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Mr. Heppell: I was not at the lobby. Things may have been said there.
Mr. Levitt: My hon. Friend will be aware that the RADAR's audit was carried out almost a year ago.
Mr. Levitt: It was September. It highlighted issues of major concern to disabled people, many of which related to welfare reform. That was at a time when there were misleading press stories about welfare reform going round and before the Bill was published. If my hon. Friend was at the briefing meeting organised by the disability organisations yesterday, he would have found 99 per cent. satisfaction with the proposals as stated--and the 1 per cent. of concerns were dealt with by my right hon. Friend the Minister in his opening speech.
Mr. Heppell: I accept that many of the disabled organisations were concerned about what they perceived to be Government policy when we first came to power, but they have realised that the perception was not the reality. Disabled people are becoming better-off under a Labour Government.
We have set up a £30 million fund to help disabled people who want to work and provided £375 million for social services to meet the needs of disabled children. We have introduced the disabled persons tax credit guarantees, with a minimum income of £150 a week, and the incapacity benefit safety net. The special educational action plan is supported by £55 million and we have abolished the means test for allowances for disabled students in higher education. I honestly do not think that anyone is going to say, "What did the Romans ever do for us?"
I am pleased that the hon. Member for Maidenhead and her colleagues now welcome the Bill, but I will not allow them to rewrite history. That is what they are trying to do today. The reality is that the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was brought in under protest. The Tories effectively crumbled because public opinion was so strongly against them--disability groups were fighting against them on a common front and the Labour Opposition gave them a fair amount of trouble almost every day. However, even when the Bill was finally introduced, every concession made by the Conservative Government had to be torn from them in Committee. The Bill that was originally published by the Tories was radically changed during the Committee stage as a result of the hard work of the Labour Opposition and, to be fair, that of Liberal Democrat colleagues.
No one will forget the former Member for Sutton and Cheam and her machinations to try to destroy civil rights for disabled people. No one will forget the Ministers who effectively fell because of the blatant, political way in which they were prepared to use the issue of the civil rights of people with disabilities. Nor will anyone forget people such as my hon. Friends the Members for Kingswood, for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston, Lord Morris or Lord Ashley, who struggled for all those years.
Ms Linda Perham (Ilford, North):
Several of the speakers who preceded me have paid tribute to hon. Members who have campaigned on behalf of disabled people for many years. It was a delight to hear from my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South(Miss Begg); she is a powerful example of the importance of disabled people being included in all aspects of life and society, and of the crying need to change attitudes. We listened with humility to her account of her experiences of discrimination; we are extremely fortunate to have her among us.
I am pleased to give a warm welcome to the Bill, as other hon. Members have done. Its provisions will also please the many excellent organisations that work on behalf of people with disabilities in my constituency and in the London borough of Redbridge. My connection with disability groups goes back to my days of service as a member of Redbridge community health council in the mid-1980s. Since then, as a local councillor, especially as mayor of the borough in 1994-95, and now as a Member
of Parliament, I have continually been reminded--as, I am sure, are all hon. Members--of the consistent and continuing commitment of everyone involved in campaigning for disabled people's rights, by contacts with, and visits to, many of the groups run by dedicated volunteers.
I want to acknowledge and pay tribute to the work in my own borough of the Redbridge Disability Association, the Redbridge Multiple Sclerosis Society, Redbridge Mencap, the East London handicapped adventure playground and the Redbridge Crossroads respite care scheme. There are many other examples of such groups and I am sure that there are similar groups in the constituencies of other hon. Members.
Support for a Disability Rights Commission has come from many national disability organisations, a number of which have provided help and information to Members of both Houses of Parliament during the Bill's passage so far. That point was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) and the hon. Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten). There have been briefings from Scope, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, Leonard Cheshire--which has an inspired head of policy in John Knight, with whom I have had the pleasure of working during several years--and the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
My local area is especially fortunate in that some very active organisations for the visually impaired are based there; for example, the Ilford Blind Welfare Association, Focus for the Visually Handicapped, the Essex Voluntary Association for the Blind and the Guide Dogs for the Blind, which has its national headquarters in my constituency at Woodford Bridge.
If not disabled ourselves by birth, accident or illness, at some time in our lives all of us have contact with someone who has a disability. My grandfather was blind in one eye from the age of 21 and completely lost his sight at the age of 64, shortly before he retired. My father and my mother-in-law have hearing difficulties, and my best friend died at the age of 34 from the effects of multiple sclerosis.
The Disability Rights Commission will be a powerful champion to combat centuries-old discrimination against disabled people and the disgraceful denial of equal opportunities. As detailed in clause 2, the commission will encourage good practice, give advice to Ministers and to Government agencies, provide information and support, carry out research--that is most important--keep the DDA under review and, as has been mentioned, under clause 3, it will be able to conduct formal investigations.
I want to touch on three matters of concern that may limit the potential benefits of the Bill to promote justice and fairness for people with disabilities. First, in relation to clause 2(4), although I accept the necessity for the commission to limit its claim on the public purse and to place a tangible value on the services and facilities that it provides, I am anxious that some disabled people might not be able to pay such charges. For that group, access to the full range of services and protections of the commission could be denied. That would run counter to the spirit of the Bill.
Many disabled people are not in waged employment, although obviously I welcome the measures outlined by my right hon. Friend the Minister in his opening remarks
to remedy that. However, many disabled people on a limited or reduced income, with extra costs arising from their disability, might find it extremely difficult to pay for facilities and services. I ask that a requirement be placed on the commission to consider those issues when its members develop a charging policy for the provision of services and facilities.
The second issue relates to the recovery of expenses, covered in clause 7(2) and (3). Following the acceptance of principles supporting financial prudence and accountability, I support the need for the commission to recover the costs it incurs by providing assistance to individuals under clause 6. However, I am concerned that any financial benefit awarded to a complainant could well be lost under the powers proposed in clause 7(2) to recover
"A sum equal to any expenses incurred by the Commission"
as a first charge. For example, if a disabled person were to be awarded a sum of £1,000 for injured feelings, following a humiliating refusal of service in a restaurant, but there was a complicated defence by the proprietor resulting in costs to the commission of £950, the net benefit to the complainant would be £50. Again, that seems to run counter to the spirit of the Bill. I urge the Government to set a maximum limit on the level of costs that can be recovered, so that the benefits of any award to the complainant are preserved.
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