Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability Report

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Tuesday 6th September 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, it has been almost as great a privilege to listen to this debate as it was to serve on the Select Committee. The debate has demonstrated the extraordinary range of experience that Members of your Lordships’ House bring to the subject of disability. I thank all noble Lords who have spoken and particularly those who have spoken from their own life experiences and brought that to bear on this subject.

Almost every speaker has congratulated the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, on the way in which she chaired the committee and introduced this debate today. I join them in that respect as well. It was a remarkable committee, which she chaired brilliantly. She should also be congratulated on persuading the usual channels to hold this debate in prime time, so early in the Autumn Session. I did not expect to see that happen, but that is a great achievement as well.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, said, we produced a good read, which is a good epitaph for the committee’s report. It was unanimous, hard-hitting and full of recommendations which, if they were all acted upon, would make a huge difference to the well-being and life experiences of disabled people across a wide range of activities. It was therefore a pity that the Government’s response was so feeble and unambitious. When it came out on 7 July—one month and 13 days later than the Cabinet Office’s guideline of two months for responses to Select Committee reports—the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, was quoted as saying that she was “dismayed, to put it mildly”, and that it was “a really unfeeling bureaucratic response, totally at odds with a real will to empathise and make life more productive for disabled people”. I concur totally with that view, and I support the calls made in this debate for that response to be withdrawn and rewritten by the Government—I am not sure they are a new Government but they are a new sort of Administration compared with the previous one.

Other Members have spoken about parts of the report and the Government’s response where they have their own areas of expertise and knowledge. I shall concentrate briefly—because time is getting on in this debate—on recommendations 21 and 22 relating to disabled access to sports grounds, which are covered in paragraphs 245 to 249 of the report. I remind the House of my interest as a vice-president of the charity Level Playing Field.

The noble Baroness, Lady Deech, the noble Lord, Lord Northbrook, my noble friend Lord Harrison and the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, all referred to the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill, which I took through this House in 2015. With the exception of the then Minister—not the Minister who will be replying tonight—whose approach in that debate can perhaps best be described as lukewarm, every Member who spoke in the Second Reading debate on 17 July was strongly supportive, particularly in respect of the principle that each stadium should follow accessible stadia guidelines and improve the experience for disabled people attending their matches.

While it was evident that the Bill would not make progress in the other place without government support, it produced one very positive consequence, and that was the response from the English Premier League on 10 September 2015, which stated:

“All Premier League Clubs have agreed to make their stadiums compliant with the Accessible Stadia Guide by August 2017. Clubs also agreed to ensure the appropriate number of wheelchair bays are located in their away sections (10% of their home provision)”.

If that commitment were fulfilled to the letter, it would represent a huge step forward by the best supported and most affluent clubs in British football, particularly if the lead given by the Premier League were followed by the other football leagues in England, Wales and Scotland, and sports with significant numbers of fans attending their matches.

In the report, our Select Committee quoted approvingly the comments of Justin Tomlinson MP, who was then the Minister for Disabled People. Sadly, he is no longer in that post. He told BBC Sport:

“Most football clubs in this country are behind when it comes to disability access to their grounds. It is my belief that football should be a game enjoyed by everyone, and someone with a disability should have as much of an opportunity to watch the game as someone without a disability”.

The following paragraph of our report said:

“On provision for disabled people, he”—

Justin Tomlinson—

“similarly confirmed his view that: ‘Frankly, some of it is disgraceful. There is not provision in some grounds. Supporters are split up or are put in with the away fans. I find that totally unacceptable. We are in the last chance saloon with those football bodies, saying, “You need to get your house in order”’”.

Had my Private Member’s Bill become law, clubs which failed to comply with the accessible stadia guidelines could have lost their safety certificates and their stadia would have been prevented from operating. However, without that sanction, disabled people will have to rely on the good will of the clubs to deliver what they have promised by the summer of next year. I am afraid that I am not holding my breath. I am advised that the long-awaited report from the Premier League regarding the progress of its clubs with one year to go was sent to the Minister, Penny Mordaunt MP, in early August and copied to the Sports Minister, Tracey Crouch. I am told it says very little and contains no detail about the real progress at each club.

It appears that at least seven Premier League clubs will not meet the pledge by August 2017, as had been promised. The excuses being put forward by clubs as to why they will not meet this are, frankly, unacceptable. Liverpool Football Club, for example, seems far more interested in providing general hospitality places than in installing sufficient disabled fans’ seats to comply with football’s own minimum standards. Those seats for disabled people would ensure that the club meets its pledge, but instead, its disabled fans are expected to wait for phase 2 of the stadium expansion—whenever that might be. Watford Football Club seems to be removing disabled fans’ seats at a time when we should be seeing an increase, and Crystal Palace believes that it needs only to come up with a plan by August 2017, rather than comply with a commitment.

It further transpires that newly promoted clubs will be given a one-year extension to meet the Premiership pledge, as they had not been part of the original decision and it is felt that they should be afforded the same two-year cycle. This misses the point completely. As other noble Lords have said in this debate, it is more than 20 years since the introduction of Part 3 of the DDA: it is law that they are required to provide that accommodation, and it is disgraceful that they have not done so.

It is clear that the Premier League appears to have no intention to penalise or sanction clubs that do not meet the pledge. So what happens next? Quite recently, the noble Lord, Lord Ashton, replied to a Written Question from me in these words:

“Ministers expect all sports, and all clubs, whose grounds do not make the reasonable adjustments to accommodate disabled spectators as set out in the Equality Act 2010 to take action to fulfil this legal obligation”.

Given the vast financial resources at the disposal of Premiership clubs, which noble Lords have referred to, the time has surely come for this action to be taken and in a much more drastic way.

It is so disappointing that, in response to the Select Committee’s recommendation 21 that the Government should include provisions similar to those of the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill in a government Bill, the Government have said that there are no plans to introduce one as existing legislation in the form of the Equality Act remains untested on access to sports stadia for disabled people. That is a truly bizarre excuse that completely ignores paragraph 247 of the Select Committee report, which states:

“The Equality Act 2010 has not succeeded in giving disabled sports fans the access to stadia to which they are entitled, and new measures are needed. A particular problem … is the law’s requirement that only individuals may bring actions against institutions which are failing in their duty to comply with the Act. The nature of the relationship between a football fan and his or her own club is often deep-rooted and passionate, and makes it hard”—

I would say impossible—

“for the fan to initiate proceedings”.

This is the reason for our recommendation 42:

“The Government should consider changing the law to allow charities and other bodies which do not themselves have a legal interest to bring proceedings in the interests of classes of disabled people who are not themselves claimants”

I hope that when the Minister replies she can give a convincing reason for not allowing charities to bring class actions. I also ask her to give the Government’s response to the Premier League’s report on progress towards meeting its August 2017 accessibility commitment and an indication of what they plan to do if the clubs let them, and their disabled supporters, down.