Universal Credit
Lord Shinkwin Excerpts(7 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, for this important opportunity to focus on the sustainability of the welfare system. As a Conservative committed to social justice, I am proud that a Conservative Government have had the courage, vision and political will to introduce universal credit. This is a monumental step change which is putting our welfare system on to a sustainable footing for the future.
I come to this issue as someone who is a benefit claimant. In the past I have claimed incapacity benefit and I claim disability living allowance now to help meet the extra costs of my disability, so I declare a vested interest. Indeed, I depend on a welfare system that is sustainable. I have no vested interest in patronising either disabled or non-disabled claimants of universal credit by implying that somehow it does not really matter whether the welfare system is sustainable. The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, mentioned ideology. I do not subscribe to the ideology that digging ourselves, as a country, ever deeper into debt will somehow not have painful repercussions further down the line, especially for those who most depend on the welfare state and who can therefore least afford for it to be unsustainable.
Reforming the benefits system of the past so that it is fit for purpose for the future is a huge undertaking, as we have already heard. Indeed, how could it not be? What systemic change process does not generate situations from which we can learn? We have heard of such situations. That is why I welcome the Government’s emphasis on a gradual introduction of universal credit. It is also why I welcome their renewed efforts to make people aware that advances of universal credit are available for those who need it—either within five working days or, if a person is in immediate need, on the same day—and that the rent of people who need extra support with managing their budget can be paid directly to their landlords.
What I cannot welcome is how, in the cut and thrust of Prime Minister’s Questions recently, some on the hard left have risked exacerbating vulnerable people’s fears. Of course it is entirely legitimate to highlight individual cases, but the scaremongering that we have seen in the other place—for example, the suggestion that the universal credit inquiry line is a premium-rate number, when everyone knows that it never has been—helps no one. I thank the Government for countering the scaremongering by making it a freephone number.
A number of disability organisations contacted me rather late in the day about this debate. Time does not allow me to go into the detail, but would my noble friend the Minister be willing to meet me to discuss some of the points that they have made?
In the meantime, and in conclusion, I do not question any noble Lord’s integrity, but there is a fine balance to be struck between highlighting individual cases and misrepresenting universal credit as a whole, as has happened in the other place—as my noble friend Lord Famer highlighted earlier in this important debate. We all know that no one gains if people in real need are frightened off from making a claim when what they need to hear is reassurance that the impact of universal credit is overwhelmingly positive; that it is helping to make the welfare system sustainable for the future, for both the claimant and the taxpayer; that it is being introduced gradually and carefully over the next five years; and that prompt help for those in real difficulty is available.
Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017
Lord Shinkwin Excerpts(8 years, 3 months ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a recipient of the higher-rate mobility component of disability living allowance, which, as noble Lords will know, is being replaced by PIP. As someone with a severe, permanent and constant disability, I depend on DLA for my mobility because it enables me to lease a car through Motability. Indeed, it gives me great pleasure to put on record my profound personal thanks to Motability, and particularly its founder, my noble friend Lord Sterling of Plaistow, for the phenomenal difference that that organisation has made to disabled people’s lives in its first 40 years. Long may it continue.
And long may targeted support continue for those whose need is greatest for help with meeting the extra costs of living with a disability. The most help to those who need it most: that is surely a founding principle of our welfare state, and the enduring basis of public confidence in the system that underpins the public’s willingness to fund the welfare state so generously through their taxes. As the then Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, rightly said in 2012:
“One of the things about governing is it forces you to confront the inconvenient truths oppositions choose to ignore”.
One of those truths is that sustaining public trust in the welfare system is crucial to sustaining that system, which I and millions of disabled people rely on, so it is vital that the money gets spent where it is meant to and is seen to be so. I believe the taxpayer does not have a problem with someone needing assistance as a result of difficulties in navigating—for example, if they are blind. Taxpayers surely understand that conditions such as visual impairments and learning disabilities, where these are severe and enduring, are much less likely to fluctuate than, for example, psychological distress. Indeed, it makes sense that people who cannot navigate due to a visual or cognitive impairment are likely to have a higher level of need and therefore face higher costs.
Some noble Lords seem to believe that the world would be different if only their party was in power. Yet where their party is in power, running councils such as Lambeth, it is adding to the cost of living with a disability. One way in which it is doing this is by giving parking tickets to disabled people who come home late from work to find that there are no parking spaces available outside their home and therefore have to park on yellow lines. Will the council give them a designated disabled parking space outside their home, as would happen less than a mile away in Westminster? No, it is not council policy. So today, in 2017, Lambeth Council is penalising some disabled people and imposing extra costs on them for a need directly related to their being disabled. What a policy. How do I know it is doing this? Because I am the person who cannot find anywhere else to park after returning home late from your Lordships’ House, yet my request for a designated disabled parking bay has been rejected out of hand.
This is just one example of why we urgently need to join the dots on disability if more disabled people are, as we all want, to live independently and work. Until we join those dots, I cannot in all honesty justify expecting taxpayers to be even more generous in helping to meet the extra costs of living with a disability, when the state itself imposes such indefensible extra costs on disabled people. Despite my sincere and profound respect for the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Thomas of Winchester, I therefore cannot support the Motions.
Baroness Stroud (Con)
My Lords, I have been listening to the debate and am concerned that the nature of our discussion may not reflect the actions that the Government are taking. I understand that the Government are laying these regulations in response to a court case which has broadened the eligibility criteria of the PIP assessment beyond the original intent that this House voted for, at a potential increase in cost of £3.7 billion.
I want to be clear that I am pleased to be part of this House—a House that has done so much to ensure that the rights and needs of those with disabilities are upheld. That is why I have spoken on the importance of halving the disability employment gap, and why I have supported my noble friend Lord Shinkwin’s Private Member’s Bill.
Like all of us in this Chamber, I believe that a decent society should always recognise and support those who are most vulnerable. However, I have read carefully what the Minister said in the other Place, and I do not think that this is what is at stake here. Despite the wording of this fatal Motion and Motion to Regret, it is worth reflecting on the fact that we in this country rightly spend more on supporting people who are sick and disabled than the OECD average. We rightly spend around £50 billion a year to support people with disabilities and health conditions. However, if you listened to the speeches in the Chamber this evening, you would think that these regulations were about to reverse this level of support and the protections that are in place. Will my noble friend the Minster confirm that this is not the case and that the level of support that this House legislated for will be protected?
The wording of the regret Motion tonight suggests that the regulations discriminate against people with mental health problems and could put vulnerable claimants at risk but, again, it is my understanding that the Government have laid these regulations to address the impact of the court case which broadened the eligibility of PIP beyond the original intent voted for by this House. Will the Minister confirm that this is indeed the case and that there are no further savings beyond those that were legislated for here in this House that are being sought?
Both Houses of Parliament voted for the changes from DLA to PIP, and one key reason for this was a recognition that PIP focuses support precisely on those experiencing the greatest barriers to living independently. At the core of PIP’s design is the principle that awards of the benefit should be made according to a claimant’s overall level of need, regardless of whether claimants suffer from physical or non-physical conditions, and it has been good to see that 28% of PIP recipients with a mental health condition get the enhanced-rate mobility component, compared to 10% receiving the higher-rate DLA component, and that 66% of PIP recipients with a mental health condition get the enhanced-rate daily living component, compared to 22% receiving highest-rate DLA care. It is precisely because PIP improves support to those with mental health problems, addressing a discrimination inherent in DLA, that this House supported the legislation in the first place. Will the Minster confirm that this remains not only the intent of PIP but the reality, and that the regulations restore the original intention of PIP, which was to make sure there is a sustainable benefit to provide continued support to those who face the greatest barrier, whether physical or mental, to living independent lives?
Policing and Crime Bill
Lord Shinkwin ExcerptsWednesday 7th December 2016
(8 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I support Amendment 173. I will not rehearse the arguments about the details of the amendment so persuasively set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and by the ad hoc Select Committee of your Lordships’ House that she so ably chaired. Its excellent report on the Equality Act 2010 and its impact on disabled people bears testimony, if any were needed, to the proud and noble tradition of your Lordships’ House of fighting against disability discrimination and for equality.
I was proud to serve on the National Disability Council, which was set up to advise on the implementation of the Conservative Government’s 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, otherwise known as the DDA. Central to that Act was the concept of the duty to make reasonable adjustments to enable disabled people to access goods, facilities and services. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has said, the nature of that duty was anticipatory. The onus was not on the disabled person so much as on the provider to anticipate reasonable adjustments. That anticipatory principle is sacrosanct. To ignore it would be to go backwards, with all the political consequences that would involve.
Abortion (Disability Equality) Bill [HL]
Lord Shinkwin ExcerptsFriday 21st October 2016
(8 years, 8 months ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, as someone with a disability, it gives me immense pride to present to your Lordships’ House a Bill about disability rights and the fundamental principle of equality under the law. Noble Lords have treated me with nothing but respect as an equal since my introduction to your Lordships’ House just under a year ago. The reason for my Bill is that in respect to disability before birth the law does not recognise or accept that equality.
I wonder if I could extend an invitation to noble Lords to join me briefly on a journey, to put themselves in my place and to view the issues under discussion from a disabled person’s perspective. From this disabled person’s perspective, there is a stark anomaly, an inconsistency in the law, whereby discrimination on grounds of disability is both prohibited in law after birth yet, confusingly, actually enshrined in law at the very point at which the discrimination begins, at source, before birth. How do I know it is enshrined in law and that disability discrimination begins before birth? I know because the law says so. It is there in black and white in Section 1(1) of the Abortion Act 1967, which gives disability as one of the grounds for abortion:
“if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith ... that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped”.
So by rights I should not be here. I should be dead. Indeed, more than that, according to the eugenic screening programme of our Department of Health, I would be better off dead because of serious handicap, to use the outdated terminology of the Act. I regard my Private Member’s Bill as a modest, reasonable and logical correction of that anomaly in the law to bring it into line with the thrust and spirit of existing disability discrimination and equality legislation.
Before I go into the detail of why I regard my Bill as a modest, reasonable and logical correction of that anomaly, I would like to place my Bill in context. I do so in the context of gratitude to the various clinicians who have treated me over the years without any discrimination, especially Hanus Weisl, a wonderful Jewish orthopaedic surgeon who rebuilt his life after a narrow escape from Nazi-occupied Prague in 1939 and rebuilt me as a child with brittle bones more times than I care to remember—how I wish I could thank him today—to my family and friends for only ever supporting me and never discriminating against me; to our Holy Mother for her non-discriminatory, sustaining love; and to your Lordships’ House for its tireless work to advance disabled people’s rights, as demonstrated by the pivotal role it played in securing the Disability Discrimination Act 21 years ago and the Equality Act, and for the authoritative report of the Select Committee, The Equality Act 2010: The Impact on Disabled People. In fact, I hope the new Minister for Disabled People, Penny Mordaunt, will look at its pragmatic recommendations again.
The second context in which my Bill must be placed is historical. I cannot seriously believe that noble Lords could ever have intended any law to discriminate to the eugenic extent that Section 1(1)(d) of the Abortion Act 1967 permits and of which a particular regime of the 1930s and 1940s would heartily approve.
Moreover, I struggle to understand how such eugenics can somehow be in any way less abhorrent 80 years later, especially given the supposed societal and attitudinal changes that have transpired since and the marvellous medical advances that have been made in that time. I also cannot believe that noble Lords could have intended that laws governing or giving rise to disability discrimination should be moving, in their effects, in such conflicting and contradictory directions as equality law is on the one hand and abortion law is on the other.
The inconsistency would be farcical if its impact were not so tragic. This is perhaps highlighted by how ridiculous it is that I should be a Member of your Lordships’ House, for whom a Health Minister recently professed in an email to me, no doubt sincerely, to have the greatest respect, yet were a younger, unborn version of me to be detected in the womb today, Section 1(1)(d) of the Act and his department’s search-and-destroy approach to screening would make me a prime candidate for abortion. How is that consistent with respect or equality?
It is in the context of such contradiction that I regard my Bill as modest, reasonable and logical. The logic I have just explained. I believe it to be modest and reasonable because its scope is so limited. This is borne out by the legal advice I have received by Hugh Preston QC that the practical effect of my Bill would be that, where there is a substantial risk of serious handicap, the mother’s ability to abort would be governed by the same criteria that apply in the case of any other foetus. Where the foetal handicap is such as to present a risk to the mother’s life or a risk of serious permanent damage to her, the mother would still be allowed by law to abort right up to birth.
Moreover, where the risk of injury to the mother is not so grave as to meet these criteria, the question of abortion would be governed by Section (1)(1)(a) of the Abortion Act—that is, abortion is permitted subject to there being a risk to the physical or mental health of the mother or her existing children greater than the risk of continuing with the pregnancy. In practice, in circumstances where a mother has concluded that she does wish to have an abortion, having decided that she does not wish to have a seriously handicapped child—to use the outdated wording of the Act—the advice I have been given is that one anticipates that this relatively low threshold would not be difficult to overcome, as indeed is the case generally for foetuses presenting no risk of serious handicap.
It follows that the practical effect of abolishing Section 1(1)(d) of the Act, which is what my Bill would do, is that any abortions by reason of disability would need to be carried out within the first 24 weeks, subject to the other sections that I have already mentioned—for example, where there is a risk of serious permanent damage to the mother or her life is at risk, in which case they will remain legally permissible until birth.
What is the legal difference between my Bill and the status quo? The difference in practice is modest; the difference in principle is huge. If a woman chose indirectly to discriminate on grounds of disability, the law would allow her to do so up to 24 weeks, but the principle of disability discrimination itself would no longer be enshrined in law, as I understand it.
Each of us has made different personal journeys to our Lordships’ House, but I submit that each of us has made that same essential journey through life: adulthood, childhood, infancy and before that the state of being an unborn baby, safe and secure in our mother’s womb. Only that is precisely the point, because for unborn babies whose disability is detected, a mother’s womb has become an increasingly dangerous place. I will share a few statistics with noble Lords. There were 230 terminations after 24 weeks on grounds of disability in 2015, and a 56% increase in the number of terminations on grounds of disability after 24 weeks over the last five years, between 2010 and 2015. There has been a 271% increase in the number of terminations on grounds of disability after 24 weeks over the last 20 years, 1995 to 2015. There were 3,213 terminations on grounds of disability in 2015, and a 68% increase in the number of terminations on grounds of disability over the last 10 years, 2005 to 2015. There were 689 terminations for Down’s syndrome alone in 2015 and a 43% increase in the number of terminations for Down’s syndrome over the last five years, 2010 to 2015. There was a 143% increase in the number of terminations for Down’s syndrome over the last 20 years, 1995 to 2015. Perhaps almost as chilling, there were 11 terminations for cleft lip or palate in 2015—an easily surgically rectifiable condition. I find the contrast between the 0.3% decline over the last decade in the number of overall abortions and the rise in the number of abortions on unborn babies detected with a disability alarming and deeply offensive.
As a disabled person, I am a prime candidate for abortion on the grounds of disability. I admit that I would like to say to the eugenicists in the Department of Health and those who obviously fail to appreciate the enormity of what is being perpetrated in our name:
“How dare you? How dare you wipe us out as mere conditions?”,
as the journalist Janice Turner so poignantly, if sadly approvingly, put it in the Times recently. My message to Janice Turner and all those who share such views is this: I am your equal. I will not be defined by my disability. I will be defined by who I am and by my contribution to your Lordships’ House and public service.
In conclusion, I know why they dare. They dare because they can, because discrimination in the form of abortion on grounds of disability is both lethal and legal, enshrined in law by Parliament and by your Lordships’ House. They dare not only because Parliament has legalised disability discrimination before birth or even simply legitimised it. No, we have gone one better than that and have allowed it to be normalised. I suggest that, collectively, we are in denial about the consequences of the choices we have made. But to deny equality here is inconsistent, incompatible and irreconcilable with the wonderful work that your Lordships’ House has done over many years to advance disability rights and equality. It is within that noble tradition of equality legislation that my Bill sits, and that is why I hope noble Lords will agree that my modest, logical and reasonable Bill deserves support and, crucially, government time in order that this corrosive, unjust and deeply discriminatory anomaly in the law is corrected, and equality is upheld in a society that is truly for everyone. I beg to move.
Lord Shinkwin
My Lords, I thank all those who have most kindly contributed to this debate for their constructive comments. Mindful that time is pressing, I hope that noble Lords who have contributed will excuse me if I am brief in my closing remarks.
I thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for drawing attention to the need for the media to pay more attention to ethical issues and treat them with a higher priority. I also agree that the legislation under discussion is a throwback to times that are, I am happy to say, long passed. We have moved on as a society and it is time that the law and Parliament catch up with that and challenge negative stereotypes.
I thank my noble friend Lady Nicholson for agreeing with me that the attitude of society has changed and that everyone is equal. I agree with her that it does seem rather jarring, if not hypocritical, to celebrate as a society the amazing achievements of our Paralympians and then, as I alluded to in my opening remarks, to tell them in effect that, by law, we would have killed you if we had had the chance and we believe that you would be better off dead. I am afraid that although none of us may articulate such thoughts, the subtext of the existing law signals exactly that message.
I thank the right reverend Prelate for his supportive remarks. I emphasise, with him, that this is not about the ethics of abortion. Indeed, it is perfectly true that it would be unlikely that the number of abortions would markedly decrease. But, as he rightly said, the principle of disability equality is essential if society wants to celebrate people with disabilities, as they did so recently in Trafalgar Square.
Moving quickly on to the remarks of my noble friend Lady Stroud, I think she made a very pertinent point when she said that most people—most Members of your Lordships’ House—are surprised to discover that not only is disability grounds for abortion, it is grounds for abortion up until birth. I hear the comments made by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hayter and Lady Tonge, but, with respect, I must say that it is important that we take on board the points made by my noble friend Lady Stroud about the pressure exerted on women by clinicians, nursing staff and legislation—by the societal norms constructed by the legislation passed by your Lordships’ House. It is the crucial importance of attitudes.
With regard to the remarks of the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, I would simply say that either we believe in equality or we do not. George Orwell helpfully pointed out that no one can be more equal than others. That is exactly the point about the need for consistency in equality. I simply thank the noble Baroness for the overpowering clarity of her views.
On the remarks of my noble friend Lord Bridgeman, I cannot help but agree with his appropriate description of how the interpretation of the law passed by your Lordships’ House has inadvertently resulted in abortion on grounds of disability by stealth, and that that was not what this House intended.
I thank my noble friend Lord Elton for his supportive remarks. I agreed with the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, when she opened her remarks by drawing attention to the contribution of disabled people. I would like to believe that I make a contribution to the business of your Lordships’ House; I certainly attempt to. But perhaps I could leave her with this point. If the law is not changed, how many Members of your Lordships’ House—perhaps this is even more pertinent in light of the debate that immediately preceded this one—do your Lordships think would be in this place in 40 years’ time if they had had an anomaly or disability detected before birth? I think we all know the answer to that question. The noble Baroness also mentioned the hurdles that disabled people face. I would simply say this to her: the biggest hurdle to society being truly for everyone is attitudes.
My noble friend the Minister restated the Government’s position, which I respectfully hope will change. I have to say that I am serving notice on Her Majesty’s Government that, should they proceed to introduce the new non-invasive prenatal test without the Health Secretary having met with me and with people with Down’s syndrome, their families and representatives to discuss their grave concerns—a meeting I requested as long ago as 8 March this year—I will be very seriously concerned. I urge my Government and my party not to disown their own Disability Discrimination Act and their commitment to ensuring that disabled people are heard on all the critical issues that affect them, which is consistent with the spirit of that Act.
I conclude by thanking all those who have contributed to this important debate and I ask the House to give the Bill a Second Reading.
Civil Society and Lobbying
Lord Shinkwin Excerpts(8 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Shinkwin (Con)
My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter, for giving your Lordships’ House the opportunity to debate such an important issue. I join with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Jowell, in paying grateful tribute to Lord Rix.
I spent almost 20 years in public affairs and campaigning in the charity sector, so I will confine my remarks to charities. I count myself privileged to have seen first-hand the vital role that they play in our democracy. Throughout my time in the charity sector I have seen that being able to demonstrate a clear connection between donor support and the tangible benefits of the campaigns that their time and support helped fund was crucial to building trust. It is that trust that underpins the success and sustainability not just of charity campaigning but of the sector itself. Trust is our charity sector’s life-blood, and right now it is in urgent need of a transfusion.
Sadly, I witnessed a serious breach of trust, which underlines that urgency. I bring it to your Lordships’ attention out of the same sense of public-interest duty that first drove me to stand up and be counted on what I still regard as a matter of honour. The duty to speak truth to power without fear or favour is surely all the greater because of the privilege and responsibility that go with being a Member of your Lordships’ House.
The situation I found myself in as head of public affairs at the Royal British Legion underlines the compelling need for far greater protection for whistleblowers brave enough to raise legitimate concerns about ethical issues or mismanagement in the charity sector. Whistleblowers are often dismissed as disgruntled former employees, but I know I will only ever be a proud former employee of the wonderful organisation that is the legion. Happily, the charity is now under new management. Moreover, the excellent new director-general, Charles Byrne, was not there when this situation arose.
If helping to win the campaign to save the chief coroner, with the essential support of your Lordships’ House, was my proudest moment at the legion, being bullied by a then senior director at the charity in an attempt to get me to sign off payment of an invoice that I had advised was of dubious legality—and moreover, to learn subsequently that the then director-general had nonetheless approved payment—has to count as the saddest moment of my career. The fact is that I was unable to prevent his approval of payment of donors’ money to an individual who should never have received one penny of legion charitable funds that were donated in trust. It still haunts me that this happened on my watch as the legion’s head of public affairs and could happen again today at any charity.
I can never forget my disbelief at what happened: the invoice from a parliamentary researcher, on paper giving his Westminster email and phone number, and his personal bank account details; a parliamentary researcher, who, unbeknown to his boss, demanded payment for meetings arranged, briefings drafted and Parliamentary Questions prepared; my written advice that no payment should be made, given that any parliamentary researcher who demanded payment for such services should not be trusted, notwithstanding that a second version of the invoice was submitted by email omitting reference to preparing Parliamentary Questions, but for good measure attaching a list of Parliamentary Questions tabled; the bullying emails sent to me by the then director of welfare at the legion, who is now the chief executive of Combat Stress, asking me to process payment of the invoice now; and the email from the then director-general of the legion belatedly informing me that he had approved payment of the invoice.
I have no reason to believe that the email from the then director-general, confirming that he had approved payment, was a lie. I must take his word at face value and assume that he wrote the truth. But even if he did not tell the truth and payment was not made, it would surely be missing the point entirely if we accepted that somehow that makes such behaviour all right. Either way, if he did not tell the truth, lying to one’s colleagues, quite apart from permitting an environment in which a senior director thought it okay to bully a junior colleague on an ethical issue, is no way to lead a charity. How could such behaviour be in any way deserving of the trust that millions of donors rightly place in the legion year after year? If there is no wrongdoing, why did the then director-general, as I discovered only subsequently, neither consult nor even inform the charity’s then national chairman about such a sensitive issue? Would the trustees of Combat Stress have appointed their new chief executive had they known of her bullying behaviour and involvement in this serious matter? I assume that she did not tell them. Had anyone told me that such behaviour was possible at the legion, I would never have believed them—but for the fact that I experienced it myself.
In closing, surely the main lesson to be learned from situations such as this—to which the noble Lord, Lord Hodgson of Astley Abbotts, has already alluded—is that just because charities do good things does not mean that bad things do not happen in them, that some people in power do not abuse that power, or that some people in positions of trust do not betray that trust. If such behaviour is to be prevented, the integrity of our fantastic charity sector needs to be defended by far greater protection for whistleblowers. Only then will a strengthened charity sector once again enjoy the trust that is so essential to the success of its vital campaigning and policy-influencing work.