Disabled People

Lord Faulkner of Worcester Excerpts

Thursday 9th May 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulkner of Worcester (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, on securing this debate and also on an excellent speech, which I am glad to follow. When we speak about minorities, we all too often lose sight of the fact that disabled people are the largest minority group in our country. Out of the UK population of 66 million there are, according to the charity Scope and the Family Resources Survey, 13.9 million disabled people. Despite that, disability discrimination is still considered by the public, the media and in some cases the Government to rank below racial, homophobic and religious discrimination.

Your Lordships’ House has led the way in championing the needs of disabled people, and we can see evidence of that in the speakers’ list for this debate. It was a privilege to be asked to serve on the Select Committee on the Equality Act 2010 and Disability under the excellent chairmanship of the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, in the 2015-16 Session. Many of the issues that I suspect will be raised in the debate today were covered by that Select Committee inquiry, and I would gently suggest to the Minister that it would be helpful if she and her department were to go through the 55 recommendations made in that report and see how many of them still need to be implemented.

I should at this point declare my interest as a vice-president of the charity Level Playing Field. I have been involved with the charity for 12 of the 20-plus years that it has been campaigning for improvements in access to sports stadia for disabled supporters. The charity gave me tremendous support when I took a Private Member’s Bill, the Accessible Sports Grounds Bill, through this House in 2015. Virtually everyone who spoke in its Second Reading debate was strongly supportive, particularly of the principle that each stadium should follow accessible guidelines and improve the experience for disabled people attending matches. As is the fate, sadly, of almost every Private Member’s Bill that starts life in this House, mine made no progress in the other place—but there seems to be little doubt that the pressure put on the football authorities by your Lordships helped to secure a remarkable change of approach. Access is now high on the agenda for clubs and sports governing bodies, and clubs have a clearer understanding of what they need to achieve.

Level Playing Field tells me that the Premier League pledge has resulted in the biggest change in facilities for disabled fans since the league was founded in 1992. Of its 20 members, 17 now meet the accessible stadia guidelines for wheelchair user spaces, and over 1,000 more spaces have been provided across the Premier League since the pledge was signed. There have also been 16 changing places and 10 sensory rooms created. All Premier League clubs have identified easy access and amenity seats, and more disabled away fans can now sit alongside their fellow supporters.

As recently as 2016, after the publication of the Select Committee report, I was still very critical of the lack of progress. While there is still a lot more to be achieved in the Premier League—including ticketing processes, sight-lines, persistent standing, appropriate audio-descriptive commentary and away-match experiences —I am pleased to acknowledge how much the situation has got better. I commend six clubs in particular where the pledge has led to really significant improvements: Everton, Chelsea, Watford, Newcastle United and our two proud competitors in the European Champions League final, Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur. They all meet the accessible stadia guidelines.

The English Premier League pledge has also had a beneficial effect on the Football League. Championship clubs now have two years following promotion to meet the accessible stadia guidelines. Some good work is being done in Leagues One and Two and lower down, but there are inconsistencies that need to be addressed. The same applies to sports such as rugby, cricket, tennis and horseracing, which are following the Premier League’s example in assessing their own facilities and making improvements.

While these advances are very welcome, there is an overriding need to create a more inclusive culture in society as a whole, so that disabled fans enjoy a genuinely equal experience. We shall therefore need clear legislation, such as my proposed Private Member’s Bill, that binds sports clubs by the accessible stadia guidelines as part of their licence. There also needs to be an appropriate governing body to oversee and manage these arrangements.

Looking more widely, we should review the disposable income of disabled people. Scope estimates that on average there are additional costs of £583 per month to being disabled. Looking ahead, we can anticipate that during the next 50 years there should be technology improvements, increased life expectancy and more leisure time, as the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, has described to us. Disabled people are entitled to expect improvements to public transport links, including equal access for wheelchair users travelling on trains and buses and in taxis.

I also hope there will be better understanding of hidden disabilities, including mental health, learning disabilities and dementia. These will need more public awareness and better staff and service provider training and information. We shall need to recognise that an ageing population will mean an increased demand on existing facilities.

Finally, I will say a word about one of the most unpleasant aspects of the debate on disabled people. I refer to the growing incidence of abuse and discrimination. In the past 12 months, reported incidents of hate crime have increased in the UK by 33%. According to police figures there were 5,342 reported cases in 2017-18, compared to 4,005 in 2016-17. There is evidence of significant underreporting of cases. Many sports fans, for example, do not report what they see or experience due to fear, uncertainty and not having confidence in anything eventually being done about such incidents. That needs to be tackled by proper information-sharing arrangements, centralised data sharing, focused research, measuring change, and players and fans speaking out and not tolerating this.

There is a lack of consistent messages about what to do in a situation where a hate crime arises, and there has to be united and consistent action that makes it clear that any form of discrimination is not tolerated. I would like to see a charter to which everyone involved signs up—sports governing bodies, supporters’ groups, clubs, charities and the Government. In some cases, the constitution of fan groups will need to be amended to make it clear that discrimination against disabled people will not be tolerated. That needs to apply equally to social media and online forums and to written constitutions and rulebooks. If something is not acceptable on the street, it is not acceptable online either.