Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Report

Baroness Deech Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Deech]

To move that this House takes note of the Report from the Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability (Session 2015-16, HL Paper 117).

[Baroness Deech (CB)]

My Lords, this Motion could not be more timely. I quote the Prime Minister, who said on her first day in office that we need to build a country that works for everyone. She said that every child should be allowed to rise as far as their talents will take them and that birth should never be a barrier. The Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability agrees. The Prime Minister has ordered an audit of the equality of treatment by public services. Our report was ahead of the game and delivers for the Government the very audit that she is seeking. It shows the inequality that was uncovered, with straightforward remedies to remove unfairness. If our recommendations are acted upon, a prime ministerial goal will be achieved.

What I learned during my chairmanship of the Select Committee, which was a privilege and an enriching experience, was that disability potentially affects nearly everyone in the country. Our report contains statistics that show that, as we all live longer, it is very likely that our last few years will be spent with a sight, hearing or mobility impediment. Indeed, the number of years spent living with disability is increasing. One has but to look around your Lordships’ House to see how true this is. Therefore, our report addressed how to ensure that employment, travel, education, information and even politics are accessible to all of us, whether born disabled or affected by injury or simply old age.

First, I thank our skilled and committed clerk, Mr Collon, and his team, who went beyond the call of duty. I also thank our members, several of whom have first-hand experience of the impediments described in our report. Special thanks go to our witnesses, some of whom were severely disabled and yet conveyed to us in a moving and articulate way how they battle against the insouciance with which some employers and organisations fail in their simple duties under the Act. We were also the first Lords committee to take evidence in sign language.

Our committee was charged with post-legislative scrutiny of that portion of the Equality Act dealing with disability. Our task was to consider the adequacy of the law. Has it strengthened disability discrimination law? Are there gaps in legal protection against discrimination that impact on the ability of disabled people to play their full role in society? Are reasonable adjustments being made in relation to access to goods and services and to employment, bearing in mind that it is government policy to reduce unemployment among disabled people? Is enforcement of their rights effective and accessible? Is the Equality and Human Rights Commission doing all that it can in this regard? The answer to those questions in our report, after investigation, was a resounding no.

Having pointed out the repercussions of our longer lives, we concluded that we must plan for the inevitability of disability and mainstream adjustments in buildings, services, travel and licensing. Every organisation and every branch of government should be pro-active in planning for disability access, not wait for problems to arise and then be so slow in solving them that the disabled person loses the opportunity to enjoy the service.

We need to listen to disabled people explaining their needs. They themselves need to be made aware, as we all should be, of their rights. Sadly, as is common now throughout the legal system and its users, the law and the courts are failing as enforcement mechanisms through lack of legal aid and increased fees. Disabled people need champions at law and a champion in government so that when cuts, benefits or new laws are considered their needs do not slip through a gap. The cumulative impact of cuts and new laws must be taken into account in order that the gravity of the situation is fully revealed.

Once the evidence of our report is taken into account, it is impossible for any Government—except a nasty party—to ignore our recommendations, which have been crafted to be almost cost free. We need willingness on the part of government to take care of all our people, and we need organisations and services to be forced to adapt if the softly-softly approach does not work—and I am afraid it has not. We were disappointed with the government response in July, which in general I can sum up by calling it buck-passing and the dragging of heels.

We have all enjoyed the Olympic Games this summer and look forward to the Paralympics with enthusiasm. Yet when it comes to ensuring that sports grounds are open to all, regardless of disability, the Government are stalling; as they are in relation to ensuring audio-visual guides on all buses and alterations to common parts at the request of the tenant and at his or her expense. There is simply no need for any more consultation or pilot schemes. We show that the need is clear and the actions straightforward and cost free to the taxpayer. The Bus Services Bill passing through the House at the moment is a good opportunity to ensure audio-visual provision on all buses. The DfT calculated that this would cost only £5.75 million a year to apply to all new buses.

A recurring theme in the government response is that conversation and raising awareness achieve more than regulation and are cost free. Sadly, the evidence in our report shows that this is a faulty belief. For example, although we demonstrate that tribunal fees have almost certainly led to a fall of 68% in discrimination claims, the Government attribute this to an improving economy and alternative dispute resolution. We do not agree. We recommend that more new homes should be wheelchair accessible, but the Government want to leave that change to local authorities.

There is so much thoughtlessness. We heard from a disabled tenant who had to wait three months for an advocate to read the tenancy agreement to him because it was not anyone else’s job. There are banks that phone deaf customers, who cannot hear them, while the bank refuses to speak to anyone else. There are announcements at railway stations of platform changes which are missed by those who cannot hear them. There are employers who will not accommodate those who have to take insulin. There are mothers with huge baby buggies who will not yield to wheelchair users—I wonder whether it is not time for a limit on buggy size on public transport, rather like the limits on hand luggage on planes. There is the pedestrianisation of shopping centres and shared space traffic management which removes safe places for disabled people to cross and to park.

Government activity and ongoing government reviews have, it seems, been long drawn out. There is no need for more reviews and talk. We need action. “Law-law is better than jaw-jaw”, if I may adapt a phrase. Now that we have a new Government with a new equality policy, is it too much to hope that the government response will be withdrawn and rewritten to reflect their more inclusive and more socially mobile goals?

Another theme in the government response is the failure to recognise the burdens that existing inadequate law enforcement places on disabled people, whereas, by way of contrast, the Government are only too sensitive to burdens that might fall on, for example, taxi drivers or landlords if they had to make the adjustments that the law—on the books, at least—requires. Removing red tape is all very well, but that red tape does not vanish into cyberspace: it falls as a strap, tying up the efforts of disabled people to join in the activities and employment that they want and are entitled to.

Other noble Lords will examine particular aspects of the scope of our inquiry; I can touch on only a few. The EHRC joins with us in wanting the Minister for Disabled People to be a member of the Cabinet social justice committee. It is not enough for the Government to respond that he or she should be present only when specific disability items arise. We call for him or her to be a constant member in order that issues that affect disability, which may or may not be on the surface, are not overlooked.

The EHRC agrees with us that a cumulative assessment of the effects of new laws on disabled people is feasible and practicable. We call for this impact assessment, which would do so much to ensure that the needs of disabled people are never overlooked in the government programme.

Some of what we recommend can be easily and cheaply achieved. Section 36 of the Equality Act has not been commenced, and it is shocking how many sections of that Act lie dormant, ignored and uncommenced. That section provides that disabled tenants may ask the landlord to agree to alterations to common parts of blocks of flats to facilitate access at the tenants’ expense. The landlord has to agree if it is reasonable. The Government’s excuse for not activating this is that they are waiting for results from the Scottish experience of this provision. However, as the Scottish regulations have not been made, there is no such experience. The Government reviewed this area of the law in 2005 and have announced another review, apparently concerned that landlords might be deterred from renting to disabled tenants. This is speculation. This is Alice in Wonderland:

“I give myself very good advice, but I very seldom follow it”.

There is no need for any more reviews—just do it. Which is a way to call on the Government to implement this section forthwith.

Another example of reticence on the part of the Government in helping disabled people at no cost is the interpretation of the public sector equality duty under Section 149 of the Equality Act, which requires public authorities to have due regard—note that it is “due regard” and no more—to the elimination of discrimination and the advancement of equality of opportunity for those with protected characteristics. Witnesses before our committee urged us to recommend to the Government, as we do, that the PSED section should be amended to ensure that public authorities do not just take account of equality but actually take steps towards achieving it in the carrying out of their duties. Will the Government back an amendment to achieve this? It is no answer to say that a further review will consider it. Our witnesses gave us all the evidence that one could reasonably need to support this conclusion.

Other noble Lords will address the issue of travel—perhaps the most significant and comprehensive issue facing disabled people and all of us, and one where we were shocked to discover that provisions about taxis and disabled people have been sitting on the statute book ignored and uncommenced for 20 years. Over that period, the Government have flouted the will of Parliament in this matter and this must stop. Provisions to enable taxi drivers to claim health exemptions from helping disabled passengers have been commenced but not the substantive provisions to assure disabled passengers that they can get into a taxi and not be charged extra. Although it has been announced that by the end of this year—why so long?—the core duty set out in Section 65 of the Equality Act will commence, some other important sections about the details of accessibility remain frozen and vital regulations cannot be made. This is incomprehensible and we call on the Government to commence the entire chapter of the Act; otherwise, one can conclude only that yet again the Government are more mindful of the alleged burden on taxi drivers and local authorities than the real burden on disabled people. The Government want to see disabled people in employment and the lever is in their hands.

In general, our report has secured the backing of the EHRC, itself hamstrung by the lack of resources it has suffered and by the inclusion of disability as just one of the many characteristics it has to protect. It agrees with our report that it should be able to offer conciliation services where there is an employment dispute. We see no reason why the Government should disagree with that. Nor is it possible to understand why the Government ignored our recommendation and the will of the EHRC in relation to the Equality Advisory and Support Service helpline. The EHRC agreed that it wanted this service returned to it either in-house or as contract manager. The Government flouted that request—and the recommendation set out in our report—by themselves tendering for the service in April of this year. The EHRC will get to sit only on the project board. This is in itself incomprehensible.

To whom was the contract to run the helpline given, which is so valuable to disabled people seeking advice that they call it a lifeline? It has been given to G4S. We have all read about G4S in the news recently, because the Medway secure training centre which it runs was condemned for growing levels of violence. It was G4S which failed to provide adequate trained security staff for the 2012 Olympics. An Angolan deportee died while being restrained by G4S staff. It is reported that G4S ran a call handling service in a police control room to which hundreds of bogus calls were made to enable it to meet its target. The company is described by the Guardian as an,

“endlessly scandal-hit global security firm”.

The internet is awash with sites questioning the exercise of the tender, and I echo them. The precious lifeline for the disabled person who is seeking advice does not seem to be safe in G4S’s hands, so it must go back to the EHRC.

All in all the Government’s response has been ill-informed, and with a new Government the committee calls on them to withdraw that response and start again. The committee is fortunate in that the House of Commons has set up a Select Committee on Women and Equalities whose chair, the right honourable Maria Miller MP, is interested in picking up our work of promoting the interests of disabled people. We are fortunate to have its backing. I assure the Minister that she and the Government have not heard the end of this. That is because, taken overall, the recommendations of our Select Committee were about promoting a more inclusive and socially mobile society. If this is a genuine goal, our recommendations cannot be ignored.

In sum, we call for the restoration of the Equality Advisory and Support Service and conciliation services to the EHRC. We call for a cumulative impact assessment of the effect of cuts and financial changes on disabled persons; for amendments to the PSED, buses Bill and licensing objectives; and for technical guidance to be laid before Parliament as codes of practice. We call for the Government to take up the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill, promoted by the noble Lord, Lord Faulkner, a member of the committee; and in general we call for a fresh approach—a positive and holistic one—to every member of society who is not 100% young and fit, and that means all of us eventually. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Deech]

My Lords, we are all deeply grateful to the Minister. I know that her heart is in the right place and she has listened very carefully and responded warmly to contributions from Members, to whom I express deep gratitude on behalf of my committee. However, I believe that our new Prime Minister has an agenda that goes beyond the concessions that the Minister has made. Obviously, we are grateful for her understanding and for the issues on which she has said that there will be action, but I am convinced that the Prime Minister’s new agenda goes further than that. When I see the Minister, Justine Greening, I will put it to her that there still needs to be a fresh look at this response in the light of the Government’s agenda, because our report fits that new agenda so well.

Our report is not just about disability. We are all on a spectrum of disability at some stage; we will all get there. Our report is talking about making society inclusive, following the Government’s agenda of getting more people back into work, making them less reliant on the state. We still need a champion at the centre of government to keep an eye on that, to make sure that everyone can participate to the best of their ability—exactly as the Prime Minister has said. So while we are very grateful for the concessions, if I may call them such, that the Minister has made, I retain—and I think I speak on behalf of the committee—concerns about not going further with PSED. Complications are not an excuse. Having due regard does not mean second-guessing—it should go beyond that; it means that throughout government and public authorities progress should be made towards the goals that we all agree on. Licensing, too, needs to take on board all the requirements of the equality legislation. So I think that we have not gone far enough.

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has its eye on us. The Government have said that the provision adheres to the UN convention, but it may be found to be lacking. We live in a diverse society—that is what this report is about—and we want the Government to give a green light to all these recommendations, which cost so little, or nearly nothing, to make the whole of society work properly, everyone to the best of their ability. I and the members of my committee will continue to push for this at every level of Government, because we believe that this is what we all want and this is what the Prime Minister wants.

Again, I reiterate my gratitude to my hard-working members and reiterate all of our deep thanks to those who have spoken and in particular to Mr Collon and his team, who did a wonderful job. We will continue to move forward with this in every way that we can while at the same time expressing appreciation to the Minister, who has listened carefully and given us some hope.

Motion agreed.