Equality Act 2010: The Impact on Disabled People: Follow-Up Report (Liaison Committee Report)

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Grand Committee

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I am up to speak slightly earlier than I expected. It is a shame that the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Blackburn has found himself trapped in a previous debate in which he spoke: that is why he is not here. I am also sad that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is not with us. She and I fought together, as it were, on these issues for many years and I was looking forward to seeing her again. I welcome the debate and compliment the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and her committee. I share her disappointment and that expressed in the report, and the disappointment in the inadequate government response to the impact follow-up report.

I decided, as one of the government team which helped to put the Equality Act on the statute book in 2010, to delve back into Hansard to get a flavour of what we were aspiring to, and what was said by those participating in the debate then, who worked hard to put this important document on our statute book. It took a year to write that Bill. I attended meetings with counsel and others on behalf of the then Leader of the House for a year in the writing of that Bill, because it was a consolidation Bill and a very large and important piece of legislation.

When it came to your Lordships’ House at the end of the end of 2009, we discussed it through the spring—

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Thornton (Lab)]

I was reminiscing about the passage of the Equality Act 2010. We miss some of those who took part then and, in today’s debate, we miss perhaps most of all the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, who is not able to be with us. I am sure all noble Lords wish her well and look forward to her return.

It is clear, if you look at the record of the passage of the Equality Act, that there was a great deal of optimism and of consensus, which allowed the Bill to be improved and amended as it went through your Lordships’ House. For example, on employment, the Labour Government responded to disability organisations and others by bringing forward amendments that addressed the compelling evidence of disabled people being discriminated against once employers were aware of their disability. They prohibited the use of pre-employment questionnaires, except in prescribed circumstances, thus stopping the inhibition of people with disabilities or mental health problems applying for jobs.

That is a good example, as we knew the words in the Act would and should tackle the discrimination faced—in this case disability—and therefore were very important. Being a practical politician, because it was in the run-up to a general election, there was an agreement to put measures in the Act that would need the new Government—in whatever form they took—to pick them up and implement them. In some cases, it was simply changing “may” to “must”. For example, I believe it was the coalition Government that, quite late on, approved the change of “may” to “must” on the monitoring of wage discrimination in companies of, I think, over 500 people. That was done long after the Act was passed.

This follow-up report builds on the recommendations of the March 2016 report by the House of Lords Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010, that I think the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, also led. What we saw, when we put the Act on the statute book, is that it created a positive duty to anticipate the needs of and make reasonable adjustments for disabled people. The issues that have been discussed today say that,

“in the context of services, the objective of the duty is to, so far as is reasonably practicable ‘approximate the access enjoyed by disabled people to that enjoyed by the rest of the public. The purpose of the duty to make reasonable adjustments is to provide access to a service as close as it is reasonably possible to get to the standard normally offered to the public at large’. The duty is contained in section 20 and comprises three requirements … to: avoid putting disabled people at a substantial disadvantage where a provision, criterion or practice would put them at that disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled—for example, adjusting a ‘no dogs’ policy for visually impaired people … remove, alter or provide means of avoiding physical features where those features put disabled people at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled—for example, providing a wheelchair ramp alongside stairs … provide an auxiliary aid where disabled people would, but for the provision of that aid, be put at a substantial disadvantage in comparison with people who are not disabled—for example, providing an induction loop for hearing impaired people.”

As noble Lords have said, those duties are really very clear, so the shame of this is that they have not been fully enacted 12 years later. I can see that the disability organisations are both disappointed and disheartened by that. For example, on Section 36, no reasonable explanation was given to the noble Baroness’s committee about the continued delay. I quote from the report:

“The Committee could find no reasonable explanation for the delay in bringing section 36 into force in 2016, and the evidence received in 2021 paints a similar picture … asked why the Government had failed to commence this section of the Act, Catherine Casserley said: ‘I really do not understand why the provision has not been implemented’.”


Further down in the evidence section, when asked about Section 36, Melanie Field, who is an absolute veteran of the 2010 Act and worked with us all the way through it, said:

“We often draw government’s attention to the need to implement that provision, and we hope that progress will be made.”


I would like to ask the Minister when. When will progress be made? It really is shameful that it has not been made already.

Turning to making the public sector equality duty more effective, can the Minister expand on the statement and the Government’s answer to recommendation 8 about the public sector equality duty? There, the Government note that amendments to Section 149 will be considered or the Act will be replaced in the future. Can the Minister give the Committee the likely timetable for bringing forward the amendments? Can she please tell the Committee whether the Government intend to replace the Equality Act altogether, and when they intend to do that?

I draw specific attention to the report’s challenge that the Government do not produce data on their interministerial group on disability and society, so it is unclear whether it still exists or not. I ask whether it does in fact exist and, if so, in what form. If it does, will the Government commit to publishing data on it regularly so that it is embedded at the heart of government decision-making—as disabled people have demanded quite rightly and as they need? Do the Government intend to follow up on the recommendation that the Women and Equalities Minister becomes a full-time Cabinet-attending post?

As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, said, the court challenge suggests that the national strategy for disabled people was not legal because the consultation did not take place in a proper fashion. I echo the question: when will we see a new strategy and how will the proper consultation take place? This draws particular attention to the lack of trust in this area. This report, the one before it and this debate show that there is a lack of trust in the Government’s commitment to disabled people and the reforms that are required, many of which are very straightforward. When the Prime Minister called the strategy a “down payment” in February 2022, when it was first launched, you could almost see the eye roll across the whole disability sector. I would like the Minister to go back and re-establish trust, which has been eroded, and work out how best to do that.

The last words I say should go to the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, because, during the debate in 2016 on the impact of the Equality Act on people with disabilities—led by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech—she said, quoting Sir Bert Massie:

“‘It is now ... 35 years since disabled people called for the right to be treated as equal citizens. Yet the Government still wants to ... talk and meet. It is no wonder disabled people are ... becoming increasingly angry. The Government’s tepid response to the Committee’s report clearly demonstrates a deep lack of understanding and concern about Britain’s disabled people’.


I am afraid that this just about sums up how the committee and disabled people feel about the Government’s disability agenda”—[Official Report, 6/9/16; cols. 980-81.]


today.