whose reports we have been reading, to her work and representations at the United Nations and around the world. The noble Baroness, in encouraging me to speak this afternoon, said that it need only be a very short speech. With the time limits, I think we have no option but to make a very short speech.

I declare an interest: I am a member of the aforementioned all-party group, but I was not involved in the inquiry into the medicinal use of cannabis. Cannabis, as we have heard, is classified with dangerous drugs with no medicinal value, yet it is clear that it does have medicinal value. It was perceived to provide great relief by 86% of those responding to an online survey commissioned by the all-party group. More than 90% reported no or only mild side-effects, whereas—as we just heard from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth—respondents using prescription medicines can experience considerable side-effects. The evidence is nuanced as to the precise scope of the medicinal value, but the Barnes review undertaken for the all-party group concluded that there is good evidence for the efficacy of cannabis in the management of chronic pain and the side-effects of chemotherapy.

At the very least, therefore, cannabis-based treatment can provide significant benefit for a group of patients of at least 10,000—and, in some estimations, very many more—suffering from chronic pain where other treatments have failed. This would be reason enough to reclassify cannabis. Schedules 2 and 3 include drugs that may be illegal for recreational use but can be made available on prescription. If cannabis were to be placed in Schedule 2, it would be in the same class as heroin, which is no less addictive—indeed, it is considerably more so, as we know—and there is no evidence of significant diversion of heroin from medical supplies to the illicit recreational market. Moreover, as we again heard from the noble Lord, Lord Howarth, Sativex, which is a proprietary product derived from cannabis, is classified in Schedule 4. In these circumstances, retaining cannabis in Schedule 1 is illogical and perverse.

The overriding reason for moving cannabis to one of the other schedules—this is my main point, really—is that it follows a policy of regulation rather than prohibition. In the reading I did in preparation for this debate, I counted that this has at least six consequential advantages, but I have time to mention only a couple of them. First, since the use of cannabis would now be lawful, patients could take it under medical guidance and supervision. When that guidance and supervision is not available, when people are forced to acquire their cannabis outside the law, the product that they obtain off the street is often much more harmful. How much better to be using it when it provides its benefits under proper medical supervision.

Secondly, the current regime places a stranglehold on research. Carrying out research into cannabis in the UK has been described as a costly obstacle course. It involves a minimum outlay of £5,000 to cover licensing and security, and licence applications can take as long as a year. It has been calculated that research involving Schedule 1 drugs takes significantly longer and costs about 10 times as much as research into other drugs.

In view of all the considerations that have been spoken to in the debate, I hope very much that the Minister will agree that the matter should be referred to the advisory council. Referring the matter for the opinion of an independent expert body, which of course does not commit the Government, is not exactly selling the pass.

Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Report

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, this is an excellent report, and I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and her colleagues on it and congratulate the noble Baroness on the forthright way in which she opened the debate this afternoon. A welcome feature of the report is the way in which it interpreted its remit broadly, to encompass not just the technicalities of equality legislation but the way in which the Equality Act underpins and supports the delivery of services, the accessibility of the environment to disabled people and how those services are delivered.

I want to talk about four of those service delivery-related issues, but first I will allude to a couple of general points. First, many of the protections for disabled people that have been introduced in recent years have depended on regulation, either in primary or secondary legislation. All too often, the Government have characterised these, rather pejoratively, as “red tape”, which they have used as a pretext for getting rid of the protections, under the so-called Red Tape Challenge. A good example would be the questionnaire procedure which was formerly available to assist complainants in making claims of discrimination, and which the committee would like to see brought back. The report makes an important point when it says that these things should properly be seen as protections for disabled people rather than burdens on business, and that their removal under the Red Tape Challenge should be reversed.

The second point is the need for a cumulative assessment of the impact of the many changes which have affected the lives of disabled people in recent years. Since 2010, the Government have introduced a long list of measures that not only have a negative impact in themselves but often impact on each other so as to compound this effect, with those having the greatest needs often being hardest hit. Social security and benefits provision have been abolished, been reduced or failed to match inflation. Eligibility criteria and assessment procedures have been tightened. Social care has suffered from savage reductions in local authority funding so that often only those with the greatest needs qualify for help.

A third area concerns civil rights. In many areas, as I have said, the drive to reduce regulation and red tape has resulted in rules and provision that were helpful to disabled people being weakened or abolished. Disabled people have argued for an assessment of the cumulative impact of all these changes. This is surely ungainsayable. If we want to know the impact of a measure, it is not enough to know what its impact is in isolation: we need to know what its impact is in the context of everything else that is going on. The Government have been resistant to the idea of cumulative impact assessment. It is obviously the case that cumulative impact assessment is attended by considerable difficulty, but that is not the same as saying it cannot be done. The EHRC and the National Institute of Economic and Social Research think it can, and it is obviously necessary if the Government are to have a proper understanding of the effectiveness of its policies. The Government need to redouble their efforts in this regard.

I now turn to the service delivery and environment-related issues I want to highlight. I hope it will be of greatest help to the House if I highlight issues which are of particularly concern to people with a vision impairment. In doing this, I am indebted to the RNIB and Guide Dogs for their briefings, and I declare my interest as a vice-president of the RNIB. When the Equality Bill was going through Parliament, I was successful in having Section 20(6) inserted to make it clear that the duty to make reasonable adjustments included a duty to provide information in an accessible format where appropriate.

Recommendation 13 of the report states:

“All government departments, local authorities and official bodies should review their means of communication with the public”.

To help achieve this, we are told, the Minister for Disabled People has convened an accessible communications round table. Although this is welcome, as the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, continued reviews are not enough. The provisions in the Act requiring the provision of accessible information have been in place since 1999 as part of the auxiliary aids provisions of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Disappointingly, after 17 years, public authorities still routinely fail to provide accessible information. The Government’s response stated that the DWP’s accessible communications are under review. They have been under review since 2014, but little progress has been made. Blind and partially sighted people continually report that the DWP fails to provide even the most basic information, such as appointment letters, decision letters notifying claimants of changes to their benefit and even sanction letters in an accessible format.

It is also disappointing that the Government’s response failed to address what appears to be a near-universal lack of accessible information provided by local authorities. RNIB regularly receives complaints from blind and partially sighted people that their local authority has failed to communicate with them accessibly on a whole range of matters, including registering to vote, registering for council tax and requesting information on local social care provision and recycling. The Government must act now to ensure that disabled people, including blind and partially sighted people, receive information in an accessible format from government departments, local authorities and official bodies.

Recommendation 30 states:

“The Department for Transport should update its 2011 Local Transport Note to offer guidance to local authorities on how shared spaces schemes can best cater for the needs of disabled people. Local authorities should review existing schemes in the light of that guidance, make changes where necessary and practicable, and base any new schemes on that guidance”.

It is concerning that the Government’s response stated that they had no plans to revise the DfT’s 2011 local transport note, despite the committee reporting that the guidance fails to address the difficulties that people with disabilities face in accessing shared-space schemes. The Government stated in their response that the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation will produce new guidance on shared space. Coming on top of existing Department for Transport guidance with minimum input from disability organisations, this risks confusing local authorities with multiple sources of advice. It also fails to address the lack of consistency in the design of shared spaces across the country identified by the RNIB, with different schemes adopting different approaches to disability access issues. The Government must urgently review and update local transport note 1/11 to ensure that local authorities fully address the disability access issues posed by shared-space schemes.

The committee received more responses relating to accessible transport than on any other issue. This accords with the pattern of complaints received by RNIB from blind and partially sighted people. Recommendation 28 states:

“Training of all rail, bus and coach staff to a level agreed in consultation and set out in law is in our view essential … Ministers … should be prepared to use these reserve powers if necessary, and to enforce the Regulations they make”.

There is concern, however, that the Government’s response states that legislation is not seen as an appropriate tool for delivering disability awareness training in the bus and coach sector.

The RNIB believes that disability awareness training must be made a statutory requirement and must be regulated to ensure quality and consistency across different providers. The European regulation on the rights of bus and coach passengers requires all bus and coach drivers to undergo disability awareness training. The Government used a derogation to exempt UK drivers for five years; this is due to expire in 2018. With the UK due to leave the European Union, the future of this regulation is thus unclear, so we need an assurance from the Government about their plans for disability awareness training for bus drivers.

Finally, Recommendation 27 states:

“More resources should be devoted to providing annunciators on trains and buses which do not have them. No new vehicles should be put into service which do not have audio and visual annunciators. The Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 should be amended accordingly”.

The RNIB was disappointed that the Government’s response failed to acknowledge the problem raised with the committee that many annunciator systems fitted on trains are not switched on. It would like to see spot checks on trains such as are already carried out on buses. The Government’s response acknowledged the benefits of AV information on buses but made the incorrect assumption that such systems are expensive to fit. Evidence submitted to the committee states that audio-visual annunciator systems add only 1% to the cost of a new bus.

The RNIB is very concerned that bus operators continue to procure new buses that are not fitted with AV announcement technology. For example, Leeds First bus service has announced that 37 new buses, which are expected to be used for at least 10 years, will enter service, none of them with annunciator systems fitted. The Government stated in their response to Recommendation 27 that vibrating wristbands have recently been trialled to improve the accessibility of bus travel. However, there is reason to be sceptical about that solution, as it is still only proof of concept stage. The RNIB believes that audio-visual technology is the most effective solution; the technology is tried and tested and is proven to make bus travel accessible for disabled passengers. It is already in operation on all buses in London, as well in many other regions, and can be introduced to new buses inexpensively.

The Bus Services Bill, currently awaiting Report in your Lordships’ House, is the ideal vehicle for the Government to legislate to ensure that all new buses are fitted with audio-visual technology. An amendment has been tabled to the Bill to require all bus operators to provide information to bus passengers in an accessible format. The Government are considering the matter sympathetically, and I very much hope that they accept the amendment to require operators to install AV on all new buses. It is gratifying that that recommendation has been highlighted by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and most recently by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. I hope very much that the Government have been listening and taking note.

Bus Services Bill [HL]

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Woolmer. We were colleagues on the staff at the University of Leeds several decades ago. We did not meet very much then and we have met even less since I came to this House—indeed, we have not met at all. Perhaps this will be an excuse for the noble Lord to have another of his cups of tea with me and we can exchange memories of the University of Leeds and such other matters as may occur to us at the time.

The Bill is the most important bus legislation since the mid-1980s. In February of this year, the Minister responsible for buses, Andrew Jones MP, spoke about the upcoming Bill, then known as the buses Bill, at a bus summit. He opened his speech by saying:

“In preparing this bill, we have one clear aim, which is this: to increase bus passenger numbers”.

The Minister then referred to the many benefits of having a high-quality bus network—helping people to get to the shops and to work and the social benefits of visiting friends and family.

These aims are laudable but, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell and Lady Brinton, pointed out in their excellent speeches, it is regrettable that the Bill does not take serious steps to end the continued inaccessibility of buses to many disabled people. These include not only the majority of people who are blind or partially sighted, a particular concern of mine, but those with a hearing impairment and a great many people with a so-called hidden disability such as dementia, autism, learning difficulties and mental health conditions, as also mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell.

The Bill presents a golden opportunity to see to it that the bus network is set on a course towards full accessibility to all users, especially including those with disabilities. We should expect nothing less if the Government’s one clear aim is to increase bus passenger numbers. Indeed, one would have thought that the Government would want nothing less. It is disappointing, therefore, that the Government have not used this opportunity to require all new buses to be fitted with next stop and final destination audio-visual announcements, known as AV. I welcome the support of the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, on behalf of the Opposition, for this. There has been general support as the debate has proceeded and I hope that the Minister will have got the message that the Bill is in need of strengthening in this area. In order to strengthen his arm, I will devote the rest of my remarks to elaborating the case.

The practical challenges for people with sight loss in using buses are obvious. It is extremely difficult, and in some cases impossible, for passengers with sight loss to know where they are, where the bus is headed and when to request the bus to stop. The solution offered by AV is equally obvious, yet regrettably only an estimated 19% of buses in the UK are fitted with AV and 97% of them are in London. AV has been a requirement on all new railway and light railway systems since 1998, but the absence of a similar requirement for buses outside London has resulted in a lack of uptake by operators. Research from the charity Guide Dogs has consistently demonstrated the challenges that inaccessible buses present to passengers with sight loss.

A Guide Dogs report shows that seven in 10 passengers with sight loss who ask the driver to tell them when it is their stop find that they are forgotten about. For a sighted person, missing a stop is an annoyance, but for someone with sight loss it is potentially dangerous. The fear of this happening puts some people off travelling altogether. When discussing accessibility and inaccessibility, it is important to remember that we are referring not just to the business of getting on and off a bus, but to accessing opportunities to work, to gain education and to socialise in order to be able live life independently. The coalition Government’s Fulfilling Potential strategy aimed to make our communities, workplaces and society in general fully accessible for and inclusive of disabled people. While barriers such as inaccessible transport remain, these opportunities will remain out of reach.

According to the RNIB, only 27% of people of working age who are registered blind or partially sighted are in employment. This is perhaps less surprising when we recall that another Guide Dogs report found that, due to a lack of confidence about using bus services, people with sight loss report missing job interviews and turning down jobs. Failing to address the problem of inaccessible transport thus undermines the Government’s aim of halving the disability employment gap. Policy should be made in the round and not in silos.

This is not a niche issue for a small number of people. Buses are important because they are the uncelebrated workhorses of the public transport system. Although rarely receiving the coverage of trains, Tubes and trams, the Department for Transport’s latest bus statistics for 2014-15 estimated that 5.16 billion bus passenger journeys were made in Great Britain, equivalent to around two-thirds of all public transport journeys. By comparison, the department’s statistics on trains reported only 1.65 billion passenger journeys in the same period. People with disabilities are among the most reliant on buses, and people with sight loss are especially dependent on buses as they are unable to drive. A report by the Transport Select Committee found that around 60% of disabled people are living in a household with no car and that disabled people use buses around 20% more frequently than those without disabilities.

New buses are rightly required to meet improved accessibility standards. Single-decker buses must now have low floors, wheelchair access and colour-contrasting grab rails, as the Minister said. These are welcome advances, but ensuring that all new buses have audible and visual announcements should be considered of equal importance. The Government should use this opportunity to amend the Public Service Vehicles Accessibility Regulations 2000 to bring this about. I heard what the Minister said about talking buses, but I do not think it went as far as this. AV should be considered not a “nice to have” optional feature, along with wi-fi or leather seats, but an essential safety feature. The issue of cost is often cited by Government and bus operators. The DfT has found that it could cost as little £5.75 million a year to fit all new buses in the UK with AV. If we contrast that with the £50 million that the department announced in 2015 would be released to install wi-fi on trains in England and Wales, this seems a relatively insignificant figure.

In advance of the publication of the Bill, the Minister, Andrew Jones, commented:

“By requiring A-V announcements, the Government would truly be opening up the public transport system to people in society who have the greatest need. The Bill includes measures to require bus operators to share information on routes, timetables and fares”.

When the Bill was published, the Minister said:

“We are also looking to end the frustration of not knowing when the next service will turn up by giving software developers the data they need to produce new apps”.

Passenger information is welcome but the lack of a requirement to provide information for people who have the most acute need—one that is a matter of safety rather than just convenience—is a serious omission. I hope that the Government will rectify it by bringing forward an amendment that would be very much in the spirit of the Bill, and certainly in the spirit of this debate. I will be more than happy to assist with this process in Committee and on Report.

Shared Spaces

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, on securing this debate and bringing this matter again to your Lordships’ attention. I say “again” because, as he observed, I introduced a QSD in remarkably similar terms about five and a half years ago, but to very little effect. The Minister, whom I knew to be a very sensible man, asked me in advance what I hoped to get out of the debate, but then went on to comprehensively shaft me in his wind-up speech. Sensible or not, he had simply swallowed his departmental brief whole. Afterwards, Lord Jenkin, who is also a very sensible man, said to me that he had learnt two things in life: one was to keep pegging away and the other was that it always pays to make a fuss. I intend to make a fuss.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, has done us all a signal service by putting his effort where his mouth is and carrying out some actual research on the matter, which he has written up into a report with the singularly apposite title Accidents by Design. This has been hailed by a member of the National Federation of the Blind in the following terms:

“This damning blitz on a pet concept for professional streetscapers to impose on the public realm has been shown up as unpopular with people, impractical for our high streets and even mis-reported on by the media … The eloquence and focus of the Holmes Report must read like a breath of fresh air, not only to blind and partially sighted people but, indeed, to a third of the public, whom the Report found actively avoid shared space”.

As we have heard, the idea behind shared space schemes is that, if you remove the traditional demarcators of separate space for pedestrians and motorists, such as kerbs, railings and controlled crossings and, as Ben Hamilton-Baillie, the arch-evangelist for shared space, has put it, fully integrate traffic into urban design so that pedestrians are expected to mingle interchangeably with cyclists, cars, buses and 10-tonne lorries, a “more ambiguous environment” will be created—you can say that again—which, being difficult to interpret and with the risk that pedestrians may be sharing the same space, encourages motorists to drive more cautiously and courteously.

That is not how it appeared to me when I went to see it in action outside Sloane Square tube station with the then chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Eye Health and Visual Impairment. All went well for a while, but—sadly, just after she left—a car came charging through the shared space area, obviously oblivious to the fact that it was a shared space, and went slap into another car, with a great deal of effing and blinding in consequence. Mr Hamilton-Baillie tells us that shared space has now become,

“an accepted approach to street design in many countries”,

and that the UK, having started very late, is now beginning to take the lead.

As we have heard, it is expected that priority in the shared space area is negotiated, primarily through eye contact. This obviously puts blind people at a severe disadvantage, but the lack of delineation can make the street more difficult to understand for people with learning difficulties, and the disabled are not the only people affected. A shared surface environment is likely to be much more frightening for elderly people. Small children are told to stop at the kerb’s edge and to look and listen before crossing the road. How can they do that if there is no kerb?

This whole idea is self-evidently barmy. We are indebted to the noble Lord for documenting this in detail. People’s experiences of shared space schemes are overwhelmingly negative: 63% of those who have used shared surface schemes rated their experience as poor, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, told us, more than one-third of people actively avoid them altogether. This pattern of response was reflected across most choices of travel, with 66% of drivers, 64% of pedestrians and nearly half of cyclists—48%—reporting their experience as poor. Yet overzealous councils continue risking public safety with fashionable simplified street design.

In January 2013, a partially sighted pensioner was killed in Coventry after being hit by a bus on a shared space scheme in an area that previously had a pedestrian-controlled crossing. The court ruled that the bus driver was not responsible for the death after hearing a statement that the shared surface was so confusing as to make an accident inevitable. Yet the noble Lord’s report tells us that there is significant underreporting of accidents in shared spaces areas.

People constantly referred to finding schemes frightening, intimidating and dangerous and to never feeling safe. People commented on poor visibility when trying to cross roads, often due to parked cars and to vehicles not stopping to allow them to cross. One respondent summed up the shared space they used as,

“lethally dangerous. In poor light or glare or shadow, drivers cannot see pedestrians. Disabled people and those with poor sight or mobility cannot protect themselves. The idea behind such spaces depends on every user being 100 per cent able and 100 per cent alert at all times, which just doesn't happen in real life. I consider this whole idea to be completely (and criminally) insane”.

One blind user unable to access a local shared space independently said that,

“for people with no sight like myself they are a death trap. I cannot express how terrible they are and how they make me feel so angry; to think all the people responsible for them expect us to use it when we cannot see. I use the one in Leek with my husband and never on my own”.

In promoting these schemes, local authorities are not meeting the public sector equality duty. Under the public sector equality duty, public bodies must have due regard to advancing equality through removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by people due to their protected characteristics, taking steps to meet the needs of people from protected groups where these are different from the needs of other people and encouraging people from protected groups to participate in public life or in other activities where their participation is disproportionately low. By authorising shared space schemes, local authorities are not removing or minimising disadvantages suffered by disabled people but are doing the exact opposite. By failing to install kerbs or adequate alternative tactile delineation and controlled crossings, they are not taking steps to meet the needs of people with sight loss, which are different from the needs of other people.

The noble Lord, Lord Holmes, calls for a moratorium until proper impact assessments have been carried out. Guide Dogs also calls for a moratorium pending the production of proper statutory guidance. I see the noble Baroness, Lady Kramer, as a friend and commend her on the work she did while at the department, but I fear I remain a subscriber to the Armageddon scenario. We know enough about shared space schemes to know about the harm that they cause and the lack of evidence that they do any good. I spoke to someone the other day who told me he had been talking to a planner, who told him that the main value of shared space schemes was aesthetic. I do not think we need a moratorium; I think they should be banned.

European Arrest Warrant

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 29th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston (CB)]

My Lords, will the Minister say if the Government are willing to reconsider their opt-out from the measure on xenophobia and racism? I think that to opt out of this measure portrays the United Kingdom in a very bad light and sends a very bad signal.

[Lord Bates]

I will write to the noble Lord on that. He is right to raise concerns about it and I will make sure that he gets an absolutely accurate and speedy reply.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, it is always a particular honour to come after the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, especially given the force of her plea for rationality and moderation on immigration. It is a particular honour to speak after her in a debate which has already seen some remarkable speeches, especially—if I may be allowed to single out just one—the astonishingly powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, with every word of which I would be very happy to be associated.

Today’s debate is supposed to be about, inter alia, constitutional affairs and equalities. I intend to speak mostly about equalities but I cannot forbear to make a few remarks about constitutional affairs. Apart from a couple of references to working in co-operation with the devolved Administrations and continuing to make the case for Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom, there is not really anything about the constitution in the gracious Speech. To my mind, that is a good thing. I cannot understand this headlong rush for the exit door of the European Union and am therefore glad to see no reference to a Bill, a paving Bill or any other measure to facilitate this.

I am not much of a fan of referenda, which seem to me largely a vehicle for the exercise of uninformed prejudice and for politicians to pass the buck. In an age of globalisation, it would seem essential to work through multinational institutions. It seems paradoxical to pursue an agenda of unification with respect to the United Kingdom but one of separatism with respect to Europe. The institutions of the European Union are far from perfect but, to me, it would seem more sensible to pursue reform as a member of the club, where it is said that other countries are moving towards our point of view, than to take our bat home and sulk in isolation.

Turning to equalities, there is not much about those either. There are just a couple of references to promoting a fairer society. If that means that we will not see further attacks on the equalities agenda, such as we witnessed recently in the specific duties regulations of 2011 and the recent Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act, that, too, is welcome. However, I confess to remaining apprehensive when I read:

“A Bill will be introduced to reduce the burden of excessive regulation on businesses”.

I hope that that does not mean that we are going to get a further instalment of the attacks contained in the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that when he comes to reply to the debate.

Ministers have said that they are committed to a strong and independent Equality and Human Rights Commission that promotes and protects equality and human rights. I think that the Government’s commitment and credibility are on the line here. First, some positive developments deserve to be acknowledged. These include, at a societal level, the fact that there is now widespread support for Britain being a diverse country. For example, in a recent poll by British Future, substantial majorities said that they were comfortable with someone of a different racial group marrying into their family, being friends with their children and being a boss or colleague. It is not all rosy, of course, as the persistence of hate crime and harsh public attitudes towards benefit claimants show.

Secondly, many employers now see the business case for equality and want to get this right. Companies as diverse as B&Q, Ernst & Young and BAE Systems are joining employer networks to help them to secure the business benefits of good equality and inclusion practices. Thirdly, there are the Government’s proposals for equal marriage for gay and lesbian couples. Contrary to what the noble Baroness, Lady O’Cathain, said earlier, there is public support for equal marriage. A June 2012 YouGov survey found that 71% of Britons favour gay and lesbian couples being able to marry. Ministers have shown political courage in taking this forward. Finally, there have been some other useful initiatives from the Government, for example, a more strategic approach to addressing violence against women and girls, the transgender action plan and the well intentioned social justice strategy.

However, as we survey the current scene I am afraid that concerns outweigh the positives. These include the rhetoric from Ministers talking about equality as a burden and a tangle of red tape. This is in contrast to the Government’s published equality strategy, which states that in these difficult times equality is even more important, and the coalition agreement, which recognises that there are many barriers to social mobility and equality of opportunity and pledges to tear them down. This is also in sharp contrast to evidence from the Government’s own research showing that employers are generally positive about equality. A recent survey of small employers found that 90% were positive about equality and that only 6% had experienced complaints or grievances. The good intentions in some policy documents and their recognition of entrenched and persistent inequalities that hold people back are not always matched by targeted action. For example, the social mobility strategy recognises that although participation in higher education by white British teenagers is lower than for many ethnic minorities, ethnic minority graduates are underrepresented in the graduate recruitment of large organisations. It also recognises that there are large differences in employment rates and wages between disabled and non-disabled people and that the gap appears to have grown in the past 25 years. Where are the policies to address those problems?

The recession and slow recovery have exacerbated these problems of entrenched disadvantage. According to the Fawcett Society, almost three times as many women as men have become long-term unemployed in the past two and a half years: 103,000 women as against 37,000 men. The TUC has found that young black men have experienced the sharpest rise in unemployment since 2010, with more than one in four of all black 16 to 24 year-olds—26%—currently out of work. Yet, there has been no targeted action to address the fact that we are not all in this together and that some groups have suffered much more severely than others. Compounding the absence of policies to tackle entrenched and persistent inequalities, a range of policies are making the situation worse and reducing the life chances of disadvantaged groups. The most obvious examples, of course, are the impact of welfare reforms on disabled people and the impact of the social care funding crisis on both disabled and older people.

The dismantling of the infrastructure established to promote equality and human rights remains a major concern. The cuts to the EHRC’s budget are now being followed by the cutting in half of the Government Equalities Office. Although no specific figures are available, there is considerable concern that specialist equality and diversity experts in local councils and other public services are being cut, which will reduce the capacity of public bodies to get it right.

The chipping away at equality law is a further significant concern. The change in the law on third-party harassment, and the loss of the questionnaire procedure and tribunals’ power to make wider recommendations are a real loss. The sector’s top priority at the moment is to make sure that the current and premature review of the effectiveness of the public sector equality duty does not result in the duty being further weakened or even abolished. There are also concerns about the MoJ’s proposals to limit access to judicial review. People are equally concerned about the combined impact of measures to make it harder to access justice, including the cuts to civil legal aid. Here, I must declare my interest as chair of the Low Commission on the Future of Advice and Legal Support on social welfare law, cuts to legal aid, higher tribunal fees and longer qualifying periods for unfair dismissal.

I am by no means the most extreme of equalities hot gospellers. I recognise that there can be excesses of political correctness and that some equalities safeguards can seem burdensome, so the Government ought to listen to what I say. Finally, there is all the sabre-rattling about repealing the Human Rights Act and withdrawing from the European Convention on Human Rights. If that ever came to pass, it would surely be a matter of real shame for this country.

Police: Vehicles

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Wednesday 14th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I do not speak for the Korean Government and cannot speak for the police authorities in Korea, so I do not know what police cars they are buying. I am aware of the noble Lord’s concern about matters in relation to his own police area, and I understand that it is buying Hyundai. But I can give an assurance that, if he looks at the figures, he will find that Vauxhall is still the largest supplier of lower and intermediate-performance police cars, which are manufactured in his own area of Ellesmere Port. The important point is that police authorities and chief constables should be able to buy the cars that they believe are suitable for their needs, and deal within the framework in doing so.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

I do not much mind what kind of cars the police use, but could the Minister use his influence with the police to persuade them to moderate their use of sirens, which are such a widespread source of noise pollution in our cities? The siren is for use in a real emergency, and not just when the officer is in a hurry to get home for his tea.

[Lord Henley]

My Lords, I am aware of this complaint from a number of noble Lords who have put it to me on a number of occasions. I understand that there might be one or two occasions when police cars are using sirens in an inappropriate way. Again, that should be a matter for the police authorities, but I hope that they will bear in mind what the noble Lord has to say.

Equality Act 2010 (Specific Duties) Regulations 2011

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Waddington]

I was making the very point that my noble friend touched upon. If at a time of war you can make exceptions for people who have deeply felt religious convictions, why the Dickens can you not do it in peacetime? It is absolutely absurd to say that because you have equality law there must be no exceptions in any case whatever, although by granting such exceptions you will cause no hardship to anyone. That is the whole point about the Catholic adoption societies. How completely cruel it was to say that those societies could not continue in existence when everyone knows perfectly well that if gay couples want to adopt there are 101 other places to which they can go. That is the answer to my noble friend.

I must conclude. I can give my noble friend no comfort. The relevant sections of the Equality Act permit the making of regulations. I must remind noble friends that they do not require regulations to be made telling local authorities how to observe the law. These particular regulations are fit for the dustbin. It would be beneficial for the House today to make the Government sit up and think and to expresses its view with the simple message along the lines that I have suggested; the dustbin is the place for these particular regulations. I beg to move.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I, too, ask the Government to undertake a rethink but from a slightly different perspective from the one that has just been laid out by the noble Lord, Lord Waddington. The notion of equality duties goes back to the Race Relations Act, the Sex Discrimination Act and the Disability Discrimination Acts, all of which have been widely recognised in your Lordships’ House to have conferred real benefits on the groups with whom they deal and on the community in general. They were supported by specific equality duties that required the production and implementation of equality schemes, including the publication of equality information and plans to improve performance in relation to equality. They also contained requirements concerning equality impact assessments and, depending on the Act, to set equality objectives and involve or consult affected groups in the development of schemes or in relation to impact assessments.

The Equality Act 2010 introduced a single public sector equality duty whereby public bodies are under a general duty to have due regard to—to paraphrase—the need to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. In January, after much consultation, draft regulations were published that rationalised the system of specific duties. It was proposed that public bodies should be under a duty to publish details of engagement undertaken with affected groups when determining policies and equality objectives, equality analyses undertaken in reaching policy decisions and information considered when undertaking such analysis. While there was some disappointment at the disappearance of the requirement to produce equality schemes, these proposals addressed concerns identified by both groups working to further equality and public authorities, and were generally welcomed as representing a reasonable balance between regulating to reinforce the general equality duty and placing undue burdens on public authorities.

Now, however, in the regulations we have before us today, all but two of these requirements have gone. It is proposed only that the general duty is supported by specific duties to publish at least one specific and measurable equality objective every four years, and publish information annually to demonstrate compliance with the general equality duty. In other words, the duties to publish details of engagement undertaken when determining policies, engagement undertaken when determining equality objectives, equality analyses undertaken in reaching policy decisions, and information considered when undertaking such analyses, are removed completely. It is hard to understand the reason for the Government’s change of heart, unless it is deregulation for deregulation’s sake regardless of the merits of the regulations in question, for not only the advocates of equality legislation but a significant number of public authorities have expressed their support for strong specific duties as providing a useful framework for helping public authorities comply with their duties under the Equality Act.

This change of direction also comes at a very late stage, after guidance has already been issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, reflecting what were assumed to be the Government’s final thoughts on the specific duties regulations. There is now an inevitable gap between the coming into force of the general duty on 5 April and the implementation of the specific duties after an extended period of consultation on them. Public bodies will still be subject to the general duty, and the absence of the specific duties can only create uncertainty as to how they should go about meeting their obligations. According to these regulations, the great majority of public bodies must publish information to demonstrate their compliance with their general duty by 31 January next. That does not give a lot of time. Will the Minister tell us how the Government propose to get over that difficulty? “Make the best of a bad job” is what I suspect she will say. “Admit it’s a shambles” if she is honest. What sort of Government is this? No better than the last lot, if you ask me.

I have a lot of sympathy with what the noble Lord, Lord Waddington, has had to say. I am no more in favour than anyone else of making public authorities jump through the hoops of political correctness that he has excoriated so comprehensively, but these regulations are really not fit for purpose—indeed, for the Government’s own purpose. The specific duties spell out the implications of the general duty and help authorities to understand what is required of them. This helps to protect them against legal challenge. As these regulations stand, the specific duties do not reflect the extent of the obligations imposed by the general duty, and will therefore fail in their main purpose of achieving better performance of the general duty. The Government’s principal motivation seems to be the minimising of duties, and not the maximising of benefits—of improved equality of opportunity. This is a vital prerequisite for realising, for instance, the Government’s ambition to get more disabled people into work, and is surely not something to be reining back on at a time when a sense of alienation and social exclusion are disfiguring our society and erupting in social unrest.

This is not just special pleading. There is a wealth of research to show that the specific duties as traditionally conceived have been widely welcomed as having a beneficial impact. There is too much to summarise adequately here, but to give a flavour: in some Disability Rights Commission research, interviewees indicated that disability equality had assumed greater priority in their departments, and reported improvements in the involvement of disabled people, evidence of disability equality, and of meeting wider organisational objectives. Some research in 2007 found that equality issues were accorded higher priority and were increasingly mainstreamed. Practitioners were said to be particularly enthusiastic about the impact of the public sector duty in encouraging consultation and the ongoing involvement of disabled people.

The Government’s own Equalities Office commissioned research to identify which aspects of the specific duties were believed to be effective. It concluded that the specific equality duties were widely accepted, with the majority of authorities across all sectors viewing the requirements of data collection, planning, involvement and impact assessment as effective. Of 174 respondents, more than half rated the specific duties very effective or effective, leading to positive outcomes.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has also commissioned research to identify the elements of the specific duties that were most effective in achieving change. Equality schemes and equality impact assessments were said to provide a framework and focus for action. While some participants felt that in some cases implementing the specific duties might be perceived as overly bureaucratic, nevertheless the research states that the vast majority were clear that implementing the specific duties has been fundamental in improving services.

In some other research commissioned by the EHRC, 77 per cent of schools said that their work to meet the disability equality duty had a positive, measurable impact on disabled pupils. This is the only research to have investigated the impact of the Secretary of State’s specific duty to report on disability across each sector. It was found to have created a significant shift in central government’s understanding of and response to disability equality.

“Not only has it raised the awareness of key issues across departments”,

the report says,

“but it has also helped to clarify the importance of integrating and mainstreaming the agenda in all central government activities”.

Perhaps I may say a word about what is still in and what is left out. The policy review leading up to these regulations suggests that all but two requirements—to publish information and to set equality objectives—can be eliminated on the ground that compliance with the general duty presumes the other requirements. It is clear that the general duty cannot be met without assessing the impact of policies on equality or involving those affected at an early stage in policy-making, and this is certainly the way in which the courts have interpreted it. However, this overlooks the role that the specific duties play in providing public bodies with a framework which, if they work within it, provides vital guidance on how to comply with the general duty.

That is particularly true of the requirement to involve or engage with those affected by action on equality. In the case of disability, public bodies have benefited greatly from such involvement, which has helped them to ensure that the policies they put in place and the services they provide reflect the real needs and experiences of disabled people. In their analysis of responses to the consultation—more than 60 per cent of them from public authorities—the Government acknowledge that, despite the fact that no questions on engagement were raised in the consultation, around a third of respondents raised a concern about the lack of any requirement for public authorities to engage with or involve relevant groups. Nor is it possible to rely on guidance within the codes of practice. As the EHRC has said:

“Where the regulations fail to impose specific obligations, the Codes of Practice cannot do so. The Codes must elaborate on the requirements of the legislation, not add to those requirements”.

The requirement to publish at least one equality objective every four years is particularly risible. This runs the risk that authorities will think that setting just one equality objective every four years discharges their duty with regard to equality. It is extremely unlikely that a public body could satisfy all the three elements of the general duty while taking such a minimalist approach. The regulations should make it clear that the objectives that a public body selects must be across the full scope of the duty. Stripped-down regulations will encourage only minimum compliance, not best practice, especially at a time of economic stringency.

There is some consolation in the fact that the Government have undertaken to carry out a review of these regulations after two years. However, I would welcome the Minister’s assurance that the review will be broad in scope, assessing the extent to which the specific duties have supported better performance of the equality duty in general and not just those aspects covered by the narrow specific duties that we have in these regulations. Will the Government use the review to assess whether there has been progress from the situation that obtained under the old regime of specific duties or whether things have slipped back, and whether they will strengthen the regulations if it is found that things have slipped back? Also, will the review assess how far public bodies have been engaging with those affected by their decisions in the absence of a specific requirement to do so?

Finally, I would welcome a clarification from the Minister of the process that will be adopted for the conduct of the review. Will it be informed by the experience of those most affected as to how effective the duties have proved to be as a means of holding public bodies to account? This would seem to be essential, given that the Government’s stated intention in designing the regulations in the way that they have is to achieve greater accountability on the part of public authorities.

--- Later in debate ---

Moved by

[Lord Low of Dalston]

As an amendment to the Motion in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, to insert at the end “but that this House regrets that the Government have seriously weakened the Regulations, making it more difficult to hold public bodies to account; and calls on the Government to withdraw the Regulations and re-lay the earlier version published in January which required public bodies to publish information on equality analyses they have undertaken, to set objectives designed to facilitate compliance with the General Equality Duty and publish information about the engagement they have had with affected groups when developing these objectives, and to report annually on progress towards meeting these objectives, all of which is critical to ensuring that the General Equality Duty produces tangible and positive outcomes.”

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, what we have witnessed this afternoon is nothing more nor less than a backlash against equality legislation—certainly in the debate if not in the vote. It was a slightly hysterical, indeed apocalyptic, backlash from people who, as the noble Lord, Lord Lester, said, are basically against equality legislation. As I made clear when moving my Motion, I hold no brief for the excesses of zealots or the ignorant; my Motion seeks merely to underline those elements of equality legislation which have been found to have value in helping public authorities better to understand the needs of historically disenfranchised sections of the community and which the Government embraced scarcely more than six months ago.

The noble Lord, Lord Lester, has dubbed my Motion as leading to overregulation, although I hope that he might on reflection withdraw the charge of it being the “worst kind” of overregulation. We must all have the greatest possible respect for the noble Lord, Lord Lester, who basically invented equality legislation—so it is all his fault, really. We can debate the detail of regulation, and I say with respect that it may be more appropriate to some strands of equality legislation than others. I drew attention to the value of equality analysis and engagement with affected groups—the noble Lord, Lord Lester, might disagree about that; there is room to differ over those—but surely no one could suppose that a duty which is capable of being interpreted as a requirement to set only one equality objective every four years is appropriate guidance to give on how to go about implementing the general equality duty across the piece. I do not see how anybody could suppose that that was unduly burdensome regulation.

Although it has at times been a slightly ill-tempered debate and precious few noble Lords have spoken on my side of the argument, I am grateful to all those who have contributed. However, I persist in believing that my Motion gives expression to the point of view of those who espouse a more moderate and practical approach to advancing equality. I propose to test the opinion of the House in the confident expectation of discovering that the strength of liberal opinion in it remains greater than has appeared in the debate.

Disabled People

Lord Low of Dalston Excerpts

Thursday 5th May 2011 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Low of Dalston]

To call attention to the impact of government policies on disabled people; and to move for papers.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I begin by saying how sorry I am that the noble Lord, Lord Taylor of Holbeach, will be answering the debate. I say that not because I am sorry to see the noble Lord, but because the noble Lord, Lord Freud, cannot be here as planned because he has been involved in a motoring accident and has had to be taken to hospital. However, I am happy to say that he is all right and, I believe, will soon be back with us. I am sure that I speak for everybody when I say that we send him our very best wishes for a speedy return to the House.

I thank all noble Lords who have put their names down to speak. I am sure that I speak for all noble Lords when I say that I am particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Fellowes of West Stafford. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, very much wanted to be here, but he has asked me to say how sorry he is that he cannot be present owing to a long-standing commitment elsewhere. It is indeed an irony that, in the 40th anniversary year of the coming into force of his historic Act, we should be discussing the possible rolling back of so many of the gains for disabled people that it set in train.

It is a cliché that the civilisation of a society is measured by the way it treats its most vulnerable members. That is a test that the Government certainly acknowledge, as they have made many statements to the effect that they intend to introduce their austerity measures in such a way as to ensure that the most vulnerable are protected. However, there is a real risk that the Government are failing their own test, for next Wednesday we will see the largest ever lobby of Parliament by disabled people—more than 10,000 of them, angry at the prospect that, far from being protected, they are being hardest hit of all by the Government’s measures. They are angry and fearful. There is a sense that Ministers are not listening, so I hope that they will see today’s debate as a welcome opportunity to improve the dialogue.

The coalition’s programme for government states that the Government will ensure that,

“fairness is at the heart”

of decision-making so that,

“those most in need are protected”.

Let us look at the baseline from which such a pledge should be judged. In fact, the link between disability and poverty through lower incomes and higher costs is well established. On almost any indicator of poverty or disadvantage, disabled people are significantly overrepresented, with research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the New Policy Institute finding that disabled people are around twice as likely to live in relative poverty as non-disabled people. Disabled people are also more likely to rely on state benefits as a significant source of their income and face extra costs directly related to their impairment, such as increased fuel bills, medical costs or a contribution to the cost of their social care. Official poverty figures do not take account of these additional costs. However, if they were factored in, they would suggest that well over half of disabled people in the United Kingdom live below the poverty line.

The impression is often given that the welfare budget is out of control as a result of unfounded claims of sickness and disability, but in reality the greater part of the growth in the welfare bill seen in the past 10 years has been on pensions as a result of demographic factors, families with children and low-income workers. Sir Bert Massie, former chair of the Disability Rights Commission, has also referred to the rhetoric around welfare, which paints disabled people as welfare cheats. In fact, most of the stories in the press about disabled scroungers are not about disabled people at all but are about non-disabled people pretending to be disabled.

The Government’s flagship policy for addressing the poverty of disabled people is their programme to get disabled people off welfare and into work. This aspiration, in particular the simplification of welfare through the universal credit, is welcome. As always, however, the devil is in the detail. The Welfare Reform Bill currently makes no provision within the universal credit for the enhanced disability premium or severe disability premium, worth £13.65 and £53.65 a week respectively for a single person. Without these premiums thousands of disabled people with the greatest needs will be left without the support they need to meet the extra costs of disability. Nor do we know whether the system of disregards will replicate the disability element of working tax credit or enable couples who both have an impairment to retain its equivalent to which they have each been entitled individually up to now. Can the Minister assure us that the move to universal credit will not have these untoward and no doubt unintended but certainly self-defeating consequences? However, the development of the universal credit is going in broadly the right direction. The same cannot be said of the Government’s other measures designed to support their welfare to work agenda.

I say at the outset that the agenda remains correct. Disabled people want to work and do not want to be written off on welfare. We had a debate in the RNIB—here I declare my interest both as a vice-president and a disabled person—about whether we wanted to hang on to incapacity benefit and we came down firmly against sending a signal that blind people were not able to work. However, we said that conditionality applied as much to government as to disabled people. If disabled people were to be expected to undertake work-related activity to get them close to the labour market and ideally into work, they should be entitled to expect that there will be a job at the end of the road and that the Government will be held to account for providing the necessary support while they got there and for removing the barriers to the employment of disabled people.

The Government have a massive programme to reassess more than 1.5 million people on incapacity benefit by 2013 to see whether they qualify for employment and support allowance. However, the assessment process is deeply flawed. Forty per cent of appeals are successful, and there is widespread dissatisfaction with Atos Healthcare, the company carrying out the assessments. There are also serious concerns with the way that the process is being handled. The descriptors in the work capability assessment have been repeatedly revised over recent years so as to raise the bar for claimants. Further changes are now being rushed through before Professor Harrington has concluded the all-important second stage of his review, against the advice of the Social Security Advisory Committee. In particular, the committee felt that the work capability assessment measured theoretical work capability and took insufficient account of the realities of the work environment and the labour market, which has not enabled significant numbers to move into employment, even in relatively favourable pre-recession conditions. Some 92 per cent of employers say that they would find it difficult or impossible to employ someone who is blind or partially sighted, for instance. Now we learn that increasing numbers of disabled people are experiencing rigorous reassessments of their access-to-work support packages, which is hardly going to ameliorate the situation.

The vast majority of incapacity benefit claimants have been on benefit for at least five years, which puts them a very long way indeed from the labour market. Yet, following the changes to the work capability assessment, the Government estimate that around a quarter of these claimants will fail to qualify for ESA, which will mean that they have to make a claim for jobseeker’s allowance or some other benefit or lose their benefit altogether. Can the Minister say what support will be available for disabled people who fail the work capability assessment but nevertheless face significant barriers in finding work?

Even if you qualify for ESA—employment and support allowance—you may be no better off, because anyone receiving contributory ESA from next April who is in the work-related activity group will have payment of their benefit means tested after 12 months. This change is to be made retrospective. People will still be able to apply for income-related ESA after their contributory ESA ends, but if their partner is earning as little as £150 or working 24 hours or more a week, they will no longer be eligible for ESA. These are particularly savage policies going far beyond anything contemplated in the Thatcher era. They will cause great hardship and have a devastating effect on the lives of hundreds of thousands of disabled people. It is estimated that by 2015-16, 700,000 people will be affected by limiting contributory ESA to one year: 203,000 will lose on average £11 a week; 217,000 will lose £22 a week; and 280,000, a good 40 per cent, will lose as much as £89 a week. To people forced to live on benefit, these figures are mind-boggling.

Disabled people see this as a betrayal of the citizen by the state. People have paid in through tax and national insurance contributions in the belief that if they became sick or disabled the benefits system would support them as they came to terms with their impairment, retrained and moved towards work again. The Minister may say that disabled people with a partner in work or with savings of more than £16,000 have other means of support and should use them, as people on contributory JSA have to after only six months. However, this totally fails to appreciate the difference between someone who is work-ready on JSA and a disabled person who may need some years of support to enter work. Most important of all, there simply are not the jobs to enable someone on ESA to get a job within 12 months. The number of long-term unemployed far outstrips the number of job vacancies. DWP figures show that only 13 per cent of people on the Pathways to Work programme in 2008-09 returned to work within one year. How is one to account for this, other than in terms of coalition heartlessness—picking on disabled people, to cut the deficit, by returning us to the hard-faced days of the means test? That is certainly how it is seen by those marching next Wednesday and engaging the week after in a week of action against Atos Healthcare.

I prefer to think of it differently. I know the Minister; he is not a hard man. I believe that he genuinely wants to reform a welfare system that has kept disabled people in a state of dependency and out of work for too long, by making it pay to be in work. However, Ministers have become mesmerised by this rhetoric to the point where they fail to see the consequences of the policies they are pursuing. Making work pay is not the same as seeing to it that it does not pay to be out of work. Using the threat of loss of benefit in an attempt to force people who are not work-ready to work, or for whom there is no work, is plain sadistic.

The Government should freeze their plans to migrate more than a million and a half incapacity benefit claimants on to ESA from April this year until they can implement the recommendations of the Harrington review, and they should reconsider their approach to contributory ESA. At the very least, I ask the Minister to undertake—as the noble Lord, Lord Freud, did recently with respect to the changes to housing benefit—to carry out a review of what happens to people who are found to be fit for work and therefore unable to claim ESA.

I have concentrated on welfare to work because it is the Government’s flagship policy and represents their strategic approach to dealing with the poverty of disabled people. However, there is more—much, much more—that I can only touch on, and I leave it to others to say more on those points if they wish to.

Expenditure on disability living allowance, which helps people with the extra costs that disability brings, is to be cut by a fifth. The Government have said that they will review the withdrawal of the mobility component from state-funded claimants living in residential care, which was planned to take effect in 2012 and has caused particular anger. However, Clause 83 of the Welfare Reform Bill still denies entitlement to personal independence payment for anyone living in a care home, and the impact assessment suggests that 78,000 disabled people will still lose out. Closure of the Independent Living Fund will hit some of the most severely disabled.

Most astonishingly of all, the Government have recently included the entire Equality Act that we passed in this House just last year within their red tape challenge, which invites members of the public to comment on regulations with a view to their being simplified or scrapped. Not surprisingly, this has caused huge concern among disabled people; if carried through, it would sweep away at a stroke all the provisions that flow from the Disability Discrimination Act, which has been such a potent vehicle for protecting and advancing the interests of disabled people. I invite the Minister to disavow any such intention on the part of the Government.

As support from central government is withdrawn, so it is from local government. This represents a double whammy. Eighty per cent of councils in England expect by the end of this financial year to help only disabled people whose needs are assessed as being critical, substantial or—in the case of Birmingham City Council—super-critical. “Critical” effectively means life-threatening. How is one to account for this except in terms of crude cost-cutting? Time-limiting contributory ESA will save £2 billion, and DLA a further £2.17 billion. The disability contribution, as we might call it, to reducing the deficit is therefore larger than that sought from the banks through the banking levy, which is to be only £2.5 billion. This therefore represents a clear choice on the part of the Government to go for welfare rather than the parts of the economy that caused the problem in the first place. It is a clear choice, but is it fair and is it necessary?

When we were in a much worse position at the end of the Second World War, we were able to found the National Health Service and introduce a Disabled Persons (Employment) Act. We have to ask, have our Government got their priorities right?

--- Later in debate ---

[The Deputy Speaker (Baroness Pitkeathley)]

My Lords, the time allotted for this debate has now elapsed. Does the noble Lord wish to withdraw his Motion?

[Lord Low of Dalston]

I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion withdrawn.