Disability-inclusive Development
Lord Shinkwin Excerpts(6 years ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I also welcome this strategy and thank my noble friend Lady Anelay for securing this important debate. I also thank the Secretary of State, Penny Mordaunt, for her leadership on this issue, her ministerial team, DfID itself, NGO partners such as Sightsavers and, of course, our partners in the developing world for the way in which they have come together to make the Global Disability Summit happen and now to develop the strategy.
Although there are a few aspects of the strategy that I would query, I welcome it. It may not extend to anything like 585 pages, but it has substance. Is it not refreshing, noble Lords, to read a document that neither fudges nor says one thing while meaning the opposite? How exciting to read a strategy with a clear sense of purpose and urgency, which recognises that bringing people together in some of the most challenging parts of the world requires clarity, transparency and trust.
The strategy is clear in both its vision and its priorities. With an estimated 1 billion people with disabilities globally, an estimated 80% of whom live in developing countries, the challenge is huge. So the strategy’s vision is bold and ambitious and is worth repeating: a world where all people with disabilities, in all stages of their lives, are engaged, empowered and able to exercise and enjoy their rights on an equal basis with others, contributing to poverty reduction, peace and stability. Its four priorities or “essential outcomes”, as they are described in the strategy, make sense.
I also largely agree with the four strategic pillars for action particularly, as others have mentioned, the focus on inclusive education, given that more than half of the 65 million children with disabilities in low and middle-income countries are not in school. Although my own experience of being excluded from mainstream state schools as a child because of my disability pales into insignificance, I can relate very much to the importance of accessing inclusive and equitable quality education.
In conclusion, I just highlight one other distinctive feature of this document—its confident tone, which its commitment to transparency and visible accountability reflects. That confidence both informs its vision and inspires trust in an ability to deliver. At a time when Parliament has seldom been more divided, on Brexit, this strategy surely reminds us all that transparency, clarity and projecting fact-based confidence are fundamental to bringing people together. For if we do not believe in ourselves, how can we expect anyone else to take us seriously? To its credit, this strategy shows that people should do exactly that.
Equality and Human Rights Commission: Disability Commissioner
Lord Shinkwin Excerpts(6 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Shinkwin
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the case for a disability commissioner on the Equality and Human Rights Commission.
Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I begin by thanking the Prime Minister for her kind words in answer to a question asked by Philip Davies MP in the other place at Prime Minister’s Questions on 7 February. She described me as a champion of disability rights, and it is as a long-standing campaigner for disability equality that I have tabled this Question for Short Debate, because I believe it is crucial that we assess, on an ongoing basis, progress made towards that elusive goal.
I say “elusive” because 2020 will mark a quarter of a century since the introduction of the Conservatives’ Disability Discrimination Act. The sad fact is that we, as disabled people, are nowhere near attaining equality. By that, I do not simply mean equality with non-disabled people; I mean equality with the other protected characteristic groups covered by equality legislation.
We are so far behind as disabled people, not because we necessarily lack the determination or ability to catch up but because we are still too often denied the equality of opportunity to contribute and to succeed. Unlike other groups, we need reasonable adjustments to be made for us to be able to enjoy equal access to goods, facilities and services, whether commercial or statutory. The goal of equality might be the same, but the nature and extent of the disadvantage that goes with disability are so different that while mainstreaming disability might sound laudable in theory, in practice it means that disability, as the heaviest stone, falls to the bottom of the inequality pond. A prerequisite to it not being left at the bottom is a sharp focus on disability issues—the sharp focus provided by the DDA; the Disability Rights Commission, or DRC; and, following the DRC’s amalgamation within the Equality and Human Rights Commission, or EHRC, the focus provided by a disability commissioner. But now we do not have a disability commissioner because the post has been abolished, even if the need for such a position and the sharp focus it was meant to bring to disability issues has not.
Noble Lords will know from my previous contributions on this matter that I was not made aware of the agreement between the commission chair and the then Minister for Women and Equalities to abolish the position of disability commissioner until after I had been misled by that Minister of the Crown to believe that I was being appointed to that position, for which I had applied and been interviewed. Now it transpires that I was not the only one not to have been informed of the position’s intended abolition. I thank the Prime Minister for telling Philip Davies that she had not been made aware of the decision either, and I also acknowledge that the then Minister for Disabled People, Penny Mordaunt, who is now Minister for Women and Equalities, in addition to being Secretary of State for International Development, was not made aware either.
I know there is a Civil Service saying that, “We are where we are”—the implication being that one needs to accept a new reality and move on. I make it clear that I accept that the Government cannot insist that the EHRC reinstates the position, even if they wanted to, because the commission is independent. However, if the EHRC is independent, there is something that the Government can do—and, I believe, should do—both to extricate themselves and to move us on from where we are, which I am sorry to say is not a good place. They can express regret that a former Minister should have gone behind my back, the backs of disabled people and the backs of the Prime Minister and her ministerial colleagues and allowed the commission to do away with disabled people’s last distinctive, powerful voice. She did not have to do it. Indeed, I recently learned that one of her predecessors in the coalition Government blocked such a move and ensured that the position of disability commissioner was not abolished when the commission previously proposed that it should be. So there was a clear precedent, which she chose to break with, and in the process undermined disabled people and severely compromised the Government.
As I told Cathy Newman on “Channel 4 News” in November last year, this is not about me. When your disability has taken you to hell and back, it tends to put things in perspective. So, while serving as the disability commissioner would have been an honour, which I would have done to the best of my ability, what happens to me does not matter. I am not important; the position was. What concerns me far more is the message given by the involvement of the then Minister for Women and Equalities in the position’s abolition and the Government’s continued failure to dissociate themselves from her involvement, which it is clear that she did not inform—never mind consult—her ministerial colleagues about. It worries me that the Government seem not to appreciate the need for them to express a view, because the adoption of such a position amounts to a message in itself—a message that may be inadvertent but none the less is one of contempt, as if because it is only disabled people, they do not need or deserve the truth.
Speaking as a disabled person, disabled people deserve better than that. We deserve some respect and a clear answer. So I ask my noble friend the Minister if the Government are glad that the disability commissioner position has been abolished. Are the Government proud that a former Minister was involved in the position’s abolition, as I demonstrated she was with reference to two contradictory emails that I mentioned in the Chamber last November? If the Government are not proud, why do they not say so?
The Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and the Secretary of State for International Development should not have to take the rap for a decision that I accept none of them was involved in making. Yet the Government’s silence on this matter means that that is exactly what is happening, because it has all the telltale signs of a cover-up, not necessarily by Ministers but by the Whitehall machine.
Some argue that because the commission is independent, the Government therefore cannot state that they regret a decision taken by a Minister without compromising its independence. I do not follow the logic of that argument. Surely to state one’s opinion of an independent body’s actions underlines and reinforces that independence rather than compromises it. The commission cannot have it both ways: either it is independent or it is not.
The fact is that your Lordships’ House was never meant to know what happened to downgrade disability by the taxpayer-funded body supposedly responsible for promoting and protecting our rights. As its chair told the Women and Equalities Select Committee:
“Lord Shinkwin has obviously chosen to make public some of this detail, which otherwise would be confidential”.
What an admission. If I am wrong—I would be happy to stand corrected—there is an easy way to prove it. If the Government and the commission have nothing to hide, let them put all records of contact about me and the disability commissioner position, whether between the commission, the commission chair, the Government Equalities Office, the then Minister for Women and Equalities, her private office, her special advisers, the Department for Education or any other external organisations, in the Library. All I am asking for, as a disabled person, is transparency. Surely that is fundamental to equality.
In conclusion, of course I think there is a strong case for a disability commissioner, otherwise I would not have applied for the position. But now it has been abolished, the case that the Government need to answer is why disabled people should trust them when they cannot even bring themselves to express regret for the involvement of a former Minister in the abolition of disabled people’s last powerful voice. As a Conservative, I believe we could have a much better story to tell, but we need to close this sorry chapter before we start the next one. I hope very much that my noble friend can help us do that and I look forward to her response.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Williams of Trafford) (Con)
My Lords, I start by thanking my noble friend for securing this debate and all noble Lords who have made such interesting points on the subject. I echo the words of the Prime Minister in February about my noble friend and the role he has played in this area and I am sure will continue to play. Before I move on to deal with the issue of an equality and human rights disability commissioner and the particular points made, I want to take a moment to reflect on the Government’s position on disability.
The Government are absolutely committed to improving the lives of people with disabilities and making the UK a country where everyone can achieve their full potential. The Government take action, including through legislation where necessary, to address disability discrimination. For example, we recently announced our intention to commence Section 36 of the Equality Act 2010, and our manifesto commits to change the Act to better protect people with fluctuating mental health conditions from discrimination. We provide support to people with disabilities and related conditions to help them live fulfilling lives and move towards—and, where possible, into—employment. We have invested over £130 million to improve work and health outcomes for people with disabilities and long-term health conditions, and the long-term unemployed. We have also provided an additional £19.3 million for the Jobcentre Plus Flexible Support Fund to help claimants with limited capability for work with extra costs that can be involved in moving closer to the labour market and into work.
To further improve our ability to spot and respond to discriminatory practice, the Equality Advisory and Support Service—the equality and human rights helpline—refers cases which may have specific strategic significance to the EHRC for possible enforcement action. Disability inquiries constitute nearly 70% of the service’s work, so it is acutely conscious of and sensitive to disability issues. The service has strong links to the EHRC, which sits on its management board. To address the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the two organisations have a memorandum of understanding and a good working relationship. I know that the EASS would very much welcome the noble Baroness—or, for that matter, any noble Lords who are interested—to visit its site near Rotherham to see the approach it takes to deal with its many callers.
The EHRC has a crucial monitoring and enforcement role for the Equality Act 2010. It has enforcement powers to compel compliance with the Act’s provisions, including the disability discrimination provisions and specific accessibility provisions, and to challenge organisations where required. If the EHRC suspects an employer or service provider of committing a breach of the discrimination provisions, it can conduct an investigation and take action to ensure that the employer avoids a continuation or repetition of that breach.
The EHRC has always been conscious of the need to prioritise disabled people’s interests, but its arrangements for doing this have changed over time, as noble Lords have pointed out. The 2006 Act provided for a disability committee. I stress that this was seen as a temporary arrangement, intended to reflect the need to integrate the particular requirements of the Disability Discrimination Act into the EHRC’s work. The then Government’s White Paper outlining the EHRC said:
“In line with the … Board’s general power to establish Committees to assist with specific functions, there will be a provision in the CEHR’s legislation for the establishment of a disability committee for a period … This will be especially important in its first years of operation”.
This committee had delegated powers within the EHRC relating to disability, but it did not have any additional powers: it could not do anything that the commission itself could not do.
The Act required an independent review of the activities of the committee after five years. This was partly to review how well disability issues had been embedded within the commission, and partly to reduce the Government’s role in dictating the commission’s governance structures, which would strengthen its independence as a national human rights institution. This independent review was duly carried out, and reported in 2013. It is still available on the EHRC’s website, and noble Lords may find it helpful to read it if they are not already familiar with it. The review recommended that the statutory committee come to an end on or after March 2017, and the then Secretary of State, who was under a duty to dissolve the committee,
“as soon as reasonably practicable”,
after receiving such a recommendation, duly did so, with effect from 31 March 2017. This gave the EHRC adequate time to make new arrangements.
The noble Baroness, Lady Gale, has already given a good account of this but by spring 2017, the EHRC was already looking to change its disability arrangements to those which better reflected its independence. It was setting up a Disability Advisory Committee to replace the statutory committee. The purpose of this committee was to bring in disability expertise to inform and advise the commission’s decision-making across all its work. The board maintains oversight of the committee through receipt of the minutes of its meetings and advance sight of committee meeting agendas. It may invite reports from the committee on particular issues and request the attendance of committee members to observe or participate in discussions at board meetings where appropriate. Similar arrangements are in place for the statutory Scotland and Wales committees, ensuring that the expertise of the DAC, as we call it, can be applied across the full range of the commission’s activities. Individual committee members may also be invited by the commission to play a specific role in, or advise on, areas of work where their personal skills, expertise or networks are of particular value to a project.
The noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, asked whether disability could be treated in the same way as other protected characteristics. The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, spoke very much to the point when she noted that the Equality Act provides particular rights and protections for disabled people, including more favourable treatment in certain circumstances. It seems to me that the EHRC recognises this through its disability advisory committee, which is not replicated in its structure for other protected characteristics.
It was as part of that set of changes that the EHRC decided last year not to continue with the term “disability commissioner”. This was not a statutory post but simply an EHRC-created role: a set of responsibilities connected to the former disability committee that the commission decided to change as part of its overhaul of its disability arrangements, which indeed meshed in with a wider restructuring of the commission as a whole.
My noble friend has set out today, with strong feeling and in some detail, the problems and frustrations that he has experienced in seeking an appropriate role for himself as the EHRC’s disability commissioner. I am aware of his view that the real reason the disability commissioner role ended on 31 March last year, along with the statutory committee, was that the EHRC did not want him to occupy that role. I hope my noble friend and other noble Lords who have contributed to this debate will accept that I was not involved in any of the events that he has mentioned, so I am not in a position to debate the details of those events and I think he recognises that. I can certainly say that the Government have taken his concerns very seriously and he has had opportunities to discuss them with a range of Ministers and advisers across a number of departments, including Downing Street. I stress that the Government deeply regret that my noble friend was not able to resolve his differences with the EHRC about his role and responsibilities, and that as a result he is no longer an EHRC commissioner and cannot lend his wealth of personal passion and experience to the EHRC board.
In answer to the question of why we took away my noble friend’s disability commissioner role, I understand that he was appointed as a commissioner, not specifically as a disability commissioner. Any decision to give EHRC commissioners specific roles and responsibilities is a direct matter for the EHRC. My noble friend also makes the point that HMG should express regret about the conduct of a former Minister, and there was a precedent for keeping the disability commissioner. I believe my noble friend is referring to the coalition Government’s decision to abolish the statutory disability committee after three years rather than sooner. The relevant order related to the committee; it had no direct bearing on the disability commissioner, which was and remains an EHRC role, not in the gift of the Government.
Baroness Williams of Trafford
I cannot allow my noble friend to intervene because I am right on the wire.
My noble friend talked about freedom of information in this regard. The decision to abolish the role was not taken by Ministers, and the redacted material that my noble friend refers to does not evidence that the Minister took this decision.
I am completely running out of time so I shall address just one more point, made by the noble Lord, Lord Addington. I assure him that the new EHRC arrangements work better for disabled people than the old ones. That is a really important point. I refer him to the remarks made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Prosser and Lady Gale, which are very helpful. The EHRC itself has noted that while its previous approach provided some focus on disability issues, it was found to have the effect of treating work on disability separately from other work programmes. It also led to work on disability being seen as the responsibility of specific individuals in the commission rather than the collective responsibility of the board and the organisation as a whole. It is believed that that led to some miscommunication as well as missed opportunities.
I am now over time. I thank all noble Lords for their contributions, and I will catch up in writing on any points I have missed.
Role of Women in Public Life
Lord Shinkwin Excerpts(6 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Vere of Norbiton for moving the Motion marking such a monumental milestone in the life of our democracy and, indeed, civilisation. Although it was long overdue, it is hard to believe that a whole century has passed since women over 30 were allowed to vote in parliamentary elections for the first time, so significant have the achievements been since then. Who could possibly have conceived that only 51 years after the 1928 Act which gave women the right to vote on the same terms as men, we would have our first woman Prime Minister and now, 90 years later, our second? What a tribute that simple fact is to women, to have overcome such prejudice in the public service of our country and its people, and how much richer we are as a society for that, in so many ways. Yet it is worth reflecting that until relatively recently all of this was a pipe dream. As the noble Baroness, Lady Benjamin, said, who would have thought it possible?
I will not repeat the key developments about which we have already heard from my noble friend and other noble Lords. I am sure they fill us all both with pride in the progress that has been made to date and, as other noble Lords, such as the noble Baronesses, Lady Gale and Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, have argued, an impatience for the further progress that still needs to be made to ensure that women realise their potential in public life. I say that not just because I acknowledge their right to realise their potential but because it is something that society has a direct stake in—as my noble friend Lady Seccombe told us, it is society as a whole that benefits and has benefited so much over the past 100 years as women have contributed more and more to our parliamentary democracy and other fields.
Marking this centenary is of course a cause for celebration, and yet it is more than that. The remarkable progress achieved by women in public life, particularly when one considers for how long their exclusion had been normalised, is also a cause for hope, not just for other women but for me personally and other disabled people who still face discrimination, as I appreciate some women do—although, I would suggest, to a lesser extent, at least here in the UK. The noble Lord, Lord Addington, mentioned disability. We are light years behind the progress made by women. Disability discrimination is still embedded in our culture. Nowhere is it more normalised—more institutionalised—than in the way that a human being diagnosed before birth with a disability such as mine is devalued on account of their disability, to the extent that they are regarded not just as worth less than a non-disabled human being but as worthless, disposable right up to birth, specifically for being diagnosed with a disability.
So why do I, as a severely disabled person, draw hope from this centenary? I do so because it reminds us of a simple but fundamentally important lesson which the experience of the past 100 years teaches us, which is that, as my noble friend Lady Jenkin of Kennington and the noble Baroness, Lady Kennedy of The Shaws, highlighted, attitudes change; that how we look at each other and how we value each other can change so radically as to be revolutionary; and that progress which once seemed inconceivable can be achieved and enduring cultural change can follow.
I will always remember reading as a teenager about someone I do not think has been mentioned so far: Emily Davison, a suffragette who tragically lost—many say gave—her life when she ran in front of the King’s horse at the Epsom Derby 105 years ago in 1913. I ask that while we reflect on her sacrifice for the right to vote, we also reflect on all those human beings diagnosed as female and disabled before birth, whose equal right to exist, to become women, to vote and to contribute to public life has been denied on account not of their sex but of their disability. Their potential contribution—perhaps one of them could have been our first disabled woman Prime Minister—has been lost for ever because the diagnosis of disability before birth denied them the most basic right of all, the equal right to exist. That is our tragic loss as a Parliament and as a people.
I close with this question for the Minister: would it not be wonderful to have as a clear goal the election of many more disabled women to show by their example, as their non-disabled counterparts have done, that being born with a disability need not prevent a woman—or, for that matter, a man—making a significant contribution to public life in the service of our great country? What better way to build on the progress of the suffragettes and since, and thereby disprove enduring discriminatory attitudes that so devalue disabled human beings, male and female alike, before they are even born?
Tackling Financial Exclusion (Financial Exclusion Report)
Lord Shinkwin Excerpts(7 years ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, it was a pleasure to serve under the chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Tyler of Enfield, and I too pay tribute to the excellent leadership she gave the committee—which also received, as we have already heard, superb support from the committee clerk, his team and the committee’s advisers.
I want to focus my remarks on two specific recommendations of the report. First, recommendation 5 calls for the introduction of a requirement for the Financial Conduct Authority—the FCA—to make rules setting out a reasonable duty of care for financial services providers to exercise towards their customers. As my noble friend Lord Holmes of Richmond, who made an excellent speech, and other noble Lords have already mentioned, the Select Committee believes that such a duty will promote responsible behaviour on the part of business and support sound financial decision-making by customers.
In their response to the committee’s report, the Government highlighted that the FCA has committed to publishing a discussion paper on the introduction of a duty of care and suggested that this was a sufficient next step. The problem, as has already been said, is that the discussion paper—which would only, in the FCA’s own words, “start a dialogue”—is not due to be published until after the UK’s withdrawal from the EU. I therefore wonder whether my noble friend the Minister can explain why we need to wait until after Brexit given that the Financial Guidance and Claims Bill, now in the other place, offers a timely opportunity to make the necessary amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Moreover, will he say what he thinks “after Brexit” actually means? Is that March 2019 or March 2021, after the two-year transition period? Most importantly, quite apart from the fact that a duty of care amendment would secure better outcomes for consumers in general, what is his view of the justification for the unnecessary and, some would say, unacceptable delay to customers affected by cancer accessing better support at their time of greatest need?
I should declare an interest of sorts. I was privileged to work at Macmillan Cancer Support 15 or so years ago. Never did I imagine that I would have the privilege of speaking in support of that amazing charity as a Member of your Lordships’ House, but I am proud to do so today, and to support the one in two people who, by 2020, as we have already heard, will get that illness in their lifetime. Alongside the physical and emotional impacts, cancer brings with it a real risk of financial hardship: four out of five people with cancer are, on average, £570 a month worse off as a result of their diagnosis.
As providers of mortgages and other financial products, banks have an unrivalled ability to support people affected by this financial impact; yet notwithstanding some progress, there is still a lack of consistency across the sector, and people still do not know what to expect from their bank. Macmillan research found that only one in nine people with cancer had even told their bank about their diagnosis, and of those who did tell their bank, almost one-quarter were dissatisfied with the support they received. If banks and building societies had a legal duty of care towards their customers, it would give people with cancer confidence to disclose their diagnosis, knowing that they could trust their bank to act in their best interests. For banks, this would mean being ready to respond to their customers’ needs and designing the vital products and services that would help people manage their finances while ill.
Macmillan is very concerned that unless the Government legislate for the duty of care now, the issue will be delayed indefinitely. Sadly, as so many of us know all too well, cancer takes no account of such delays. When cancer strikes, the need is now. The Government and the FCA need to recognise that and act now, not in some far-off future.
I turn briefly to recommendation 10 and the duty to make reasonable adjustments—which too often, incredibly, is still not being met. As we have already heard, the committee called for a review, to be published within 18 months of the report’s publication, of reasonable adjustment practices for disabled people, to identify areas of good and bad practice so that improvements can be made. That needs to be followed, the committee said, by a timetable with clear target dates for the delivery of improvements, along with their monitoring and implementation within the lifetime of this Parliament.
Here is an opportunity for the Government to champion the disabled consumer and disability equality in general. Yet, sadly, they seem to decline to lead or to set the pace. I have to ask what message this sends to disabled people. The FCA does not appear that bothered either. A word search of its consumer approach document, published only last month, generated one reference to disability, and none to reasonable adjustments. So although the practical problems which disabled consumers like me face are highlighted in the committee’s report, the full extent of the cultural problem we still encounter is actually highlighted by its omission from the FCA document itself. Ultimately, this comes down to enforcement. Put simply, enforceability and disability are inextricably linked: the duty’s enforceability is essential to enabling a person with a disability to access services which a non-disabled person takes for granted. Yet our power to enforce has gradually been eroded. This needs to be reversed.
Cumulative impact assessments are apparently all the rage, and in conclusion I have one of my own, although it is unfortunately not that positive. I fear that the cumulative impact of the Government’s passivity on disability equality is storing up problems which as well as being unnecessary, are completely avoidable—if only they would take a lead and put disability equality back on their agenda. In order for a commitment to building a country that works for everyone to be credible, it must include everyone, whether they are affected by cancer or by disability. I hope very much that Ministers will use the coming recess to reflect on how this can be done in a strategic and concerted way across government, as a matter of urgency.