English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Committee stage
Wednesday 4th February 2026 Grand Committee

The Government are right to take inspiration from the GLA with the measures in the Bill, and Amendment 166 would ensure that other regions follow its example. Without the amendment, there is a real risk that the new health duty will remain well-intentioned but inconsistently applied across regions, and it will therefore fail to have any real impact on reducing health inequalities. This would be a significant opportunity missed to reverse worrying health trends.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to Amendment 165A in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, and I thank him for tabling it. As a wheelchair user, I know from first-hand experience that if you cannot move around your own home or get out, to socialise with friends, go shopping or go to work, for example, that will inevitably have a negative impact on your health, both physical and mental.

Of course, each of these negative health impacts will also have an inevitable negative impact on the NHS, whether that is additional out-patient treatment or hospitalisation; on the retail sector, given that the purple pound—the spending power of households containing one or more disabled people—is estimated to be worth £274 billion; on the disability benefits bill, which, in October 2024, the OBR estimated to be £48 billion; and on the disability employment gap, which continues to hover at around 30%. Does the Minister therefore accept that access to wheelchair and community equipment services is, as his noble friend argued, a health inequality issue? Does he also accept that, while not purporting to be a panacea, the approach proposed by his noble friend’s amendment does at least seek to put this issue on the radar? I fear that it is not currently on the radar—if it is, it is only an obscure blip at the edge of a screen.

The neglect of wheelchair and community equipment services by successive Governments has consequences. I do not propose to repeat the important points made by the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of King’s Heath, but I add that, if weak regulation and limited transparency are not a recipe for success anywhere else, why should NHS wheelchair and community equipment services be the exception? This fragmented system makes it hard to challenge poor performance. Without national direction, inequality has become normalised.

To finish, fragmentation may make for better ICB balance sheets in the short term, but history shows that, in the medium term, it is a very costly false economy. In short, we are cutting our nose to spite our face. This amendment invites us to look at the bigger picture. I hope very much that the Minister will agree, and I look forward to his response.

English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Report stage
Monday 13th April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Grey-Thompson (CB)]

My Lords, I have attached my name to both amendments. I cannot say that I have quite as long a history in accessible transport as the noble Lord, Lord Borwick, does, but in the mid-1990s, I sat on the National Disability Council with the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, which oversaw the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act. Back in the 1990s, the promises that were made on accessible transport felt like they were a very long way away. To be honest, in my 20s, I did not think I was going to live that long.

Considering the challenges that we face in accessible transport, the small gains that have been made have been slow and quite hard-fought. When I look at the provision of taxis, there is very much a difference between what is available in a city and what is available elsewhere. Where I live, in the north-east of England, it is almost impossible to get an accessible taxi. A friend of mine, an electric wheelchair user, came to visit last year. It took many hours over several days to even find provision for her to be able to use.

The challenges that we face are wider than just accessibility. There have been many cases of overcharging disabled people. There is wider access for people with other impairments in terms of discrimination, but the reality is that we have far from equal access. The noble Lord, Lord Borwick, talks about the number of wheelchair users who are in the UK. It is hard to find the numbers, but what we do know is that changes and improvements to mobility aids mean that more people are probably using mobility aids to be able to travel than they have ever done before.

We have to think about how we can make travelling much easier for disabled people than it currently is, and how we join this up with other modes of transport. If I look at things such as rail replacement services, most of the buses are not accessible and disabled people have been stranded at railway stations because it has not been possible to get an accessible taxi. As yet, we do not know the impact that changes in Motability will have on quite a significant number of disabled people. Just for clarity, I am a recipient of PIP, but I do not have a Motability car; but I imagine that those changes that are coming and the significant decrease in the mileage allowance are going to make accessible transport and accessible taxis even more important for quite a large number of disabled people.

I think the answer is not just in taxis. We have to take a really long, hard look at transport for disabled people. So far, there is still a significant amount of discrimination. As I was adding my name to these amendments, a number of scooter users got in touch with me to raise issues that they have with using accessible taxis. Where they are available—quite often around school hours—they are used for accessible taxi trips to and from school, and even where they are available, there are large chunks of the day where disabled people are not able to access them. I look forward to the Minister’s response, because accessible taxis are a really important part of equal access for disabled people.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to speak in support of my noble friend’s Amendments 268 and 287. In doing so, I should say that, although I welcome them, the fact that we are considering them this evening makes me sad, because they should not be necessary. The fact that they are exposes how little progress has been made, as the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, has said, in the 31 years since she and I served on the National Disability Council, advising the then Government on the implementation of the Disability Discrimination Act. The case of continued taxi inaccessibility, which these amendments modestly seek to remedy, provides just one example of the lack of enforcement of a law and subsequent laws that promised equality and, crucially, sustained attitudinal change.

Therefore, it should surprise no one that the failure to enforce these laws is having the opposite effect to what was intended by the authors of the Disability Discrimination Act. Instead of positive attitudinal change and greater inclusion, a lack of enforcement of the law, together with a licence to vent the vile prejudice that is, sadly, the hallmark of social media, have together spawned a culture of renewed discrimination and impunity. Attitudinally, as we heard in the debate on government Amendment 334 to the Crime and Policing Bill—which, incidentally, I supported—we are going backwards as far as disabled people are concerned.