Brexit: Disabled People

Baroness Scott of Needham Market Excerpts

Thursday 2nd February 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact on disabled people of the United Kingdom’s withdrawal from the European Union.

[Baroness Scott of Needham Market (LD)]

My Lords, I am very pleased to have secured time for a debate this afternoon on the impact that leaving the EU will have on people with disabilities. During the referendum campaign, little was said about this matter and I have heard very little since. But the implications for millions of disabled people and their families could be profound. The choices that will be made by the Government over the next few years about how we leave and what they choose to prioritise will be of enormous significance. I am grateful to the Papworth Trust for its thorough and calm analysis in its publication of last autumn, Brexit: What Next for Disabled People?

I declare an interest as a member of the advisory board of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations, as a vice-president of the Local Government Association and as patron of a local charity, Ace Anglia, which provides support and services to people with learning disabilities.

This is not the place to introduce a debate on the impact of Brexit on our economy overall. Indeed, it may be years before we can make a full assessment of that. But, if it is anything like as bad as some of us fear, the consequent deterioration in public finances could significantly reduce the amount of money available for benefits to disabled people and to the public services on which they are often dependent. The charity Scope estimates that 400,000 working-age disabled people are dependent on social care. It also reports that disabled people spend an average of £550 extra a month as a result of their disability. Clearly, these people have much less financial resilience to withstand a downturn and are more dependent on public services.

Of immediate concern is the loss of grants from European structural funds. According to the Academic Network of European Disability Experts, 19% of all European social fund grants are spent on projects directly supporting disabled people. To put that into context, the Papworth Trust alone received £7 million from that source between 2007 and 2016. The future sources of funding beyond 2020 are completely unknown. A quick glance at the White Paper published earlier suggests that the Government will meet some of these commitments—but only until 2020. That is a very short-term planning horizon.

Supporters of Brexit have always argued that the UK itself should be responsible for this kind of spending, not the EU. That is fair enough, but then we should expect to see some allocation of funds from the savings, whatever they may be, of no longer being members. To assist charities and other bodies with their forward planning, the Government should begin to offer some clarity about the post-2020 scenario.

There is a much deeper concern that a rush to deregulation, as a matter of either political choice or economic necessity to improve competitiveness, will reduce the statutory protections available to disabled people, especially with regard to employment and access rights. Anti-discrimination laws, while enacted by this Parliament, have their roots in EU law and could be removed by this or a future Government should they choose. The Government have set out, in outline at least, that their approach to unravelling the past 40 years of lawmaking in a European context will be the rather misnamed great repeal Bill. It seems to me to be a sensible approach to keep hold of the legislation that we currently have and to review it over time. This must be with proper parliamentary scrutiny and not just delegated to Ministers—although I am not convinced that the Government fully understand yet what a massive task this is, and the amount of Civil Service and parliamentary resource that will be required to perform it.

I will give some examples of what I mean. The blue badge scheme for parking concessions for people with disabilities is standardised across the EU. There is a comprehensive package of rights for disabled travellers on air and rail services. The charity Guide Dogs has pointed out to me that we have EU-mandated disability awareness training for bus drivers, and rules that ensure that electric and hybrid vehicles are audible. These are important matters and we need to make sure that they are not accidentally or deliberately lost in a wholesale bonfire of EU law.

The employment equality framework directive is a major component of EU labour law and combats workplace discrimination on the grounds of disability, as well as gender, age, race and sexual orientation. It will be a matter of choice for the Government as to whether they wish to hold on to these protections and, crucially, to what extent they are prepared to work with the groups representing the interests of disabled people to make sure that their needs are fully understood.

We are all aware that there is a social care crisis in this country, which is completely interwoven with the serious problems facing the National Health Service. There is no time in this introduction to detail concerns about the loss of EU migrants to the health and social care sector, although other noble Lords may have more to say on this. An estimated 130,000 EU citizens are working in the health and social care sector, so this is a major issue. There is already evidence that a combination of uncertainty about future arrangements and the increased instances of racially motivated attacks is making it harder to recruit into this sector. The fall in the value of the pound is making the UK a much less attractive option. Given that there is already a vacancy rate of around 5% in the care sector because of the low pay and unsocial hours, any deterioration here is a matter for concern. The charity Sense estimates that currently 108,000 learning disabled people with moderate to severe needs receive no support whatever. It would be catastrophic if this were to get any worse.

Health is of course mainly a national competence and there has never been an attempt to provide uniform services across the EU 28. However, there are some rights that exist across the EU that may now come into question. Because disabled people are more likely to use healthcare services, they could be affected more. All EU citizens can access each other’s health services free of charge using the European health insurance card. Will a continuation of this scheme be a priority for the Government? The UN estimates that around 1.2 million British citizens live and work in the EU. If we restrict the rights of EU citizens to the NHS, of course the same will happen to ours.

What will happen to the large number of pensioners, some of whom are disabled, currently accessing health services in places such as Spain and Cyprus? If the scheme is not to be continued, the Government will need a massive campaign to make sure that British tourists have adequate health insurance when they travel. For people with disabilities, getting such insurance can be very difficult and costly, and the Government will need to take this up with the insurance industry.

I understand that there is an NHS Europe transition team. I would like the Minister to assure us that disabled people are being consulted and involved in the thinking about what the implications might be of the different outcomes and options being considered by the Government. There are many tricky issues to be considered and resolved, and some of them will be part of the terms of departure that we agree with the EU. Others, such as co-ordination rules for social security, can be done bilaterally and could, if we are not careful, result in a bureaucratic nightmare.

We will still be Europeans and it makes no sense to turn our back on everything. It is estimated that there are 70 million disabled people in Europe, and a well-established network of research and development projects in which UK organisations have been active. It is an absolute priority to remain within those networks and funding programmes if we are not to lose the very real progress that we have made in understanding and treating the disabilities themselves and, crucially, in helping disabled people to live more fulfilled lives.