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Mr. Oaten: I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman that the lack of a time scale is a weakness in the Bill. Further penalties would have to be imposed if the time scales were not adhered to, otherwise they would be constantly ignored and repeat notices would have to be issued. An additional penalty for not adhering to the time scale should be included in the Bill.
Mr. Berry: I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comment. We should take as light an approach to this matter as is practicable, but we cannot have time limits without penalties for breaching them.
The Government have said that the Disability Rights Commission will be a state-of-the-art body. However, the Bill does not give it powers strictly equivalent to those of the EOC or CRE. Those bodies can take proceedings against discriminatory advertising, discriminatory practices, persistent discriminators and those who instruct others to discriminate. Apart from a power to initiate proceedings against discriminatory advertisements, none of those other powers are in the Bill, even though they have all proved useful to the other commissions.
The EOC and CRE review their relevant legislation from time to time. Hon. Members know that, because those bodies kindly write to us and tell us how they would like the legislation to be improved. In their reviews they have often called for additional powers to initiate proceedings. In the other place, the noble Lords did not attempt to include in the Bill all the powers that the other commissions have. They tried to achieve a more modest objective: to make available to the Disability Rights Commission a narrow but useful right to initiate proceedings if it would best assist disabled people.
Why should the Disability Rights Commission not be able to take up cases on behalf of disabled people, to relieve them of the stress of having to instruct a solicitor or of being seen to be taking action against an employer? The EOC wants to have that additional power in employment cases precisely because of workplace harassment. Disabled people are also likely to face those
problems. Both the existing commissions want the power to take class actions on behalf of others. My right hon. Friend the Minister referred to that, so I encourage him to consider this matter further. The Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission--the hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth) may confirm this--can initiate proceedings in its own name. Why cannot the Disability Rights Commission do that?
On the Human Rights Act 1998, I welcome the Minister's recognition that this is an important issue. The Act is mentioned explicitly in the explanatory notes, which I have read with great care, but it is not referred to in the Bill. There is no good reason why it should not be in the Bill. Some disabled people are among the least able to assert their rights. People with mental health problems, in residential care or in prison may experience human rights abuses. Such abuses are covered by article 2 on inhuman and degrading treatment and by article 8 on the right to family life.
The Disability Rights Commission will only be as effective as the legislation it is empowered to enforce. You will be pleased to hear, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that I do not want to detain the House by going through many of my concerns about the Disability Discrimination Act 1995--suffice it to say that urgent changes are required. Let us not forget that it was produced on the hoof. The then Government brought more pages of Government amendments from the other place than there were pages in the original Bill. They had difficulty with the notion of civil rights. Happily, we are beyond that now, and I celebrate that. The genesis of the 1995 Act shows to anyone who is prepared to consider the matter that it should be radically changed.
Reference has been made to the small employers exemption. The costs of domiciliary care and related services that enable disabled people to live independent lives should also be viewed from a civil rights perspective, and that should be taken on board. There are also issues relating to education, transport and the police. I am aware that, following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry, the Government have expressed their intention to bring all aspects of the police's work under the Race Relations Act 1976, to enable the CRE to investigate possible discriminatory practices. I warmly welcome the Government's view on that, and I believe that the Disability Rights Commission should have similar powers. The police should not be subject to exemptions under any anti-discrimination legislation.
There is much yet to do. The commission will be the key to further progress. The chair of the commission will be a leader and a figurehead. By appointing a disabled person, the Government would be sending out a strong message, and it is extremely important that they do so.
Given the scale of discrimination faced by disabled people, a realistic level of funding is imperative. The £11 million figure is the figure for the CRE minus £4 million. Ministers at the Department for Education and Employment will be pleased that I can do mental arithmetic--I can certainly do that simple calculation, although multiplication is much more difficult. I suspect that the Government have taken the figure for the CRE and subtracted £4 million--the fund for local race equality centres--to arrive at the final figure of £11 million. I could be wrong; those figures could be
entirely coincidental. I am not arguing for the equivalent of local race equality centres, which do a marvellous job, but there will be a need for local, accessible, technical advice for disabled people, and the cost implications of that must be addressed.
Mr. Mark Oaten (Winchester):
May I say what a privilege it is to have a chance to speak in what is an important debate about rights for disabled people, and what a pleasure it is to follow the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry), who has played such an important role in raising many of the issues and who made a thoughtful speech, which probably every Opposition Member can support.
The Liberal Democrats warmly welcome the Bill. The party has long felt that it was needed. It is an important step in establishing proper civil rights for disabled people. I believe that it is something that the Liberal Democrats have backed for many years, but I do not want to fall into the same trap as the hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs. May)--I am sure that someone can find a quote in Hansard from way back to contradict me. The Bill goes a long way to meeting the new Labour Government's manifesto pledge, in which they said that the legislation was needed. It is nice to see politicians keeping their word.
I join in the tributes to Members, in this and the other place, for their years of work. That started long before I was elected to the House. They have done a massive amount of work and made many contributions. I also agree with the hon. Member for Kingswood: the work of the disability organisations is the reason why we have the Bill. In the two years that I have been a Member of Parliament, I have been enormously impressed by the quality of briefing and material from those organisations; it is second to none. Today we mark their efforts, as well as those of Members who have been mentioned.
It has been a good-natured debate. There is much harmony throughout the House. I was tempted to point out what is almost an anomaly--a Government who are strong on pushing forward such rights issues, but who may not be as robust as some of us would like on the benefits regime. The Welfare Reform and Pensions Bill is in Committee, where several of the concerns of disability groups have been raised about the impact of changes to the contributions mechanism for incapacity benefits, means-testing of incapacity benefits and individuals' pensions. However, given that this has been such a good-natured debate, I will not be tempted to go into those contradictions. I will just say that rights are important, but that the right to have enough money to live on is important as well. I hope that the Government will reflect on that point.
As we have heard, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 represents a missed opportunity fully to advance the rights of disabled people. That is why I am pleased that the Disability Rights Commission is coming into force. It will help to address many of the concerns that the Act fails to address.
I am encouraged that, over recent years, prejudice and discrimination against disabled people have decreased. Without wishing to re-open the Glenn Hoddle argument, the way in which the public and the national media responded showed how certain attitudes towards disabled people had changed in recent years.
Sadly, however, there is still a problem in that the majority of people, particularly employers, have many misconceptions about disabled people. The minute they think of disabled people, they assume that they are all wheelchair bound. They do not consider the problems that disabled people have with learning, or the difficulties of those with mental health problems. Throughout their life, one in four people may at times have a mental health problem. That is not understood by the public and employers. As the Minister said, many of those problems stem from ignorance. The commission will have a critical role in starting to educate those people. I was encouraged to hear the Minister say that there would be a hearts and minds campaign. I hope that that is not just another new Labour gimmick, but a positive move to improve information for employers and to build on the changing attitudes among the public.
I welcome the fact that the commission willhave substantial powers to work towards eliminating discrimination, promoting equality, providing good- quality advice to employers and encouraging good practice. However, the commission will be effective only if it has the necessary powers of enforcement, good geographical access through regional offices and sufficient funding. If the commission does not have all those things, it will raise expectations that it will not be able to deliver. Above all, the commission will be as good only as the legislation that it is working with and its ability to enforce that. I shall touch on some of the failings of the Disability Discrimination Act and push the Minister to find out whether the Government will be able to move quickly on those issues even before the commission is established.
One concern that has already been touched on by hon. Members is in relation to the regulations under the Act and the exemption for small companies. It is of concern that the vast majority of companies are exempt. We could, as the hon. Member for High Peak (Mr. Levitt) tried to do, debate how many individual employees work for them. I am not sure whether his figures were accurate, but the vast number of companies are excluded under the Act.
The commission may embark on a hearts and minds campaign of its own, going around the country to educate people and encourage employers to realise that employing disabled people is a positive step for their company, and saying that the provisions of the Act are not that difficult for organisations to put into place. Its whole education programme will be undermined by the fact that the Government, by setting the threshold at 15 employees, have excluded many companies from the process. The clear signal that is sent is that the Act is complex and difficult, that we need time for it to bed in, and that the Government do not want to include all those companies because it might be difficult to enforce. It is counter to the signal that the commission will try to put across at all times.
It is time for the Government to move fast on the matter. Rather than waiting for the commission to take a decision on the issue--I hope that it is an early decision--the Government should move speedily, as they have already suggested they are minded to do, to reduce the
threshold to two. That would give a positive boost to the commission before it starts and would reinforce many of the measures that the commission will put in place.
Clearly, some aspects of the Disability Discrimination Act need work. They include access to education, to transport, health and social services and, as the hon. Member for Kingswood said, the police. All those matters will require Government action if the commission is to be effective across the board.
I turn now to the mechanics of how the commission will operate. We have heard a fair amount from other hon. Members about funding. I have two concerns about funding. It is wrong to enter the debate by trying to play off one commission against another and saying, "If that commission receives X amount, the other should receive that amount." That is not the way things should be done.
I am concerned that the start-up costs for the Disability Rights Commission will be considerable. Much money will be needed for the organisation. That will be sapped quickly by all the regulations that will be required, producing information in a variety of formats, and getting fully accessible premises. Considerable investment will be needed to train staff in awareness and communications abilities, which will be needed to help the blind, the deaf, the deaf-blind and people with mental health problems.
The start-up costs will be considerable. I hope that the Minister will assure us that the £3 million figure that has been arrived at is based on considerable consultation with disability groups and has been thought through, taking into account the type of work and costs that will be involved. I hope that if, during the start-up process, it is discovered that additional money is required to make the commission effective, the commission will be able to go back to Government to get that money, rather than taking it from the £11 million that has been allocated for running the organisation in its first couple of years.
Although we have had some reassurance from the Minister for Employment, Welfare to Work and Equal Opportunities that the Government are prepared to review the budgeting process, I hope that we shall hear a little more from the Minister who is to reply to the debate about how they plan to consider the issues. As hon. Members, we should be able to consider the budget implications two or three years down the line. We should also be assured by Ministers that if a proper allocation of resources is not made, the Government will have the will to increase budgets, and that--even in a financially difficult period for the Government, either just before or after a general election--the Government will not find themselves unable to make those resources available.
There is a strong argument for saying that there should be the ability and systems in place to review not only funding and the other issues that we have debated today, but the mechanisms of the commission itself. Many of the concerns that have been expressed by hon. Members on both sides of the House have been about the effectiveness of some of the mechanisms provided in the Bill. We should be reassured that although the mechanisms would not necessarily be pilots, there will be the ability to change some of them if they are failing. I am thinking specifically of some of the inspection provisions.
In two years' time, if it turns out that inspections are simply not resulting in attitude changes, we will have to be able to reconsider the relevant provisions and decide
how to close some of the loopholes that undoubtedly will emerge. I shall welcome the Minister's views on the matter.
In the other place, there was much debate on the proportion of disabled people who should sit on the commission. I am grateful to note that the Minister, in opening the debate, gave some reassurances on that issue, and that there has been a change in the Government's attitude to it. Although the Bill will not include a firm commitment that the chairman should be a disabled person, I think that all hon. Members will have taken comfort from the very strong reassurances that the Minister gave.
I should say that I have probably changed my mind on the matter, and agree with the Minister that there are some problems with including such a requirement in the Bill. It might, for example, send conflicting signals on issues of equality and of jobs obtained on merit. Moreover, in different circumstances, the issues could be thrown back in our face by disabled groups. I am therefore minded to agree with the Minister on that point.
I should also add that although we have received good reassurances from Ministers, and there has been some talk about the importance of a disabled person being the first chairman, I hope that future Ministers--when current Ministers are promoted to greater things--will take a similar attitude when considering the appointment of new chairmen. I should welcome the Minister's view on how that could be achieved, although I do not know how it could be if it is not included in the Bill.
I should like to focus on the commission's investigation powers, which will require much more clarification. If the powers are to work effectively, they will have to be absolutely rigid; otherwise, the exercise will be abused by those wanting to bypass the regulations.
The commission will be able to initiate proceedings only on behalf of individuals, and not in its own name. I therefore share the concerns expressed by the hon. Member for Kingswood and other hon. Members that the process could exclude some very important investigations that the commission may wish to make--simply because no organisation has clearly identified a specific individual, or, in other circumstances, because a specific individual feels very uneasy about demonstrating the courage to come forward and to be used as the focus of an investigation. In the next two or three years, there will undoubtedly be cases in which the commission is absolutely convinced that there is discrimination, but is unable to obtain an individual's agreement to deal with it. I should therefore be very grateful if the Minister would tell us how such circumstances will be tackled, so that the commission may act.
I also have some concerns about clause 4, which deals with non-discrimination notices. I should like there to be some protection for organisations that may be on the receiving end of non-discrimination notices, and should be grateful if the Minister would clarify the process by which notices are issued. If a notice is about to be issued to an organisation, there certainly should be some warning to the organisation that that is about to happen. The Audit Commission perhaps provides a model. Before it serves various notices within its power, it may provide a 14-day period in which it informs an organisation that action
will be taken, thereby allowing any factual errors or misunderstandings to be dealt with immediately, rather than suddenly discovering that a non-discrimination notice containing errors has been publicly served. I should be grateful if the Minister would clarify that point, too. It is an important point of trust that organisations should have a quiet, private period in which to ensure that a discrimination notice is accurate, and such provision should be included in the Bill.
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