Queen’s Speech

Lord Touhig Excerpts

Monday 17th May 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Touhig (Lab) [V]]

My Lords, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Coaker and the noble Lord, Lord Morse, for two excellent maiden speeches. I have known my noble friend Lord Coaker for many years, and we collaborated in recent times as members of the Council of Europe. I have also known the noble Lord, Lord Morse, for many years, and, when I served on the Public Accounts Committee in the other place, I greatly admired his leadership of the NAO.

Some years ago, when I was MP for Islwyn, I became the president of a charity called Access, working to support disabled people and their families in the south Wales valleys. I learned a lot about our disabled fellow citizens. Most strikingly, one Saturday, the group invited two able-bodied supporters to sit in wheelchairs and invited me to push one of them up and down Blackwood high street.

Although I did not realise it at the start, they were educating me. As I walked up and down and people stopped me to talk, I immediately sensed that, for some—perhaps too many—there was unease about the person in the wheelchair. Not one person who stopped and spoke to me spoke to the person in the wheelchair. It then struck me: had I also been like that in former times? Had I passed and ignored wheelchair-bound people? I tell the story because, in today’s Britain, we are told that the new mantra is “levelling up”—but our disabled fellow citizens would say, “Level up by all means, but first notice me. Don’t ignore me. I have the same rights as you; I have human rights”.

Like many colleagues, I support the Disabled Children’s Partnership, a coalition of some 80 charities. Its January survey, The Longest Lockdown, revealed that

“disabled children are not receiving support for their disability or medical condition via health services or their school placement. Parents report a detrimental impact on their child’s disability”

and reduced levels of informal and formal support. Families say that delays to routine health appointments had a “negative impact” on their child’s condition, causing anxiety, behavioural problems, sleep loss, loneliness and depression.

Its March survey, The Loneliest Lockdown, focused on the impact that Covid had had on the mental health and well-being of disabled children and their parents and siblings. It revealed that disabled children endured “serious mental health issues” during lockdown and that a high proportion of families were socially isolated—almost 50% of disabled children had not seen a friend for a month, either online or in person.

To be fair, the Government advised that service providers should continue to deliver and prioritise different support, such as respite care and therapies. However, advising services to continue does not mean that families get them. The reality is that parents are consistently saying that these services are not reaching them.

On mental health, the Government have recently announced a £79 million package of mental health support but have not allocated any of it specifically for disabled children and their families, despite the over-whelming evidence that they have felt a disproportionate impact from Covid and therefore require tailored interventions. It begs the question of why. Perhaps the Minister can tell us.

This brings me to the promised national disability strategy. In the 2019 manifesto, and highlighted in the previous Queen’s Speech, the Government promised a national disability strategy. They promised to transform the lives of disabled people, ensuring that they have access to opportunities and can achieve their potential. They promised that it will be ambitious, supporting disabled people in all aspects and phases of their lives. They promised to publish the strategy in 2020. Alas, it was delayed, we were told, due to coronavirus.

We are now told that the Government will publish the strategy this spring. Time is running out, and I echo my noble friend Lady Sherlock in asking: can the Minister tell us when the strategy will be published? Can he assuage our fears that it will have insufficient focus on children? It is vital that it addresses the issues faced by disabled children and their families. Even before the pandemic, the system was in crisis, with people having great difficulties. Too often, families can get the support that they need only once they get to a crisis point. It is important that the strategy provides great support for children and their families, but it is time that we had some answers. Disabled children and their families are not second-class citizens. They deserve better, and they deserve some answers now.