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Mr. Goodman: I am sorry to have upset the hon. Lady, which I try never to do. I make it clear that I believe legislation is essential, but it would be less churlish—to use the word that she has propelled into circulation—if she acknowledged that the 1995 Act introduced by a Conservative Government was one of the pieces of legislation that has made a difference.

Miss Begg: The 1995 Act was an opportunity missed. Much of what the Labour Government have put in place could have been put in place at the time of the 1995
 
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Act. The fact that that did not happen was due to the actions of the Tory Government at the time. I remember meeting Lady Olga Maitland a few months before I was elected. I was on a programme called "The Midnight Hour" that used to go out very late—funnily enough, considering its title—on BBC 2. I was a candidate for the election at the time and I was invited down from Scotland. I found myself sitting next to Lady Olga, and I came out of the programme with steam coming out of my ears. She was unrepentant, she was unapologetic for what she had done, and I found her the most patronising person I have ever met in my life.

I know the hon. Members sitting on the Opposition Benches today, and I know the hon. Gentleman very well. I know that they are honourable men and would not have taken the same attitude as Lady Olga Maitland did at the time. I am sure they were just as embarrassed by her actions as others would be. However, she was representative of the tone of the Government at the time. My hon. Friend the Minister was right to say that the 1995 Act came about because the Government were drawn kicking and screaming into passing some kind of legislation to try to dampen down the negative publicity that they were getting from the disabled lobby.

The disabled lobby at the time was angry about the 1995 Act, but it acknowledged, sometimes a little reluctantly, that at least it was a step. It could have been so much better, and we could have been so much further ahead in the delivery of civil rights had the Act had some teeth to it. For instance, had it provided for a DRC it would have been a much better Act and we could have been much further on in introducing the civil rights that we all want.

Mr. Barnes: One of the things that a number of us argued for during the discussions on the Disability Discrimination Bill in 1995 was the establishment of a disability rights commission. We always said that that would be the most important amendment to the measure. Despite the imperfections of the measure, the commission would begin to take action and help to transform it, as it has been doing since its establishment. There were odd little gains here and there as the amending procedure went through, but the big gain that we were after, which would not have given us a civil rights (disabled persons) Bill, would have been a measure with its own dynamic if the commission had been established.

Miss Begg: I thank my hon. Friend for that. He was there at the time; I was not. I was outside, but it was always my impression that that one body would have been a major advance in advising the Government on how they could have improved the 1995 Act.

A debate such as this is so wide and varied that it is difficult to know which parts of the topic of disability one should select for discussion. I have mentioned the fact that education is now covered by the DDA. I do not have time to go into that in more detail. The health service has been reformed to allow access for people with disabilities. There have been great advances in genetics as regards people with disabilities. Many issues are addressed by the draft Disability Discrimination Bill, such as access to housing and duties on local authorities.
 
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I do not have time to go into as much detail as I would like on all those matters, so I shall concentrate on two areas that are not mutually exclusive—in fact, one is predicated on the other. The first is physical access, and the second is the inclusion of disabled people in society. As I said, one is predicated on the other, because without physical access to goods and services, disabled people cannot exercise their civil rights by being involved in society.

I am pleased to see that in the draft Disability Discrimination Bill aspects of transport that were missing from the DDA 1995 are covered. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to the recommendation by the Joint Committee that the end date, particularly for rail transport, should be 2017. Rail travel still poses enormous problems, particularly for people with mobility problems. I shall not give any more examples from my own experience—I have given them over the years and they are legion. There are still problems with regard to unmanned stations and inaccessible stations.

There are also difficulties if, for some reason, a rail operator cannot operate trains on a particular section of the track and so puts on replacement buses, possibly while essential repairs are taking place. Inevitably, those buses are not wheelchair-accessible. The Government are legislating to make sure that buses are wheelchair-accessible, and come 2017, hopefully, that problem will not arise and any bus provided to replace a train will be wheelchair-accessible. That is why we need a properly integrated transport policy.

Some operators still do not accept responsibility for getting disabled people on to trains. I was disappointed to hear on Thursday 6 May that in a case taken by the Disability Rights Commission on behalf of Keith Roads to Norwich county court, the judge found it unreasonable that Central Trains should be expected to pay the cost of an accessible taxi to enable Keith Roads to get to the platform to reach the train that he needed. I hope that such a judgment, which was a disappointment to the DRC a month ago, will be covered when the part of the legislation dealing with access to goods and services comes into force in October this year, and that it will be the responsibility of train operators to make sure that, if they offer a service, someone in a wheelchair is not prevented from accessing that service because the station is inaccessible or because of rail works around the station or on part of the rail line. From personal experience, I know how difficult it can be to negotiate payment for a taxi when an operator replaces its trains with an inaccessible replacement service.

On physical access, the obligations that will be implemented in October 2004 are the other issue and in this respect I agree with many of the comments of the hon. Member for Wycombe. Those obligations are a major step forward and disabled people believe that the rights that they will gain in October will make a huge difference. As he said, many employers and providers are still ignorant about their obligations, but it is unfair to criticise the DRC and the Government, because they have made the strongest possible efforts to let people know exactly what will happen.

Unfortunately, the issue has been marred by scare stories put out by employers and small businesses about their obligations. I say, "unfortunately", but those
 
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stories are some of the few occasions on which we have been able to obtain publicity. I have been able to comment on the issue in my local evening newspaper in Aberdeen only when I have been trundled out to reply to scare stories. If scare stories obtain the publicity that we need, they may perform a proper function. Unfortunately, misunderstanding exists about exactly what is involved and the costs. I am particularly concerned that the obligations will be used as an excuse for some shops either to close or to claim that they will close.

I pay tribute to the work of the Scottish Federation of Small Businesses, which could easily have taken a negative stance, by saying that its members were terrified of the implications of the legislation. Instead, it has gone out to try to educate its members about their responsibilities and obligations and to allay their fears by explaining that the obligations do not involve major structural changes, which some small businesses are worried about.

Physical access to goods and services is important if disabled people are to play their full part in society. There is no point in saying that disabled people should join political parties or become involved in civic society if they cannot get into buildings to access the meetings and, indeed, the demonstrations that are part and parcel of that work.

I have spoken a great deal in the House about the world of work, which is important if disabled people are to be truly included. Disabled people, and particularly those who are under retirement age, need access to employment. The Government have done sterling work in trying to ensure that those on incapacity benefit are given the chance to get into work. The new deal for disabled people has been implemented in some areas and the new pilots and the pathways to work have certainly turned around disabled people's attitudes on whether the opportunities are out there.

Younger disabled people expect to work. The difficult group is those who have been in work, and who have fallen out of it, perhaps through unemployment. On that issue, I blame the previous Government, under whom individuals were switched on to incapacity benefit after a couple of years or even a year of unemployment, not because they were any more disabled than they were when they left work, but because it was convenient and got them off the unemployment statistics. After 10 years of unemployment, people often suffer from mental illnesses such as stress or depression. It is harder to be without work when everyone else is in work. When employment is high and unemployment is low, those without work are subject to a personal and social cost. Those who were encouraged to go on to incapacity benefit in the years of high unemployment are not fiddling the system, because they are ill and genuinely believe that they cannot work.

It is hard to persuade the stock of people on incapacity benefit that opportunities and chances exist. Government initiatives such as the new deal for disabled people and the alterations to the rules on therapeutic earnings and permitted work have given people who believed that they would never work again the chance to try it out, which builds confidence in getting back into
 
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the work force. Mental health problems are the main reason for increased numbers on incapacity benefit, and I shall return to that challenge in a moment.

The Government have risen to the challenge. Allowing disabled people the chance to work gives people dignity and involves them in society, which is difficult to achieve by other means. People often base their social lives and develop their social awareness in the world of work. If the Government are serious when they discuss social inclusion, they must consider work.

In conclusion, I shall look to the future. The Minister described where we are today and how we got here, but the Government face future challenges on disability. We may need to legislate to end genetic discrimination, which will increase. Genetic discrimination is beginning to happen, and it is a difficult area but if we seek full civil rights for disabled people, that gap must be plugged. The Government must also examine unfair insurance premiums, because some insurance companies still feel it perfectly legitimate to bump up premiums for disabled people.

Mental health problems are a big challenge and a growth area for the future. We have been successful at getting people with physical disabilities into work. Young people with physical disabilities or even learning disabilities who leave school and go to college expect to work in supported or open employment.

I am not convinced that we have the answer on the increasing numbers who will drop out of work because of mental health problems. A great deal remains to be done on occupational health and rehabilitation to ensure that people do not drop out of the workplace when they are first diagnosed with stress or mental health problems, and more should be done either to redeploy those people within their companies or to find them other work. As the hon. Member for Wycombe says, when someone is on incapacity benefit for more than a year, it is much harder to get them back into work.

In the Joint Committee considering the draft Disability Discrimination Bill, we had quite a discussion about whether we should push the Government further on the social model. We agreed with what the Minister has said today—that the definition of discrimination in the model is not as robust or well defined as it needs to be if the rest of our legislation is to hook on to it. There is much more to be done, but I think the definition would be easier if we had a single equality Act. I hope that that will be on the Government's agenda in the next Parliament. I also hope that one of the first jobs for the human rights and equal opportunities commission will be considering how such an Act might be drafted. Under a single equality Act it would not matter whether people were discriminated against because they were black, because they were gay, because they were old, because they were disabled or because they were women; all that would need to be proved would be the fact of discrimination, and it would become much easier to prove that in court.

The Government have already done a great deal. The Minister listed the things that they have done. Nevertheless, there will always be more to do, and expectations will always rise. I am sorry to say—I say it to the Minister, but I would say it to any Government of any colour—that no matter how much is done in the
 
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context of disability, we shall always be coming back for more. The more civil rights we secure, the more we realise that further rights could be obtained.

Disability will not come to an end. If anything, many more disabled people will become much more active because of advances in medical science. More people will survive with more profound disabilities and more chronic conditions than has ever been the case in the past. I think Beveridge believed that with a national health service disability and ill health would disappear, but in fact those medical advances mean that people can operate despite being seriously ill. We have seen that in the House. Members suffering from cancer have managed to retain ministerial positions throughout their treatment, holding down demanding jobs that impose a good deal of pressure. More people can now be kept alive, doing more jobs more vigorously, than ever before. We are a growing part of society, and that will not go away. We will not go away either and we will go on reminding the Government of their obligations to us.

The Government have given us a voice. They have given us civil rights, and a mechanism through which we can express our dissatisfaction and challenge what we believe to be wrong. Now that we have that voice, unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—we are going to use it.

3.13 pm

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