Historic Properties (Disabled Access)

Lord Vaizey of Didcot Excerpts

Thursday 8th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Culture and the Digital Economy (Mr Edward Vaizey)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore) for calling this debate. He rightly alluded to the 20th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act. It is interesting to reflect on what happens to us over a period of 20 years. If my memory serves me well, the Bill that became that Act was steered through the House by the then Minister for the disabled, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), who then went on to become Secretary of State for Wales, the leader of the Conservative party, and a very distinguished Foreign Secretary; and this year will see his retirement from this place. I believe that you were a special adviser at the time, Madam Deputy Speaker, and now you sit in that august Chair presiding over these proceedings. In the heartbeat of 20 years, what a rise to power.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood for the work he does on disabled issues. I am very interested in this issue, although a little frustrated, but let me elaborate on that. He asked whether I thought that Parliament was fit for purpose, and my answer is no, I do not think it is when it comes to access for disabled people. I remember a moment during my ministerial career when one of my officials, who is in a wheelchair, could not attend a meeting because the relevant lift to provide access to the meeting room was broken. That was a difficult occasion for him. We need to do much more in this place to lead by example. As discussions about the refurbishment of this place continue—various figures, which I am sure are far from the truth, about the cost to the public purse have been bandied about in the newspapers—I certainly hope that disabled access will be at the front and centre of our thinking. My hon. Friend put it extremely well when he said that no one with a disability should be denied access to any part of the estate where an able-bodied person can go.

[Sir Peter Bottomley]

May I tell the Minister that the House of Commons has done exceptionally well in one area? People going from this part of the building to Portcullis house through New Palace yard could roll a marble along the ramps, because little fillers have been put in to make sure the surface is smooth. I recommend that for other historic buildings and for every road. We should never have a ridge of even half an inch, when a bit of tarmac or some other filler can ensure that it is smooth. For someone in a wheelchair, we are doing better than anybody else on that, but not on the other things talked about by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Chris Skidmore).

[Mr Vaizey]

I take my hon. Friend’s point, which leads on to the debate about historic properties. I vividly remember taking a constituent of mine who is in a wheelchair around the town of Wallingford in my constituency a couple of years ago. It is effectively a mediaeval town: it got its charter in 1155, and still has its mediaeval pattern. Of course, it was hell on earth for him to go over the cobbles. For us, cobbles are a charming and wonderful part of the heritage of a historic town. That does not quite encapsulate the entirety of this debate, but it is a small insight into the circles that perhaps have to be squared.

I want to pick up another point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood. He said that we should not shut the door to people with disabilities in terms of their access to heritage properties. I would go further and say that if a visitor attraction—to use the jargon—opens the door to people with disabilities, it will get a really loyal customer. If it makes the effort to ensure that it can give people with disabilities good access to the property, they will come back. I cover disability issues in other parts of my portfolio, and people with disabilities tell me time and again that if theatres and sports stadiums take the trouble to make the visitor experience enjoyable for them, they will automatically think of that place when they are looking for something to do on a night out or a day out.

I take issue with the advice that my hon. Friend received from English Heritage. As a Minister, I have learned that when an arm’s length body does not have an answer for an assiduous MP, it tends to push the problem back on to the Government. One occasionally gets that from one national museum or another that says it cannot possibly do something because the Government have forbidden it, even though that is nonsense. I have never steered English Heritage towards putting its money into cafés or family-friendly facilities, although I would naturally applaud both, as somebody who likes a café and a family-friendly facility as much as a historic property.

I will certainly not stand in the way of English Heritage if it wants to put its money into facilities to enable disabled people to have access to its properties. It might come back and say that it does not have the money, but we are in the process of reforming English Heritage, which is something I have wanted to do for many years. Effectively, we are separating the two parts. My hon. Friend will be aware of its regulatory function. That is relevant to the debate because that part would sign off any changes to an historic property—for example, steps might have to be changed to provide disabled access. There are also the buildings that English Heritage looks after, and those will be owned by the Government and run by a charitable trust that has a contract with English Heritage. We are giving English Heritage £80 million to make that transition and effect repairs to its historic estate, to bring the buildings to the level of a first-class visitor attraction. I will take a steer from this debate and communicate to the chair of English Heritage my wish to know what plans he has to use that money to improve disabled access to its properties.

In one sense we are lucky to have just a few major players in terms of heritage properties, and we can get round a table five or six people who will probably represent 90% of the major heritage attractions in this country. They include the National Trust, Historic Royal Palaces—it is keen to help with Parliament, if you want to pass on that message Madam Deputy Speaker—and the Historic Houses Association. I therefore suggest a meeting with those key players, which I suggest my hon. Friend attends, to discuss their plans to improve access to historic buildings, and learn what plans are already in place and what changes have been made. It is a matter I feel strongly about.

Interestingly, access to heritage properties for people with disabilities has increased from just under 64% to around 67% of people with disabilities saying that they have visited a heritage property in the last year. The other key player that I should have named is the Heritage Lottery Fund, which gives grants to heritage organisations when there is a disabled element to the grant. The HLF was set up at roughly the same time as the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, and over the past 20 years it has awarded £36 million to 820 projects specifically aimed at benefiting disabled people, £18.5 million to more than 370 projects representing the interests of disabled people, and almost £9 million to 175 projects focused on disabled people exploring the history and heritage of disability.

As an example of what can be done, Historic Royal Palaces applied to HLF for a £1.6 million grant for Kew palace in London. It established an access panel of local disabled people who toured the building, echoing what my hon. Friend said in his speech about involving those who will use the building. It advised the project team on how best to maximise access, and made suggestions on a variety of issues, including graphics. The range of different issues on which advice can be given is interesting, and includes graphics, sound, tactile models and display case design. Physical improvements included a ramp to the main entrance, a lift to all floors that used the shaft of a former privy—that is a heritage term—and a lift to the undercroft where a new learning space was created. As a result of that project, people with mobility impairments gained access to all areas of the palace, and some parts of the building were made available not just to disabled people but to the public for the first time. Members of the project team developed their awareness of access issues faced by disabled people, and as a result, Historic Royal Palaces has established a successful model for working inclusively with local communities that will be used in other buildings under its care.

The HLF has also supported much smaller schemes such as the £4,500 grant to 365 Leeds stories, which uncovered and shared the hidden history of people with learning difficulties in Leeds by interviewing people who remembered Meanwood hospital. It has also supported performing arts group A Quiet Word, which joined members of Pyramid Arts, a learning disability arts group, and Leeds museum discovery centre to uncover and bring to life the hidden history of people with learning difficulties in Leeds.

Our heritage and arts organisations can also look at other issues. Only a few months ago, a visually impaired constituent came to see me because he was finding it very difficult to get a job. He has now secured a job with a private commercial company, but his real ambition was to work as a curator in a museum. I contacted a museum, which I had better not name in the Chamber, but it was not interested. It strikes me that it would be a huge opportunity if a museum employed someone who was visually impaired, because it could ask, “What is your experience when you come to our museum? What could we do to give you a meaningful experience, such as the opportunity to handle our exhibits and the provision of audio descriptions?” People think that all this stuff is too much trouble and cost, but when they get stuck into it, the cost ends up being much lower than they expect, and the enhancement of their facilities—and the opportunity to engage with a community that is too often shut out—is significant.

Finally, I want to express my frustration—as I often do in this House—about the silo nature of the way that Governments work. Like any Government, we have to work harder to join up policy. I had a meeting a couple of years ago with a previous Minister with responsibility for the disabled about access to music venues, but that ran into the sand. My Department does not have money for disabled policies, if I may put it that way. I do have the eAccessibility Forum, which is about encouraging the use of technology to provide access for disabled people to facilities. As a result, we have some video-relay systems so that when people ring a company, a sign-language interpreter is available on a video link. People said that we could not do that because it would cost £100 million. The first company to do it was BT and it cost £20,000. We have written twice now to the FTSE 100 companies to ask them to implement the system, but we are making slow progress. I have now said that I will not have another meeting of the forum unless the Minister for Disabled People, my the hon. Friend the Member for Forest of Dean (Mr Harper) is present. It is really important that policy is joined up.

I have opportunities as Minister for the digital economy, because technology is massively changing the opportunities for disabled people. I am also the Minister with responsibility for performing arts venues, museums and historic properties, all of which are visited by people with disabilities and can benefit from having an audience or visitors who will be very loyal if more attractions make significant efforts to improve access for them. The glass is half full, because many venues already make those efforts, but the more they do so, the more reward they will get from loyal and grateful customers.

Question put and agreed to.