Equalities Legislation: Guide Dogs

Nick Thomas-Symonds Excerpts

Wednesday 5th September 2018 Westminster Hall

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the enforcement of equalities legislation relating to guide dogs.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir David. Enforcement of the laws we enact in this place matters. Without a robust and credible enforcement system, statutes risk becoming dead letters and the whole legislative process turns into a cosmetic exercise. There are practical steps we can take to support better enforcement of equalities legislation relating to guide dogs, and to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

I sought the debate because of the troubling experience of one of my constituents. The more I drilled into what he told me, the more I discovered that his experience was not isolated but symptomatic of a wider issue. My constituent, who prefers to remain nameless, is blind. In March, he tried to walk into a restaurant in Cheltenham with his guide dog, but the owner refused him entry, citing health and safety regulations. Those objections were entirely spurious. That was, prima facie, a clear breach of the Equality Act 2010.

A video of the incident was posted to the internet and carried on the GloucestershireLive website. The response was enormous, reflecting deep and proper concern about the injustice among people in my constituency and beyond. In fairness to the owner of the restaurant, I should say that the subsequent apology was suitably full and apparently sincere. It is important to note that neither I nor my constituent are calling for disproportionate retribution. In some ways, I am calling for quite the opposite: a system of process-driven enforcement, without the need for trial by social media.

My constituent’s story is not unusual. There are more than 5,000 active guide dog partnerships and approximately 2,000 assistance dogs of other varieties—dogs other than guide dogs—working in the UK. A survey of more than 1,000 assistance dog owners conducted by Guide Dogs in spring 2015 found that 75% had been refused access at some point because they had an assistance dog with them; 49%—nearly half—had been refused access in the past 12 months; and 37% had been refused access to a restaurant in the past year. Those are sobering statistics. It is hard to communicate the impact of that to the extent it deserves. People affected feel humiliated, dehumanised and rejected by society. One guide dog owner in Hove said he felt “useless and…inadequate”.

What is the law? The Equality Act 2010 makes it unlawful to discriminate against a person with a disability and requires service providers to make “reasonable adjustments” to accommodate people. Taxis and minicabs are often cited as the most frequent offenders for turning guide dog owners away, but such a breach by a taxi owner is a criminal offence, so police and local authorities are better able to take action. For non-criminal breaches of the Equality Act—where someone is refused entry to a café or restaurant, for example—the options are very different, and none of them is terribly attractive.

What are those options? The gov.uk website states:

“If you find it difficult to access a local service—for example, you cannot use a local takeaway or sandwich shop because the counter is too high—you should contact the organisation and let them know. It is in their interest to make sure everyone can use their service.”

In effect, the advice is, “Tell the perpetrator.” That is one option. The second is to issue proceedings in the county court. Not everyone will want to go through the hassle, expense and rigmarole of litigation in the county court. True, there is an equality advisory service, a legal advice helpline and help from the Equality and Human Rights Commission. None the less, given all the stress that comes with it, issuing legal proceedings is a daunting step, particularly where the breach is isolated. The third option is to report the breach on social media. However, in so doing, the victim loses control and may unleash a kind of digital vigilantism that they feel is disproportionate and inappropriate. The net result is that all too often justice is not done, and the options for the injured party are not palatable and not always appropriate.

[Nick Thomas-Symonds (Torfaen) (Lab)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I concur with what he says about the expense of litigation and the other options available. Is not raising awareness about the Equality Act 2010 a far better option in trying to ensure that the law is enforced?

[Alex Chalk]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Raising awareness is crucial, but where efforts to raise awareness have been unsuccessful, we need a process that is proportionate, streamlined and victim centred to ensure that justice is done in a way that is not as hit-and-miss and patchy as it is now.

The other problem is that local authorities usually do not keep records. For example, in the case of an individual transgression on the door by an 18-year-old who has not been properly trained, one might understand that there are mitigating circumstances and that what is required is better training, but what if the same thing happens six months later? Surely, a record should be kept so that the excuses that were advanced first time around start to ring a little hollower.

The burden to enforce the Equality Act should pass to local authorities. They have the power to bring trading standards prosecutions for breach of copyright. If someone is selling dodgy DVDs on the Promenade in Cheltenham or perpetrating blue badge fraud, the local authority can intervene to take action, so why can it not bring proceedings for breach of the Equality Act as part of its licensing duties, thereby at least sharing the burden with the complainant? There should be a duty on local authorities to keep records of breaches so that those breaches can be put before the licensing committee when decisions are made about license grants or extensions. In that way, repeat offenders would be found out and such breaches could be taken into account when they applied for a new or extended licence.

The bottom line is that the Equality Act 2010 is a good piece of legislation, particularly in relation to disabled people, but it needs to be given more teeth if it is to fulfil its true potential.