Policing and Crime Bill

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Report: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Wednesday 7th December 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I support Amendment 173. I will not rehearse the arguments about the details of the amendment so persuasively set out by the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, and by the ad hoc Select Committee of your Lordships’ House that she so ably chaired. Its excellent report on the Equality Act 2010 and its impact on disabled people bears testimony, if any were needed, to the proud and noble tradition of your Lordships’ House of fighting against disability discrimination and for equality.

I was proud to serve on the National Disability Council, which was set up to advise on the implementation of the Conservative Government’s 1995 Disability Discrimination Act, otherwise known as the DDA. Central to that Act was the concept of the duty to make reasonable adjustments to enable disabled people to access goods, facilities and services. As the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, has said, the nature of that duty was anticipatory. The onus was not on the disabled person so much as on the provider to anticipate reasonable adjustments. That anticipatory principle is sacrosanct. To ignore it would be to go backwards, with all the political consequences that would involve.