Covronavirus, Disability and Access to Services

Wera Hobhouse Excerpts

Thursday 15th April 2021 Westminster Hall

[Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD) [V]]

I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Romsey and Southampton North (Caroline Nokes) for securing this important debate, and to the Women and Equalities Committee for their report. I fully support the Committee’s call for an independent inquiry into the causes of adverse outcomes for disabled people.

From delayed and confusing guidance over shielding to difficulties accessing food, many disabled people have felt abandoned throughout the crisis. To this day, as we have already heard, we are waiting for the live British Sign Language interpretation of the Government’s press briefings on TV. One of my constituents in Bath was born with a rare and incurable breathing problem, and is in a high-risk group. Despite registering as extremely vulnerable on the Government’s website to receive food parcels in March last year, she did not receive her parcel until mid-June. Of the Government’s guidance about ending shielding, another constituent said:

“I don’t understand anything the Prime Minister said at all. It is so confusing. Why can’t they just say this in basic language?”

One of the most obvious failures we see again and again is that services are being designed for disabled people without actually consulting them. This pandemic has hit disabled people particularly hard, and in so many ways. In employment, disabled people have been disproportionately affected by furlough, reduced hours and redundancies. Despite this, the Chancellor’s plan for jobs made only one reference to disabled people, and contained nothing to address the specific challenges facing them. Recent figures released by the Department for Work and Pensions reveal that the number of disability employment advisors has fallen by 32% during the pandemic, at a time when knowledge of the barriers faced by disabled people will be even more necessary. Everyone should have the right to secure employment. I sincerely hope that promotion of inclusive workplace practices will be a top priority in the Government’s national strategy for disabled people. We need a targeted strategy to tackle barriers to work for disabled people as we emerge from the pandemic.

Covid has also exposed how isolated some disabled people can be. Many of those with mental health difficulties in Bath have already been struggling without face-to-face care. The value of our social care sector and its workforce has never been clearer, and I pay tribute in particular to the 7.3 million unpaid carers in the UK, without whom the pressures on adult social care services would be even greater. Many are facing extreme financial hardship. The Liberal Democrats are calling for carer’s allowance to be raised by £1,000 a year—the same as the uplift in universal credit. The underfunding of social care was a problem long before covid. Now its effects will be felt even more severely. I support the Select Committee’s recommendations, which highlight that the £300 million in additional grant funding for local authority social care budgets falls far short of what is needed.

We are now 25 years on from the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. Unless we truly recognise the value of the social care sector, we risk going backwards on the progress we have made towards equality for disabled people.