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

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

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

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I commend her and her committee for their excellent report on the Equality Act 2010 and disability. I declare an interest as a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. As we are discussing the duty to make reasonable adjustments, I should also tell the House that 20 or so years ago I had life-saving neurosurgery. I took three years to learn to talk again. I am still trying to teach my body to co-operate and speak more quickly, but I beg the indulgence of the House during the debate if I do not speak as quickly as I would like.

I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for the service he has done your Lordships’ House, disabled people and society at large in introducing the Bill, as my noble friends Lord Borwick and Lord Wasserman made clear in their contributions, thereby giving the Government the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to disability equality and to keeping the flame of our party’s landmark disability rights legislation, the DDA, alive. As we have already heard, the Bill is pragmatic, principled and practical. As a wheelchair user, I agree with everything that has been said. Having served on the National Disability Council, set up to advise the Government on the implementation of the DDA more than 20 years ago, I am more sorry than I can say that your Lordships’ House is still debating such a modest Bill.

I will address my remarks to a matter to which my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred—the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It was the profound sense of frustration with the lack of access highlighted by my noble friend’s Bill that drove me to respond to an advert for the specific post of disability commissioner on the commission. I applied and I was interviewed for that post because I wanted to lead in making tangible progress, such as the very measures highlighted in the Bill, as well as to contribute to securing positive change on equality generally.

On 21 April this year I received a letter from Justine Greening, in her capacity as Equalities Minister, inviting me to join the commission. Within 24 hours the chair of the commission had rung to congratulate me. At no point did either of them mention the intention to abolish the position of disability commissioner, for which I had applied and been interviewed.

This leads me to feel I need to clarify what I told the House, in good faith, on 29 June at Hansard cols. 624-25. First, Written Answers to a number of Parliamentary Questions asked in the other place have since established that, contrary to what I had been led to believe by the chair and deputy chair of the commission when they met me on 9 May, the board of the commission had not already decided to abolish the position of disability commissioner. The board decided to do so only on 11 May, two days after I had been told that the board’s decision had already been taken and two days after I had pleaded with the chair and deputy chair of the commission to urge the board to reconsider.

I now have evidence—I thank a Member of your Lordships’ House for procuring this information—of deliberate concealment that the matter was even discussed in the board’s unminuted pre-meeting of 11 May. Whereas the first draft of the main board minutes refer to the fact that the unminuted pre-meeting discussed the role of the disability commissioner, the eventual, sanitised version of the draft board minutes instead state:

“In the informal pre-meeting session, the Board had discussed the Disability Advisory Committee and the role of its chair”.


I mention this example because it is symptomatic of the commission’s tendency to conceal and to misrepresent. Consistent with this approach, on 25 October the chair of the commission told the Women and Equalities Select Committee in another place that he was sorry that I had decided not to engage with the commission. As I have since made clear to him in a six-page letter, which I would be very happy to place in the Library of the House should any Member ask me to do so, nothing could be further from the truth.

I have touched on the commission’s shocking behaviour. However, what has shocked and, indeed, saddened me perhaps even more is the evidence that has come into my possession about the Government’s involvement in this sorry situation. On 29 June on the Floor of the House I asked the Government not to get involved. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were not already involved. Today, I have to clarify my remarks of 29 June because evidence I have been given and which I have shared with the Prime Minister shows that the Equalities Minister was involved in the process that led to the abolition of the disability commissioner.

I am referring to an email of 28 March from the director of the body my noble friend Lord Blencathra mentioned, the Government Equalities Office, updating colleagues on a meeting between Justine Greening, in her capacity as Equalities Minister, and the chair of the commission. The email states that the chair of the commission told her that he had attended a meeting of the commission’s disability committee the previous day, and,

“they were anxious about there being no one in the Disability Commissioner role currently”.

The email does not record the chair of the commission as saying that the commission’s disability committee was urging him to press for the abolition of the disability commissioner role—quite the opposite. The email records that the Equalities Minister confirmed, and again I quote,

“the decision to appoint Lord Shinkwin”.

Barely a fortnight later, after the chair of the commission had pressed the Equalities Minister for an announcement on a new disability commissioner and learned that I was to be appointed—a decision I stress I was not aware of—a memo sent to Justine Greening from the Government Equalities Office, dated 13 April 2017, states,

“it is now intended that Lord Shinkwin will be appointed as a general Commissioner”.

In other words, the countdown to the abolition of the position of disability commissioner had begun, and the Equalities Minister had effectively helped start the stopwatch towards its abolition.

Sadly, the cynicism of the whole situation is underlined by the fact that another Written Answer, WA 4778, in the other place, has since revealed that the very disability committee whose desire for an announcement of a new disability commissioner the chair of the commission had cited in his meeting with Justine Greening on 28 March was not even consulted about the abolition of the role of disability commissioner. Why? The reason given was that the interim disability advisory committee was not constituted at the time the chair and commissioners were considering this issue. So much for taking heed of what disabled people—indeed, of what the commission’s own disability committee—thought. Why not wait until the committee had been reconstituted? How else could the commission present me and everyone else with a fait accompli on the abolition of the post of disability commissioner as quickly as possible?

I should make it clear at this point that none of this should come as a surprise to the Government or, indeed, to the Prime Minister, with whom I have exchanged letters on the matter and shared all the evidence. Moreover, I completely understand why the Prime Minister said in her letter to me:

“I do hope … that you are clear that the Government had no involvement in the EHRC’s decision to abolish the disability commissioner role”.


Of course the Prime Minister hopes that but, as I told her in my reply, the evidence points in the other direction. I am not going to dance on the head of a pin here: the Equalities Minister did not take the actual decision to abolish the role—it was not in her power to do so—but all the evidence I have seen points to the fact that the Equalities Minister, Justine Greening, was involved in the process that led to the abolition of the position of disability commissioner.

I do not intend to detain the House for much longer, but I think noble Lords will want to know that in my reply to the Prime Minister of 21 November, I also told her that I would like to be able to say in this debate today that I have received a written assurance from her that she was not made aware of the last-minute decision to seek the abolition of the crucial role of disability commissioner, made after my appointment to the commission, as I have explained; that she totally dissociates herself and the Government from the position’s abolition; and that she will write to the chair of the commission to urge him to reinstate the position of disability commissioner, to appoint me, in that capacity, chair of the commission’s disability advisory committee and to allow me to lead in the recruitment of new members to that committee. I also told her with great sadness that if I had not received such assurances, and a copy of her letter to the chair of the commission, before today’s debate, which I have not received, I would have to fight for disability equality and for the reinstatement of the position of disability commissioner from the Cross Benches.

Today, I am deferring my decision to give the Prime Minister, whom I want to believe was not personally involved or even informed by her Equalities Minister of the process she herself had helped set in train, the opportunity to stop this grubby cover-up. My message to the Prime Minister today, with all due and sincere respect, as one Conservative parliamentarian to another, is this: please give me and Parliament the assurances I seek and show us the evidence that the Equalities Minister did not go behind my back, the backs of the UK’s 11 million disabled people, the 800,000 wheelchair users that my noble friend mentioned, and, Prime Minister, behind your back. Please release all communications between the Government Equalities Office and/or the Equalities Minister and/or the commission concerning the disability commissioner position and prove to me and to Parliament that the Equalities Minister did not collude in weakening the voice of disabled people—and making the measures that my noble friend has set out in his Bill so much harder to achieve—by helping to set in train the process to remove the position of disability commissioner.

In conclusion, I say to the Prime Minister, I have shown you the evidence of the Equalities Minister’s involvement. Please show me and Parliament evidence that the Equalities Minister, as her role obliges her to do, did absolutely everything in her power to stand up for disabled people and to dissuade the chair of the commission from pushing for the abolition of the disability commissioner role after he had been told that I was to be appointed. The burden of proof is now on the Prime Minister, because if she cannot counter the evidence I have shared with her and now with your Lordships’ House and provide the assurances I seek, then I fear that I can reach only one conclusion: the very fact that the Equalities Minister has allowed the position of disability commissioner to be abolished on this Government’s watch means that the Equalities Minister has acted in flagrant dereliction of her duty to me as a disabled person and to all disabled people. The Equalities Minister’s position will therefore be untenable, and she will have to resign.

I finish with this question: what message does it send to the UK’s 11 million disabled people, to the 800,000 wheelchair users who would benefit and to the parents of young children who would also benefit from my noble friend’s Bill, if a Conservative Equalities Minister colludes in the abolition of the UK’s disability champion, the disability commissioner? I await the Prime Minister’s considered response to my remarks in this debate. I will then decide whether I can continue to serve with integrity the party I love.

Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bew. I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord McColl on introducing this important Bill.

I want to make four points. First, I agree with other noble Lords that David Cameron and Theresa May in particular are surely to be commended for once again putting Great Britain at the forefront of the fight against slavery. In her then capacity as Home Secretary, the Prime Minister said at Second Reading of the Modern Slavery Act 2015:

“Let us act now—together—and send a powerful message to all traffickers and slave drivers that they will not get away with their crimes: we will track them down, prosecute, and lock them up, and ensure that the victims of their appalling crimes are returned to freedom”.—[Official Report, Commons, 08/07/14; cols. 178-79.]


It is the last part of that essential equation—freedom from fear of becoming homeless, destitute and vulnerable to further exploitation from traffickers—which I, like other noble Lords, believe my noble friend’s Bill would help to address. The Bill builds on the excellent lead already provided by the Prime Minister because it recognises the importance of another message: the one that we send to victims of trafficking, as well as the one that we send to traffickers themselves.

Secondly, as we have been told, the need for action is urgent. I have heard from one of the many supporters of victims in the UK, the Medaille Trust, about the difficulties that it faces in providing support beyond the current reflection and recovery period of 45 days, particularly, as has been mentioned, in relation to obtaining benefits and accommodation. In short, I am told that the current situation is unintentionally leaving victims potentially more vulnerable. The Bill enables us to address the unfinished business of the landmark 2015 Act.

That brings me to my third point: Brexit. I understand from front-line organisations that our exit from the EU may increase the difficulty of accessing support if the rights of victims are not clarified, which is exactly what the Bill would do. Brexit provides the impetus to strengthen the existing legislation. The Bill provides the means to do so.

For me, the Bill is about affirming British values. I have just read my noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond’s excellent biography of William Wilberforce, whom other noble Lords have mentioned. Barely a fortnight ago, 24 August, marked the anniversary of William Wilberforce’s birth. As he said in the other place on 12 May 1789: “The nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it”. In 2017, 210 years after the passage of his historic Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, his call to action applies today as much as then. It can be neither ignored nor evaded. I agree with other noble Lords that, in supporting the Bill, the Government would be continuing his wonderful work. May William Wilberforce’s spirit guide our deliberations until the Bill has become law, as it surely deserves to.

Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Report

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and her committee for the service that they have done not just the disabled community but also government and society as a whole in producing such a comprehensive, valuable and timely report, as the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Brinton, have already pointed out, coming as it does 21 years after the then Conservative Government’s Disability Discrimination Act. This begs a question, which I feel in truth has probably been hanging over this entire debate. Has that Act, at 21 years of age, truly come of age? Reading this report, and the various responses to it, I think it is fair to say that it has not. None the less, I will start on a positive note. Based on my previous work with Penny Mordaunt, I welcome with real hope the promotion of her role as Minister for Disabled People to Minister of State level. This is in line with recommendation 7 in paragraph 115 of the report.

I also welcome the Government’s acceptance that it is fairly reasonable to expect that some effort be made to establish the cost of making an adjustment prior to rejecting a request on such grounds rather than relying on arbitrary and potentially inaccurate assumptions about cost. This is in line with recommendation 17 in paragraph 225. I would have liked to be able to welcome the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s response to the crucial recommendation 8, in paragraph 137, that it engage with disabled people and their organisations to co-produce a disability-specific action plan, which other noble Lords have already mentioned. I regret that I cannot do so, because, as we have already heard, the commission has—mistakenly, in my view—said that it does not consider that a separate co-produced action plan would be the most effective way forward. I was a member of the National Disability Council, set up by my noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond when he was Minister for Disabled People and taking the Disability Discrimination Bill through the House of Commons. The council was only advisory, but none the less it had a disability-specific focus. So, like the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, and my noble friend Lord Northbrook, I beg to differ.

I also do not understand the position taken by the commission on recommendation 9 in paragraph 144, rejecting the need to re-establish the disability committee as a decision-making body and to ring-fence specific resources for it. Surely both are essential if the commission is to enjoy the confidence of the disability community, an important consideration which I do not feel the commission has really taken into account. I therefore urge the commission to reconsider its response to both recommendations 8 and 9. I also respectfully urge the Government to encourage it to do so. The Conservative Government who brought in the DDA in 1995 were right to ensure a sharp disability focus then. Notwithstanding the amalgamation since that time of the different commissions—including, as we have already heard, the Disability Rights Commission—under the umbrella of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, this Conservative Government would be right to ask now that that sharp disability focus be maintained. This is particularly important given the Government’s laudable manifesto aim of halving the disability employment gap.

I am not sure I entirely share the Government’s optimism when they state in their response that,

“the concept of reasonable adjustment is now familiar to both employers and service providers”.

The concept may well be familiar but, if that is the case, then the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt remains all too often sadly true in my experience. Awareness of a concept is not the same as awareness of a legal obligation. I am all for maximising incentives, for using carrots rather than sticks where possible, but I wonder whether carrots in the form of yet more guides on how to make your business accessible have been on the menu for rather a long time. To paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, smiling sweetly—in this case at service providers—is not going to get us very far if they do not understand that there is also a damn big stick behind that smile.

Might I suggest to my noble friend the Minister that the Government pursue a slightly more robust approach by introducing a scheme of tapered incentives for reasonable adjustments to be made? For example, businesses could be told that they had a certain number of years—I take the figure five at random; it could be fewer—to make the necessary adjustments. There could be a declining tax break for the first three years, no tax break in the fourth and a tax take—a penalty—levied by government for any non-compliance in the fifth year. Obviously the Government would also need to work in partnership with the relevant trade bodies, disability organisations and providers of ramps, induction loops and other disability aids to make service providers, particularly SMEs, aware that reasonable adjustments need not cost the earth. Might I also suggest that any guide produced to publicise the scheme has as its title the simple message: “The law is the law. It pays not to break it”? This report shows that 21 years after your Lordships’ House passed the Disability Discrimination Act into law we still need to join up the dots.

I welcome the Government’s stated commitment in paragraph 4 of the preamble to their response to improving attitudes. I also welcome their restated commitment to take steps to implement the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, and the clear acknowledgement that such a commitment means that all government departments need to consider what the convention says when developing a policy that affects disabled people, including, in the case of the UN convention, disability before birth. This is particularly important because I am concerned that one department, the Department of Health, may be in breach of at least the spirit, if not the letter, of that convention as it relates to disability before birth. If this excellent report is to have a lasting impact and if we are committed to equality, we must allow disabled babies to have a future to enjoy equality. At the moment, many of them do not. The sad, shocking fact is that a diagnosis of disability in the womb means all too often that they are lucky to make it out alive.

Disability discrimination may have been outlawed after birth 21 years ago, but for disability diagnosed before birth, discrimination remains enshrined in 2016 in the law of our land. Take Down’s syndrome, for example. Some 90% of Down’s syndrome diagnoses result in termination, and that figure is likely to increase if the Department of Health approves the National Screening Committee’s recommendation that a test be introduced to make it even easier to identify Down’s. It is one thing to eradicate disability discrimination—and this excellent report powerfully shows the way forward on that. It is an entirely different thing to eradicate disability itself through termination. For that is what is happening, and not just on grounds of severe handicap, to use the terminology of the legislation—not that severity justifies discrimination. The Department of Health’s own figures for 2015 record that 11 terminations were carried out for cleft lip and cleft palate, which are easily rectifiable conditions.

I say to the Minister in good faith that, if the Government want to prove their commitment to tackling discriminatory attitudes, let them back my Private Member’s Bill. Let them make the time available so that my Bill completes its passage through your Lordships’ House and so that MPs, as the people’s elected representatives, have a chance to debate and vote on removing disability as grounds for termination.

We all know that some reports—not, I hasten to add, from your Lordships’ House—deserve to gather dust. This is not one of them. This report deserves to be a living document, to which we return on a regular basis and against which we measure progress. I look forward to doing everything I can to ensure that by eradicating disability discrimination in all areas of life both after and before birth, we do this report, Parliament and society justice in the years to come and help the Government embark on real, lasting and inclusive social reform.

Immigration Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brown of Eaton-under-Heywood (CB)]

My Lords, I support this amendment but think it right to note that it would involve two radical changes in the existing legal framework. First, it would involve a High Court judge deciding—no doubt subject to appeal—whether a particular group is subject to genocide. Secondly, it would enable any member of such a group to claim asylum from abroad. I have no real objection to the first of those changes. I do not share the concerns of the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge. In fact, it seems to me hardly necessary in the present case for a judge to be involved at all, but it might be in some future case. On all the evidence we have heard, it is pretty clear that Daesh is indeed committing genocide. If the UK Government will not say so and will not refer the matter to the United Nations, then by all means let us legislate to allow a judge to do so, if that would serve a valuable purpose. It is not necessary to go as far as establishing a case of genocide to establish a right to asylum under the 1951 refugee convention. But, of course, a ruling that an asylum seeker is indeed a member of a group subject to genocide would certainly qualify them in spades for refugee status.

I suggest that the real challenge in this proposal is the second change it would involve—namely, that under it for the very first time asylum would be able to be claimed from abroad rather than, as at present, only if the asylum seeker has somehow managed by hook or by crook to reach the shores of this country. Plainly, this change would substantially increase the numbers able to claim asylum here, and who we would then be obliged to take in. One fears and suspects that many thousands are subject to the risk of genocide. Assuming they could get to a British mission overseas—indeed, it is probably sufficient to get their application for asylum lodged there—that would have to be assessed, and the critical question would presumably be whether they are members of the group at risk; that addresses the point of the noble Viscount, Lord Hailsham. If the claim succeeds, they, as refugees, would still need to get to the United Kingdom to claim sanctuary. One wonders who would arrange and achieve that. The UNHCR has been suggested, but that might involve certain logistical difficulties.

Is the sheer increase in the number of prospective asylum seekers a fatal objection to the proposal? That is the crucial question here. I am puzzled about the suggestion that those who succeed under this provision would fall within the cap of 20,000 who we are already committed to relocate over this Parliament. I cannot see how, or why, that should be required. However, the proposal is confined to those who are genuinely subject to the risk of genocide. That is, of itself, a manifestly limiting factor. Accordingly, this objection should not be regarded as fatal: we should pass this amendment.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I support this amendment and the excellent speeches made by other noble Lords, particularly my noble friend Lord Forsyth. As we have heard, the Christians in Daesh-held territory are suffering indescribable persecution and slaughter on account of their belief in Jesus Christ. They are sacrificing their lives and suffering genocide for Christ’s sake. Yet we are not being called to make any sacrifice at all on their behalf. All your Lordships’ House is being asked to do today is bear witness to the truth than genocide is happening and to keep faith with these victims of genocide by empowering a High Court judge to determine whether a genocide is under way, and by requiring the Government to accelerate the resettlement requests of those fleeing such a genocide.

It may be almost impossible for us, as we sit in the splendour of this beautiful Chamber, to conceive of the enormity of the genocidal crimes being perpetrated thousands of miles away. It is possible that the only thing that we have in common with their situation right now is the colour of the luxurious red Benches on which we sit. It is also the colour of their blood. The amendment would help to ensure that it is not spilt in vain, that the extent of the genocide they are suffering is recognised for what it is, that refuge is given on account of it, and that the perpetrators, as we have already heard, will be punished specifically for genocide.

For Christians around the world, yesterday marked the start of Holy Week, the worst and yet the best week of Jesus’s life. By the end of it, he would be dead, yet he went to his death in full knowledge of the excruciating pain involved, because he chose to bear witness to the truth. We debate this amendment in full knowledge of the truth that genocide is being suffered, as I speak, in his holy name. We cannot stop it, but like him we can choose to bear witness to the truth.

So I say with sincere respect to my noble friend the Minister that that is why I support this amendment. I hope that many noble Lords will do likewise, united in proud defence of the freedom of conscience that surely we all cherish. Surely that is the very least we can do in the face of genocide.