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Mr. Collins: I am most grateful for that helpful intervention; with luck, we may be within 12 months of the start date.
The commission is to start up in the millennium year--in which we will all be very excited, for all sorts of reasons--so it is important that it gets a flying start and that its work, and the role of the disabled community, should be appropriately tied into the nation's millennium celebrations. I know that the Minister is not responsible for those matters, but we should think about using the dome to symbolise the fact that the Disability Rights Commission will be immensely significant for a large number of our fellow citizens. I hope that the Government will give some thought to that.
I want to enter a small caveat, but I hope that the Minister understands that it in no way diminishes my excitement about, and genuine commitment to, the principle behind the commission. Businesses, and small businesses in particular, could be a little concerned about the work of the commission, but I hope that she will be able to reassure me on that point.
On Second Reading in the other place, Baroness Blackstone explained that, to do its job effectively, the commission must stamp out discrimination and make sure that employers who act unlawfully are brought to book. She talked about the role of investigations. The commission will have teeth because it will be able to undertake investigations, and I welcome that. Baroness Blackstone said:
For example, will the commission have the right to go into a factory employing 500 people to study a whole range of papers? What access will it have to information and what will happen in respect of findings of systemic discrimination? The Prime Minister yesterday expressed his wish, as Head of Government, to make sure that unnecessary regulatory burdens are not placed on business. We all feel--in principle, at least--that these regulations are not unnecessary, but, none the less, they must be considered in the overall context of businesses whose primary function is to make a living for themselves and for their employees.
We must ensure that regulation is conducted sensibly and flexibly and I welcome the fact that the Government have laid great emphasis in the drafting of the Bill on their wish to preserve flexibility for the commission. I also welcome their suggestion that they expect the commission to consult widely on its work and feed in its views as the Government consult on other issues.
It is important to get right the crossover between the world of commerce and the world of people with disabilities. I would not want the commission, as it starts up, to find itself opposed in any respect by any of the small business organisations, should they take against it because they think that it will impose regulations resulting in yet more inspections and all the rest of it, which they would oppose. If the Minister is able to give some assurance on that point, I would very much welcome it.
I enter only that small caveat and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead has said from the Front Bench, the Bill has been recognised as being significant. It builds on the landmark Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which was passed in the previous Parliament, and goes further. I hope and believe that it will not be the last word, either under this Government or under future Governments. This is a step-by-step process, and so it should be.
What is regarded as acceptable in the last year of the 20th century is a long way ahead of what would have been regarded as acceptable in the middle of this century, but perhaps a long way behind what will be regarded as acceptable in the middle of the next century. We need to move forward all the time and I welcome the Bill, which represents a large step forward.
Mr. Roger Berry (Kingswood):
I warmly and enthusiastically welcome the Bill. I could not imagine such a debate being held five years ago, and I am absolutely delighted that it is taking place in such a spirit. Many of the debates in the Chamber seem to involve hon. Members on one side of the House believing that every single word of a Government Bill must be gospel truth, and hon. Members on the other side of the House believing that every word must be totally false.
I welcome the spirit in which the debate is being conducted. It represents a third way whereby we can all support the Bill enthusiastically, and for very good reasons, but recognise that reasonable people may raise issues for Ministers to consider in Committee or on Report. That, surely, is the way in which this issue, and many others, should be dealt with.
I congratulate both my right hon. Friend the Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities and my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of
State for Education and Employment on an admirable Bill. I also commend the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Mr. Howarth), now Minister for the Arts, who has been a passionate, committed and reasoned advocate of equal rights for disabled people for more years than I can recall. As the first Under-Secretary of State responsible for the issue, he set up a disability rights task force, produced a White Paper last summer and gained the well-deserved respect and admiration not only of hon. Members, but of disabled people throughout the country for ensuring that the Government's commitment to comprehensive and enforceable civil rights was put firmly on the agenda soon after the general election. Indeed, discussions with disability organisations commenced immediately after the election, and the task force was set up within months. The Ministers whom I have mentioned deserve our thanks for all they have done: I am very impressed by the way in which the Government have handled the issue so far.
There is no doubt that the 8 or 9 million disabled people in the country will warmly welcome the Government's commitment to the establishment of a Disability Rights Commission. That is much more important than my personal view. For the first time, disabled people will be able to fight their corner with the help of a statutory body. That is long overdue.
Although the fundamental purpose of the Bill is to provide a statutory body to enforce the rights of disabled people, it has another purpose. At present, employers who want to know what is required of them under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, or any other legislation that may be passed, have nowhere to go. Service providers--those who run superstores and supermarkets, and retailers of all kinds--want to know what the House expects of them, so that they can ensure that disabled people have equal rights. Those employers and service providers will be as enthusiastic as I am about the establishment of an authoritative body to which they can turn for advice.
As my right hon. Friend the Minister pointed out, it is no exaggeration to say that this is an historic day. The absence of a commission of this kind was undoubtedly one of the most significant flaws in the 1995 Act. I again congratulate the Government on acting so quickly to remedy the omission--and, indeed, on doing so with a degree of openness and transparency that could be emulated more widely. The hon. Member for Westmorland and Lonsdale (Mr. Collins) mentioned the "disability on the agenda" website, which I believe belongs to the Department for Education and Employment. The website, which I use regularly, is a source of much useful information, including minutes of meetings of the disability rights task force. Not only have the Government established a task force to advise them--most of its members being disabled people--but they publish minutes of its meetings on the website. Such openness and transparency deserves congratulations, and I hope that it will be widely emulated.
I have referred briefly to the crucial role played by Ministers here in producing the Bill. It would be remiss of me not to acknowledge also the work of my noble Friend Lord Ashley, who saw as long ago as 1983, when he introduced his first Bill, that without a commission of this kind civil rights for disabled people could not be secured. The need for such a commission was also recognised by my noble Friend Lord Morris and myhon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire
(Mr. Barnes) when they introduced Bills, and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) when he was a spokesman for the then Opposition. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for all that he did at that time.
I am delighted that the Opposition support the Bill, and I shall not undermine my genuine enthusiasm for the transformation that has clearly occurred by referring to past events. We should note that, over the years, the most important campaigners for civil rights have been disabled people themselves. I suspect that the present unanimity in the Chamber is due largely to the fact that disability organisations have pressed their case so effectively, especially through the umbrella organisation Rights Now!. We are where we are today because of that, and also because Members in all parts of the House have been prepared to listen to the campaign. It is especially important that Ministers have been so keen to listen, notably those in the Department for Education and Employment. I hope that the Government will be equally willing to listen when disabled people raise other issues with other Departments.
Let me say something about the details of the Bill. A powerful case for the establishment of a commission has always been that, as we already have an Equal Opportunities Commission and a Commission for Racial Equality, we should also have a commission to ensure that disabled people are not given second-class treatment. The National Disability Council recognised that case after its first year in operation. I suspect that hon. Members knew that before, but I congratulate the NDC, and in particular its chair, David Grayson. Its first annual report said to the Government, "We have a really good idea. Will you abolish us, and set up a commission in our place?". Notwithstanding the council's important work, it is impressive that it had the courage to make such a suggestion in its first annual report.
We can now contemplate the establishment of a state-of-the-art commission. We are able to draw on the experience of the EOC and the CRE, and we all agree that we want to do our best in setting up the new commission. The Government should, I think, consider strengthening a number of the measures in the Bill. I doubt that any of my suggestions will greatly surprise Ministers, as they have been well rehearsed in another place. Fortunately, however, the Government now have another opportunity to respond.
My overriding concern is to avoid litigation wherever possible. I say that as one who, like all other hon. Members who are present, is committed to the establishment of a Disability Rights Commission. That will necessitate a legal framework to ensure the guaranteeing of legal rights, but none of us wants cases to be dragged through the courts if that can be avoided. I think that we should facilitate early intervention when discrimination is imminent.
Written agreements provide an effective way of stopping unlawful practices in lieu of enforcement action. The Government have taken up recommendations from the CRE and the EOC that the commission should have the power to make written agreements with organisations that it suspects of breaching the law, rather than carrying out a formal investigation.
However, although clause 5 provides for such written agreements, it does not do so in the way recommended by the other commissions. I contend that, under the Bill,
written agreements do not apply soon enough. According to the CRE, the key time for a written agreement is following the preliminary written inquiry before the start of the formal investigation. It is then that organisations suspected of being discriminatory start getting a little nervous and want to avoid bad publicity. It would help if a formal agreement could be entered into at that point rather than after a formal investigation, which may prove not to be necessary.
"The investigations need to examine the structure of organisations so that they discover not only what discrimination is occurring, but why it happens. They need to deal with systemic as well as individual cases of discrimination."--[Official Report, House of Lords, 17 December 1998; Vol. 595, c. 1463.]
On one reading of Baroness Blackstone's remarks, I had no difficulty with them whatever. It is clearly likely that a prejudiced employer, or business, who discriminates against a person with a disability has done so in the past and would, unless stopped, do the same to others in future. If there is a pattern of discrimination, it needs to be tackled head on. However, I am a little concerned--I suspect that the business community might be as well--about exactly what scope the commission will have to investigate the structure of an organisation and what, in practice, that might mean.
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