House of Lords: Governance

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, in the six years since I was introduced to your Lordships’ House, I have come to appreciate even more than I already did what a truly amazing institution it is. However, I have also come to appreciate that one particular aspect of our governance represents a real reputational risk that we need urgently to address so that we can focus on the important procedural issues that other noble Lords have rightly mentioned.

We talk a good talk on tackling disability inequality in the laws that we pass, but the sad fact is that we do not walk the walk in how we treat our disabled Members. Indeed, I suggest that the public would be shocked by the extent to which our governance perpetuates disability inequality here in Your Lordships’ House. We may have passed into law the duty to make reasonable adjustments because of disability but one would never know that from our governance and the way in which your Lordships’ House operates.

Let me provide two examples. In any other professional environment, the fact that I had to learn to talk again and now live with a speech difficulty following life-saving neurosurgery would prompt questions about whether I needed extra time to speak, but not here. I blame no individual for the system we have inherited, but that does not remove responsibility from those who now have the power to change a system that is fundamentally unfair and discriminatory.

As noble Lords may know, I live with brittle bones. In every sphere in which I worked until I joined your Lordships’ House, including the private sector, I knew that I would be supported if I needed to take time off to recover from a fracture. However, the harsh reality of serving in your Lordships’ House is that, if I broke my leg later today and had to have surgery that necessitated weeks of being incapacitated, I would be completely on my own. For the first time in my professional life, I would be entirely without financial security because the unfair, discriminatory presumption is that not only would I not have a disability that incurred such financial risk but I would have the independent financial means to support myself. I do not. Just when I would be at my most vulnerable because of my disability and possibly unable to contribute, even remotely, to the business of the House for several weeks, your Lordships’ House would effectively wash its hands of me.

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[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, although I have never encountered such systemic disability discrimination before, I do believe in self-regulation. But I also believe we need to recognise where the reputational risk of self-regulation outweighs the benefits. Trying to self-regulate on disability discrimination when we have already passed legislation on it is a no-win situation. It is simply a gift for the critics of your Lordships’ House, because it says that there is one rule for them and another for everyone else. I am sure none of us needs reminding at the current time how well that goes down with the public. The current situation with regards to the treatment of disabled Members of your Lordships’ House gives self-regulation a bad name. If we want to protect the reputation of this wonderful House, which I do, we should stop applying self-regulation to this particular matter.

We have a choice. Do we begin the new year in breach of the disability discrimination legislation that we ourselves have passed, or does the House of Lords Commission use its meeting next week to extricate your Lordships’ House from this totally invidious position and make clear that we recognise we have a moral duty to be a beacon of best practice, rather than an exception to it?

In conclusion, that is why I urge the commission to commit unequivocally to respect and apply both the letter and the spirit of disability discrimination legislation to disabled Members of your Lordships’ House, with immediate effect. Let us remove this shameful, invidious aspect from our governance, and thereby achieve a goal we all share: to ensure our governance protects and strengthens, rather than undermines, this amazing institution.