People with Learning Disabilities (Abuse)

Debate between Tom Clarke and Jack Lopresti

Monday 3rd September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for facilitating what I believe is a very important debate. We recently welcomed and entertained the entire world to the Olympic and Paralympic games. By every measureable standard, both events have been hugely successful for Great Britain, so I have asked myself incessantly, how can a nation reach such towering heights of achievement but retain the capacity to engage in crass behaviour that should make us all feel ashamed? The standard of care and protection that we provide to people with learning disabilities is a shameful indictment of our society. There is no defence for the way we ill-treat people with learning disabilities.

Mencap felt compelled to produce a report on the subject, “Out of sight”. I recommend that everyone with an interest in disability or human rights takes the time to read that report, which was co-authored by the Challenging Behaviour Foundation. It calls for an end to the neglect and abuse of people with a learning disability. The opening remarks are defiant: “Enough is enough.” I echo that, and would add: “No more and never again.”

It is nothing short of a national scandal that we have allowed people with learning disabilities to be so marginalised and ill-treated. It should not have happened, and it had better not still be happening. What can we do to avoid it happening again? We need to find the necessary legislative measures that will root out the outrageous behaviour that has been brutally meted out to defenceless, vulnerable people. The abuse is not confined to care homes.

In preparation for this debate, I reflected on the fact that before the summer recess Lord Rix and I, as co-chairs of the all-party learning disability group, launched the start of learning disability week by hosting a special event in Parliament. We sought to highlight the appalling spectacle of how people with a disability are subjected to hate crime in today’s Britain. Our aim was to raise awareness of the offence, and demand positive progress from police forces across the UK in tackling such crime. Research has shown that in today’s Britain as many as nine out of 10 people with a learning disability have been victims of hate crime or subject to bullying. People with a learning disability tend to take longer to learn, and may need support to develop new skills, understand complex information and interact with other people.

Even as we campaigned, more evidence emerged. Winterbourne View hospital was a care unit that provided short-term monitoring of adults with learning disabilities. The BBC’s “Panorama” programme exposed a pattern of institutional abuse perpetrated by several nurses against the most vulnerable patients in the unit.

[Jack Lopresti (Filton and Bradley Stoke) (Con)]

The Winterbourne View serious case review was published. It strongly criticised South Gloucestershire council for failing to prevent the abuse, given that, in the years leading up to the terrible scenes that we witnessed on “Panorama”, 40 alerts were sent to the council but were not acted on. It is a tragedy and a travesty that they were not acted on sooner; if they had been, we may have been able to prevent a great many of the abuses and atrocities that we saw on the programme. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that it is imperative that local councils act immediately on information and on issues that are flagged up, as they were in the Winterbourne View case, to ensure that we never see such terrible scenes again?

[Mr Clarke]

I am pleased that the Member in whose constituency Winterbourne View was—I know he has worked very hard on the issue—has intervened, and I am sure that the House will take careful note of what he has said.

Among the abuses that “Panorama” thought important were the following: patients were forced to have showers while fully clothed; mouthwash was poured into a patient’s eyes; a patient had a bucket of cold water poured over her and was forced to sit outside in the cold; patients were dragged along the floor; a patient was repeatedly punched; and a patient was driven to attempt suicide, and was subsequently mocked. That establishes that vulnerable people were tortured for the amusement of men and women guilty of an inhuman and monstrous series of crimes.