Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970: 40th Anniversary

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Thursday 17th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Masham of Ilton]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Corbett of Castle Vale, for introducing this debate, and for his excellent speech. This debate is to mark the 40th anniversary of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act. It is also the 40th anniversary of my becoming a Member of your Lordships’ House. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, was in 1970 a Member of Parliament for one of the Manchester constituencies, and was lucky to win the ballot to enable him to introduce the Bill. It took much hard work and persuasion to get the Bill accepted in another place, and the noble Lord must be congratulated on his doggedly determined way of not giving up on such matters.

Looking back over the past 40 years and discussing this Act of Parliament, I am filled with nostalgia. Four of us who were disabled Members of your Lordships’ House made our maiden speeches on that Bill. We all used wheelchairs. A Cross Bench was removed and we became known as the mobile Bench. My sadness is that I am the only remaining Member of that first mobile Bench, all of whom were very close friends of mine. They were Viscount Ingleby, Lord Crawshaw and Baroness Darcy de Knayth, all of whom have sadly died.

The Bill was led in this House by the late Lord Longford. Many amendments were moved in your Lordships’ House and the Bill was improved. We moved amendments such as one requiring that public buildings with access for wheelchairs should be signposted. The Chief Whip from another place used to come through because he was so concerned about the amendments we were discussing. This was the first significant legislation to improve the lives of disabled people. Many people were uneasy about the Bill, as people who do not understand disability fear the unknown. They thought that we were going to change society. Indeed, the Bill did improve society for many people.

Disability covers so many different aspects of daily living that non-disabled people take for granted. A disabled person, who may be a child, can mean a family being disabled if adequate housing and suitable aids—as well as access to public buildings, public lavatories and transport, including trains, airplanes, buses, taxis and ships—are not available. Disabled people using wheelchairs often had to travel in the guards van. The provision of telephones, the recognition of dyslexia and access to places of entertainment were all in the Bill. Now, 40 years on, we have to look forward. Aspects of life have changed. We have a new mobile Bench with other Members of your Lordships' House who are well qualified to provide their knowledge and expertise on many aspects of life.

So much has improved over the years but there is still a great deal to do, and much of it is due to the attitudes of some people. I give an example. In my local village of Masham in north Yorkshire, the chemist’s has a four-inch step with no ramp. Many elderly people with varying disabilities find that step impossible to negotiate without help, but because Masham is not a large town, the chemist was told by the PCT that a ramp was not necessary. That is not satisfactory when many residents and visitors to this most attractive part of Yorkshire have a disability. Legislation is being flouted. I know how hard many Members of both Houses of Parliament worked on this legislation, so it is disappointing when a pharmacist, of all places, takes this attitude.

Many disabled people are living much longer. They are often treated as elderly but their disability is forgotten. When disabled people visit hospitals, they very often find that there is no suitable equipment for their disability. Again, it is often a question of the attitude of staff who need better training about the multitude of different disabilities. Disabled people want to be treated as persons first. However, their disability needs to be taken into consideration and they should be helped when necessary. Police and other professional people need to recognise disability so that unfortunate mistakes do not occur. It is still not possible for disabled people to use many facilities. For example, a passport photograph booth has a fixed stool, so disabled people in a wheelchair have to hunt around to find an accessible booth to have photographs taken for the many passes for which they may have to produce photographs as identification, such as the blue badge scheme.

I visited the mobile X-ray unit in London that takes X-rays of people who may have tuberculosis from among the homeless living in hostels and people in prison. It is a great asset to public health. I was pleased to see that this mobile unit had a lift to enable a person using a wheelchair, or who has difficulty climbing steps, to enter the vehicle. The mobile unit was built in Holland. I was told that the mobile units in Holland all have lifts; not so in the UK. The breast cancer units that travel round all have steps and no lifts. We have a great deal to learn from other countries which remember the needs of their disabled members—sometimes better than us. It can be a major problem for disabled people in a rural area who sometimes have to travel for miles to have a mammogram.

On Tuesday there was a debate on poverty. The Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, said:

“Disabled people are at a substantially higher risk of poverty than non-disabled people. Nearly one in four families with a disabled member live in poverty, compared with less than one in six for families where no one is disabled”.—[Official Report, 15/6/10; col. 947.]

I want your Lordships to know that many disabled people have extra expenses for wear and tear to clothes, extra heating, extra equipment that can be very expensive—such as light wheelchairs to help their carers—special food when needed, and extra help to enable them to lead a normal life if they need help getting up, going to bed, dressing and going to the lavatory. Disability can happen at any time to anyone. They can have an accident which leaves them paralysed, a stroke, a condition such as motor neurone disease, or they are born with a condition which leaves them disabled.

The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970 has helped a great deal, but there is much to do to educate new Members of Parliament, councillors, medical staff and educators to understand the very varied and sometimes complex needs of disability.