Covid-19: Disability-Inclusive Response

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I had not expected to be called to speak so early in the debate, but I appreciate your doing so, Mr Rosindell. I thank the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) for setting the scene. She and I work together on many disability issues in the House, and it is always a pleasure to support her whenever she speaks in a debate. She speaks straight from her heart; we know it is a good heart, Mr Rosindell.

The pandemic has been hard on every person in the nation, but none more so than those in the disabled sector. I want to speak quickly about some of them. The Royal National Institute of Blind People has told me that 250 people begin to lose their sight every day in the United Kingdom. A lot of people find it difficult to socially distance or to see direction arrows on the ground. Would they be able to negotiate their way into this room? They would have no idea how to do that without an assistant to help them. I have heard about many people being yelled at for not keeping social distance. They were not recognised as disabled—maybe they were not wearing the black glasses or did not have the stick—but they are partially disabled from the point of view of their sight.

The RNIB has made various suggestions, of which I hope the Minister has been made aware and that he can work on them. The suggestions do not mean breaking social distance rules, but being kind and compassionate, and taking time to speak to someone who looks as if they might be struggling to navigate through the shops. People have difficulty because they are disabled, not because there is anything else wrong with them.

Cotters is a shop in Newtownards that sells a range of groceries, cleaning products, hardware and other valuable daily essentials. That is not a plug for them, by the way, although I will send the staff a copy of Hansard afterwards and let them know that they were mentioned in Westminster Hall. The staff noticed that many of their elderly customers were struggling to understand them through their masks. The muffled voices of the staff could not be heard and the customers could not understand what they were saying. Out of their own pockets, the staff ordered masks that have plastic across the mouth to make it easier for those who cannot hear to see.

It took a few months to get that measure in place, but we are all adapting to new regulations and systems put in place because of coronavirus. Local councils could help to direct people in relation to those issues, but it would be more effective if measures relating to those who have hearing difficulties that need to be addressed came from this place.

Northern Ireland has introduced a circuit breaker, but the rules are not easy for many to understand. Elderly people ring or make a journey to my office to try to understand how they can do things. Do you know why, Mr Rosindell? Because most people want to do it right. They want to know what to do. By and large, most people—probably 98%—will do exactly what they are asked to do. We should try to help them. People want to get a lift to church. A lady who had a heart operation and has not been allowed to drive needs to get to church, because that is probably her only contact with other people. That lady needs somewhere to contact so she can sort that out.

There is an 84-year old lady who drives her 86-year old brother’s dinner round to him every night. She asked if she was allowed to stay to tidy his kitchen, as she could not do that during the last lockdown. I am not being disrespectful, and neither is she, but by the end of that period, the kitchen was a mess. The cleaning up she had to do on her brother’s behalf was horrendous—those are her words. Can she care for her brother?

I must ask the Minister for a dedicated phoneline for people to get informal help. Can there be a dedicated line for people to ask a question and get some direction and guidance on what they can do? That would be a great helper.

The vulnerable people who hear “circuit breaker” fear that, for them, it will be a life breaker because of the impact the regulations would have on their heads. We must have more information for our disabled and vulnerable and step it up on their behalf. For guidance to be issued a week before might be fine for you and me in this place, Mr Rosindell, but it is not okay for someone to feel for a month like they cannot see or speak to another living person or for someone not to be able to care for those who depend on them. That is happening to people in my area and yours. We must address it quickly.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work (Justin Tomlinson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship once again in Westminster Hall, Mr McCabe. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron), who has a long-standing reputation as a proactive, constructive chair of the all-party parliamentary group for disability. I have had the pleasure of attending many meetings, including one this week virtually, as we embrace new technology. She is held in high regard across Government and that was reflected in the nature of this debate. It has been good-natured, conducted with good spirit, and has highlighted the important concerns that we collectively have to address as we navigate the unprecedented challenges of covid.

I also pay tribute to the former Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Basingstoke (Mrs Miller) pan-disability, have benefited hugely from.

I will try to respond to as many points as I can, in particular where MPs have raised specific points, but first, a sense check: I am the Minister for Disabled People, but the Department for Education leads on special educational needs, for example, and the Department of Health and Social Care leads on care easements. However, I have attended a Women and Equalities Committee hearing that covered those things, so I have a reasonable understanding of them. As the Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work, I have two primary roles. I am responsible for all things related to disability in the Department for Work and Pensions—predominantly the provision of disability benefits—but I am also responsible for our Disability Unit, which was launched last year and which is based in the Cabinet Office.

The unit is the eyes and ears of disability issues across Government, making sure that disability issues are embedded in policy development. It is personally supported by the Prime Minister, which makes my job much, much easier. Disability issues are brought up at Cabinet and in interministerial groups, where I get to instruct other Ministers about their importance. We are an asset across Government, because we spend—I in particular spend—a huge amount of time on stakeholder engagement. In the past seven days, just as part of my ongoing work, I have met representatives of all the national charities that have been mentioned in the speeches today. I enjoy talking to people with real lived experience, and we then flag up that experience with the relevant Department if it is not DWP, and it makes a tangible difference.[Official Report, 17 November 2020, Vol. 684, c. 4MC.]

Many people today have talked about the challenges of accessing food during covid. Actually, the Royal National Institute of Blind People was one of the many charities that we were able to link up with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which allowed its representatives to bring their real lived experience to bear, and that sped up the process of improving the situation. The DEFRA Minister was then able to share that exchange as best practice with other Ministers and tell them to look at Disability Unit as a helpful resource, because we can signpost people to experts, who speed up policy development and make sure that it is right first time.

Looking at the broader points that were raised, one was accessible communications, and it is absolutely vital. Again, through interministerial groups and with the support of the Prime Minister, we have been reminding cross-Government Departments and public sector organisations outside Government that they have a duty under the Equality Act to ensure that communications are accessible. Using the RNIB again as an example, it has proactively helped us to look at communications and put them into Easyread and braille. In my own Department, we have launched our deaf-signed YouTube channel, which explains benefits through British Sign Language. There is a lot more best practice that we have to share, but again, through the Disability Unit, we are keeping a very close eye on what the Government and other connected organisations are doing.

[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[Justin Tomlinson]

I will take some interventions in a bit; let me just clear a few things first.

I also believe that we need to be smarter about how we use our stakeholders in future announcements regarding the difference in guidance on tiers 1, 2 and 3. What we should do is to make sure, as quickly as possible, that we communicate to our extensive network of stakeholders the potential impacts or opportunities as guidance changes, so that they can then share that very quickly with their members. That is because a lot of communication is reliant on people watching the news and following our powerful speeches in Parliament, but sometimes they do not do that, so we need to rely on our network of stakeholders, who have much better reach than our Twitter channels. Both my hon. Friends the Members for Warrington South (Andy Carter) and for Southend West (Sir David Amess) highlighted the trust, expertise and reach of good local organisations. Again, if they are part of sharing the communication, we know that those who are most in need of good communication will be able to get it.

On social distancing and hidden disabilities, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) is absolutely right about the sunflower lanyard. The dilemma for the Government is that technically it is produced by a commercial organisation, because it can sell these lanyards, and Governments do not normally publicly endorse a commercial organisation when it has competitors, because we are not supposed to pick winners; we are supposed to do open exercises. However, my personal view is that these are unprecedented times and that of all the different schemes—there are many very good schemes—that is easily the best known one and I think that we absolutely should get behind it.

Other Ministers who have been in conversation about this issue with the hon. Gentleman have also talked to me, and we are trying to work out the best way to promote this scheme, because it works two ways. One, we absolutely need to make things as easy as possible for people with hidden disabilities, and the hon. Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) very eloquently set out the importance of that. However, there are also people we rely on to challenge people who are not abiding by the rules, because they do not like it when they get it wrong and they ask a question of somebody with a hidden disability. We have to get it right for both parties. However, this is an issue that I am really keen to push on, and I think that is the best possible scheme.

I pay tribute to organisations such as Transport for London, which have been brilliant at improving communications, so that the general public are more aware about hidden disabilities. I know that lots of other businesses are looking at that issue and I encourage them to do more. I also welcome the fact that the NHS is trialling 250,000 clear masks. Again, there will be lessons to learn from that.

I turn now to care easements, which have been used by only eight of 151 local authorities and are meant to be a last resort. It is not carte blanche, as they are underpinned by the Human Rights Act, but the broad principle is that if covid causes an organisation to have such a depleted workforce, we do not want a situation where immediate urgent care in somebody’s home is missed for the sake of filling in an annual report. That is an extreme example, but that is the sort of reason why, with great reluctance, we all collectively voted for that. Absolutely, the moment when we do not need those emergency powers, they should go. What stakeholders are asking me—many of the stakeholders actually deliver adult social care, so they are saying it from two angles—is to ensure good transparency so that, when a local authority does that, not only the Care Quality Commission but independent stakeholders can keep an eye on it. That is an example of where something came to us, the Disability Unit took it across Government and, within hours, guidance was pushed through and it was easier to be more transparent. Again, we will keep a close eye on that.

I turn now to my responsibility in the DWP in terms of face-to-face assessments. My shadow, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris), kindly said that we should continue to improve them, and rightly so. They were introduced under a Labour Government, and we have done over 100 improvements following five independent reviews. One thing about suspending face-to-face assessments and doing auto-renewals is that what limited capacity we had left was then able to concentrate on new claimants, so new disabled people and people with health conditions could access financial support; those whose conditions had changed and who would be entitled to more money; and, absolutely, those with terminal illness, so we could still process those in four to six days.

We brought forward telephone assessments. We had planned to pilot them over 12 to 18 months; we piloted them over about 12 to 18 minutes in the end. As part of the Green Paper, we will be looking at how well received they were. Anecdotally, the stakeholders like them. They are not perfect, and there is more work to do, but stakeholders want them to stay. Will video assessments help? What more can we do to gather clearer evidence that increases the likelihood of a paper-based review and getting the assessment right first time round? Collectively, the improvements we have been making have delivered an additional £10 billion a year to support people with disabilities or long-term health conditions.

Access to Work is changing, and that is a good thing and an opportunity for the future. It recognises, for the first time, that people do not always have to come into the traditional workplace. We will provide funding for people at home and towards additional travel costs if there are links around covid. We are doing proactive webinars through Disability Confident, and I pay tribute to Microsoft, which has sponsored an additional round of those. Our Disability Confident leaders are sharing best practice through their business networks.

On the broader points about disability employment, all the funding for the Work and Health programmes, intensive personalised employment support, Access to Work and Disability Confident has been protected, and all of the £30 billion Plan for Jobs package is open to disabled people. Access to Work can help if additional assistance is needed. We are working proactively with our jobcentres to promote that.

On the final, broader point about the national strategy and the Green Paper, both are happening. The Green Paper focuses on the DWP around improving access to evidence, assessments, monetary consideration, appeals and employment support. We are actively doing pre-stakeholder engagement before we look to launch the Green Paper towards the end of the year. The national strategy for disabled people, personally supported by the Prime Minister, is cross-Government. Each Department has to set out what its ambitious priorities are to remove barriers and be more inclusive for disabled people. We will put that to disabled people for them to audit, and we will then bring forward conclusions on both of those papers.

We are absolutely determined that there will be an inclusive recovery. Disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and stakeholders will always be at the heart of our policy development. We are proud that we have delivered record disability employment and that we are increasing funding for those most in need in society. Covid has given us unprecedented challenges, but we will not be diminished in our ambition to improve the lives of disabled people.