Covid-19: Children

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, for giving your Lordships’ House the opportunity to debate such a crucial issue. I agree with her that now is the time to optimise the life chances of children, especially disabled children, and to level up opportunity to ensure equality for their future. As the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Leeds reminded us, we will all benefit if that happens, and we will all pay if it does not.

That is why it is vital that the Prime Minister’s practical commitment to his levelling-up agenda is commensurate with the scale of the challenge. I am thinking in particular of his pledge that his Government would publish

“the most ambitious and transformative disability plan in a generation.”

I chaired the CSJ Disability Commission, which published the blueprint of an oven-ready disability strategy earlier this year, and I thank Oliver Large at the CSJ for his invaluable assistance. The Prime Minister has been good enough to describe the commission’s Now is the Time report as a “tremendous contribution.” In his letter to me, he says,

“You may be reassured of my determination that the National Strategy shall be transformative.”


I regret to say that a subsequent Zoom call with the Minister for Disabled People, in which we discussed aspects of the forthcoming strategy relating to life chances and equality of opportunity in employment, was far less reassuring. Indeed, I do not recall him using the word “transformative” once. There were plenty of references to “very exciting pilot projects”, but nothing about ambitious and transformative change. On the commission’s recommendations, I heard very little to reassure me. Instead, the clear impression was of a department preoccupied with carrying on business as usual, repackaged as a strategy in name only.

I worry that the DWP either does not get it or has not bought into the PM’s vision, because what I heard from the Minister could not have been more different in tone from what the PM is saying. I believe the Prime Minister gets it but, the fact is that, as the noble Baroness, Lady Morris of Yardley, made clear, the life-chances legacy of the pandemic challenge makes his disability plan even more central to the credibility and success of his levelling-up agenda. Indeed, ComRes polling shows that the strategy is viewed by the public as a key test of whether the Prime Minister’s levelling-up agenda is more than just words.

Disabled people have watched successive Governments produce Green Papers, White Papers and consultations with little to no tangible outcomes, repeating the same work time and time again without any transformation. That is why we have got to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity to get it right because getting the PM’s national strategy for disabled people wrong, as I sadly believe is in danger of happening, would hole his levelling-up agenda below the waterline. I want to reassure the Prime Minister that I will not blame him—indeed, I will thank him—if he delays the disability strategy until he can be confident of its landing well with its primary stakeholder group, disabled people and disabled children.

The Government need to understand that it is we as disabled people who will tell them when we believe we have been listened to, not the other way round. It is vital that the PM’s levelling-up agenda and his promise of equality of opportunity is regarded by disabled people in ways that they can see for themselves as truly delivering on his promise of levelling up.

Children with Genetic Conditions: Specialist Support

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Tuesday 15th June 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, it is indeed correct that some of the learning lost has been greatest for those with special educational needs and disabilities. That was one of the reasons why, during both of the lockdowns when schools were closed, places were still available for many of those young people. They should now be accessing all the therapies and additional support that the plan says they should receive. The recovery package has the flexibility that some of the money is per-pupil and, therefore, schools can buy in the additional specialist support that the noble Lord outlines.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, the absence of a diagnosis or late diagnosis of 22q11 deletion syndrome means an inevitable impact on children’s educational support and outcomes during their school years. Can my noble friend the Minister shed some light on work that she may be doing with the Department of Health on the Government’s plans to increase the number of conditions included in newborn screening for specialist support, in line with other countries, and what consideration has been given to the inclusion of 22q11?

[Baroness Berridge (Con)]

My Lords, as I understand it, this is the second most prevalent genetic disorder after Down’s syndrome. I will take back to colleagues at the Department of Health the request as to whether it is included in screening. This disorder apparently has a wide spectrum of effects, so some of those children are never identified during their school career, but the education, health and care plan should support them if they do exhibit a need for extra support. Diagnosis is not a precursor to having an EHCP; many are diagnosed, some within mainstream provision in schools and some in specialist provision.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 12th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome this Queen’s Speech. Some noble Lords may lampoon levelling up; I do not. Some in the Westminster bubble may deride the Prime Minister for his vision, but the people of the West Midlands do not, as Andy Street’s fantastic victory demonstrates. One way in which, to his huge credit, the Prime Minister is personally leading the charge is in his national disability strategy that he has promised will be

“the most ambitious and transformative disability plan in a generation.”

The Prime Minister should be lauded, rather than ridiculed, for nailing his colours to the equality of opportunity mast. Many disabled people are pinning their hopes on it, and I am one of them. We have got one shot at this; we need to get it right.

That is why I was delighted to chair the CSJ Disability Commission and to recruit my noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson, as well as other distinguished individuals from business, academia and the voluntary sector, to serve on it. We recently published our submission to the Prime Minister’s forthcoming strategy. Covering education, housing, transport, access to goods and services and, of course, employment, the submission is appropriately titled Now is the Time. For, more than a quarter of a century after your Lordships’ House passed the Disability Discrimination Act into law, and five years since its ad hoc Select Committee conducted its authoritative inquiry on the Equality Act 2010 and disabled people, the time for warm words—for non-disabled people to tell disabled people what is good for them—is over. I believe the PM gets this, and appreciates both the scale of the challenge and the urgency of meeting it with tangible, visible proof of how his levelling-up agenda will make a difference to people’s lives.

I appreciate that some may ask why now should be different. After all, we have been here before. As many noble Lords will know, this is not the first strategy for disabled people—but the difference, I believe, is in the business appetite for change. Nowhere was that more evident than in the amazing list of business leaders who signed the open letter to the Prime Minister in the Times last month, welcoming the launch of the commission’s submission to his strategy and urging him to show in his strategy that he has given careful consideration to its recommendations.

Time does not allow me to list the blue chip companies that signed the letter, as I did in the debate on the economic recovery on 20 April, at col. 298 of the Grand Committee, but I will touch on some of the commission’s employment recommendations. They include extending mandatory gender employment and pay gap reporting—which a Conservative Government introduced and which Ministers in this Government have said is working —to disability and other protected characteristics; creating more supported routes into employment through supported internships; leveraging government procurement, worth some £292 billion, to drive up the number of disabled people in employment; and reforming both Disability Confident and Access to Work to make them fit for purpose. The signatories were clear in their message to the PM. They said that

“Disabled people have waited long enough; now is the time for action”.


They are right.

In conclusion, equality of opportunity is a business imperative, so let us unleash the power of business to level up through enterprise, talent, and equality of opportunity. That is the way to make the Prime Minister’s promise a reality.