Disabled People: Publicly Accessible Amenities

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Patricia Gibson

Thursday 23rd February 2017 Westminster Hall

[Patricia Gibson (North Ayrshire and Arran) (SNP)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who is a great champion for disabled people’s rights.

It is always a pleasure to speak in debates where there is, broadly speaking, so much consensus. We all want disabled people to be socially included to the fullest possible extent. We all want to live in a society that sees the person, not the disability. We all want to remove the barriers that fate has placed in the way of any individual so that they can play a full role in society.

[Alison Thewliss (Glasgow Central) (SNP)]

Is my hon. Friend aware of the challenge that some councillors and individuals undertook in Inverness during the week? They took to wheelchairs in the streets to get a better idea of those barriers. Would she encourage other people to do that in cities around the UK?

[Patricia Gibson]

I would indeed. That useful initiative gives those of us who are lucky enough not to have to live with a disability a unique insight into the kinds of challenges that disabled people have to face every single day of their lives, and I commend such practices.

We have heard poignant and human examples of such barriers and the effects that they can have on individuals who live with a disability, such as the constituent that my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow mentioned. She also outlined the distressing example of Ms Wafula Strike, which I am sure is not an isolated one. Like the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White), I commend the work that Changing Places has done to promote fully accessible toilets. The problem is that work still needs to be done, which throws into stark relief how far we still have to go in catering for people who live with a disability and removing the barriers they face.

The Equality Act 2010 is important legislation. It contains the public sector equality duty and requires “reasonable adjustments” to be made to avoid a person with a disability being placed at a “substantial disadvantage” to a non-disabled person when accessing services and facilities. However, we have heard that there are loopholes in that Act. It does not prescribe what a reasonable adjustment is in particular circumstances or place a duty on all service providers to make specific disabled adaptations such as installing lifts or hearing loops, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Corri Wilson) so clearly set out.

There is no doubt that we have an absolute duty as a society to ensure equality of access to facilities. That ought to apply equally in the private sector and the public sector. It was absolutely correctly pointed out that equality of access should not be an afterthought. We must always guard against the marginalisation of disabled members of our communities. The disability employment gap shows that that is a real and present danger, and we cannot afford to be complacent, as my hon. Friend the Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow so eloquently pointed out.

This issue is not just about access to work, important though that is. It is about all elements of life: work, social life and leisure. Justice and fairness demands that. I commend the No More Floor campaign in the constituency of the hon. Member for Warwick and Leamington, but the fact that such a campaign is needed should be cause for shame. It is a reminder of how little progress we have made in reality. A shortage of basic facilities consigns some people with a disability to being trapped in their homes, which can have a hugely negative impact on their lives, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock pointed out. It is surely bad enough that people living with a disability often face negative attitudes without finding themselves excluded in and from public spaces—although perhaps those negative attitudes lead to exclusion.

It is worth repeating that there is an economic dimension as well as social and moral elements. Some 7 million working age people have a disability. That adds up to an awful lot of spending power. The so-called purple pound is apparently worth £249 billion to the economy. Is it not madness for 7 million people to be excluded from the ordinary, mainstream life that so many of us do and should take for granted? As has been mentioned, many people with a disability rely on Motability vehicles to access amenities in our communities, and Motability must continue to be supported.

I am proud that the SNP Scottish Government have devised a new disabled delivery plan—a policy commitment to disabled people—based on the need to remove any further barriers and ensure full access to buildings, including disability-inclusive housing, transport and communication. Some 93 actions will be achieved by 2021. We aim to secure transformational change in support for disabled people in Scotland. I urge the Minister to look at the Scottish Government’s plans to see what can be learned from that policy commitment.

It would be remiss of me, while we are debating publicly accessible amenities for disabled people, not to mention that, with their new powers, the SNP Scottish Government are committed to establishing a social security system based on dignity and respect that will allow people with a disability to live as full and independent a life as possible, which I am sure we all agree with. Unfortunately, the UK Government have made cruel and punitive cuts to support for people living with a disability, as my hon. Friend the Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock set out.

I hope the Minister will pledge that any laws regarding disability rights and equality will be fully repatriated to Scotland in the wake of Brexit. It is essential that the SNP Scottish Government’s good work continues and develops. [Interruption.] The Minister really should pay attention. There is a very real concern among disabled people that their rights in law will no longer be protected by European Court of Justice judgments post-Brexit. That could lead to equality rights being more narrowly interpreted, as well as the loss of vital research funding and pooling of expertise that EU membership provides. Through European research, important treatments have been developed for diseases so rare that no one country could have developed them alone. As we agree that people living with a disability must have access to amenities, so we should agree that the rights of disabled people should be protected in the widest sense. I hope we do.

House of Lords Reform

Debate between Alison Thewliss and Patricia Gibson

Thursday 14th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Alison Thewliss]

In his book “The Point of Departure”, the late Member of Parliament for Livingston recalled an incident at a Europe-Africa summit. A president of one African country said that they could not be criticised for failing to introduce full democracy after only 50 years of independence when Britain had failed to get rid of the hereditary principle after 500 years.

[Patricia Gibson]

As I have said, we are becoming a laughing stock all over the world.

In addition—and this is a very, very serious point—we are told that these are austere times. We cannot afford to help the so-called “benefit scroungers”, but we can afford to help the “strivers”—and the House of Lords is full of them. We must punish families with more than two children, because everyone knows that if a person has a third child, they are clearly trying to get money out of the taxpayer. Yet here we have in the House of Lords what many of my constituents would call a trough. It is costing £94.4 million. This dripping roast, as my constituents would call it, costs more than the Scottish Parliament—elected, accountable, forward-thinking, enlightened and representative of the people—and has even more Members than the European Parliament.

In my view, Clement Attlee was being extremely kind when he described the House of Lords as

“like a glass of champagne that has stood for five days”.

I much prefer the analysis that the best cure for admiring the House of Lords is to go and look at it. When we sanction vulnerable folk on benefits who are five minutes late for an appointment at the jobcentre, when we hammer women born in the 1950s by moving their retirement age further away, when my constituents see Scotland’s budget being squeezed and we hear this being called “a sustainable economic plan”, I and many others ask how that sustainable economic plan impacts on the waste, the affront to democracy, the dripping roast that is the House of Lords—and these people dare to pontificate on Scotland’s constitutional future. Even the Lords themselves hardly take it seriously: attendance is around 60%, although it has improved recently, perhaps because the dripping roast is drying up and much must be suckled in the dying moments of the House.

What a tragedy it is that the 2015 Conservative manifesto indicated that the party did not consider House of Lords reform a priority. No, let us instead prioritise bashing the vulnerable and taking benefits away from the poor. The Strathclyde review was a wasted opportunity —then again, turkeys do not vote for Christmas. They can tinker at the edges all they like; they will never make this affront to democracy palatable enough for the people in my constituency that they see it as having any legitimacy. Let us abolish this carbuncle on the face of democracy. Let us listen to the people. Then, they may begin to listen to what this place has to say. I urge the Minister to screw his courage to the sticking place, to get a grip and to get rid. It is time the UK grew up.