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Paul Holmes (Chesterfield) (LD): As others have said, this is an important debate on an important subject. The criteria introduced by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 are used by 9.8 million disabled people, and one family in four has a member with a disability. Moreover, in an ageing population, disability visits more and more of us: it is not just something that happens to other people.
I do not say this often, but I agree with the opening remarks of the Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman). It is a shame that the debate is taking place on the day of the largest electoral event since the last general election and before the next. Inevitably, many Members, including some who are assiduous in campaigning and attending debates on disability issues, cannot therefore be here today. I remember speaking in a debate on valuing people, which also took place at the end of the week, to an almost empty Chamber. It is unfortunate that such important debates are sometimes sidelined.
The attitude to disability has changed considerably in the past 30, 40 or 50 years. It used to be thought that disabled people should stay at home, out of sight out of mind, or—even worse—that they should be confined to institutions where they could not get in other people's way. The attitude has changed for the better because of the improving legal framework. All credit for that should go to this Government in particular. The framework has improved as a result of education and training, cash investment and the adoption of more open social attitudes in general. I am very glad that I was born and grew up in the second half of the 20th century, and that my children were born, grew up and will live as citizens in the 21st century.
The myriad disability groups deserve huge praise for the advances of the last 30 or 40 years. Before I became the Liberal Democrat spokesman on disability in 2001,
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I thought I knew quite a lot about disability. For some years, as a teacher in a very good comprehensive school in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt), I taught a range of disabled children in a mainstream 11-to-18 setting. I taught children with Down's syndrome, fragile X syndrome, hearing and sight impairment, cerebral palsy and spina bifida.
Having been a political campaigner in Chesterfield for many years and having lived in the town for a quarter of a century, I have encountered many examples of disability arising from industrial histories and legacies—in particular, those of a coalfield community. Much of my case load, since I have been an MP and when I was a councillor, has related to people suffering from vibration white finger, pneumoconiosis, asbestosis and numerous other industrial diseases. I have worked with quite a few disability groups in Chesterfield that deal with such conditions. For some years my mother-in-law, who lives two streets away from me in Chesterfield, has been a regular user of the excellent services provided by another voluntary group, Shopmobility, which enable her to visit the town centre.
I thought, therefore, that I was fairly knowledgeable about such groups, but since 2001 I have discovered a vast array of others—far more than I knew existed. They provide two superb services. They give support, care and help to specific groups of disabled people; but more important in the long run, I think, are their expert campaigning and lobbying of Ministers, Members of both Houses and the press on the changes that are needed in society to improve the overall lot of people with disabilities, and social and legal provision for them. They certainly deserve a great deal of credit, and I shall mention a number of them in due course.
The Government also deserve credit. I do not want to intrude on the private historical squabbling—we have heard quite a bit of that today—between the Labour and Conservative parties about the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which has been covered in some detail. To be charitable, the DDA was an important step forward, as were the subsequent extensions of it. The establishment of the Disability Rights Commission was very important, and the draft Disability Discrimination Bill—when it eventually becomes law—will be a significant step in filling the gaps in the DDA. The recognition of British sign language, the "Valuing People: Moving Forward Together" report and its initial implementation, the mental capacity Bill and even this week's announcement on the framework for partnership action by the Secretary of State for Health and the DRC are examples of major improvements for which the Government should be praised.
I very much support what the Government are doing in this regard, but we would not be doing our job today if we simply indulged in mutual praise and back-slapping—not that the previous speakers have done so—and talked about the good progress that is being made. In the light of previous debates, I am sure that the Minister would be very disappointed if I did not say that although much has been achieved, a great deal more remains to be done.
As I have said, attitudes and awareness have improved enormously compared with just 20 years ago, and certainly compared with 30 or 40 years ago.
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However, there are still huge black holes in terms of training and of the approach of various people. Reference was made earlier to small and medium-sized enterprises' lack of awareness of what will be required of them this autumn, when the next extension of the DDA takes place. There was some argument about whether the Government should be blamed for not publicising these imminent changes sufficiently. According to a UnumProvident survey, 90,000 SMEs—69 per cent. of the total—are more or less totally unaware of what will be expected of them in a relatively few weeks' time. As some Members have pointed out, there has been a great deal of publicity in the past year or so, but perhaps it should have begun considerably earlier. Many of the changes that small businesses will have to make to meet the DDA's requirements would be quite simple to incorporate if made over a number of years. I am thinking, for example, of the routine refitting of a shop or office, which happens every so often anyway. Had the changes not appeared to be last-minute changes, they would not seem such an obstacle to small businesses once they finally do learn what is expected of them; most still do not really know what is expected of them.
Tom Levitt: Is it not true that regardless of such legislation being due to take effect in October, some £50 billion of disabled people's spending power is not being tapped into? It would be very wise for shops and other small businesses to take such measures anyway; indeed, they should have taken them a long time ago in their own interests.
Paul Holmes: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that point applies to what I shall say later about what the Government need to do in certain areas. It is not "just" a question of the equal rights of disabled people; it is also a question of the self-interest of many shopkeepers, restaurant owners and other businesses. If they are not accessible, friendly and welcoming to disabled people, they are excluding themselves from a huge potential income. I imagine that Ryanair, for example, will not get too much custom from disabled people, following the recent case that showed it in quite a bad light.
There are lots of other examples that show that awareness and education are still lacking. A recent DRC report on website access showed that the vast majority of business and service industry websites are not accessible. There are historical problems in the railway industry, such as those associated with London's Victorian underground system. The industry has argued that making its rolling stock accessible to disabled people by 2035 is acceptable, but the Government have said that doing so by 2025 would be better. However, Leonard Cheshire, which is campaigning hard on this issue, has said that 2017 would be a far more reasonable date. Of course, even that is 13 years away.
We have heard about the progress that has been made with the introduction of accessible buses, but simply introducing them is not the end of the story. A constituent of mine—from his wheelchair, he is a very active campaigner—has contacted me several times about the problems that he has encountered. Stagecoach, which provides most of the local services, is
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rightly very proud of the "kneeling" buses that they have introduced on a number of routes. However, the buses often will not kneel to let my constituent on. On one occasion, the excuse was given that because the bus was running late, the driver had to make up time and did not want to spend time operating the hydraulics to let on someone in a wheelchair. On another occasion, the excuse offered was that the driver in question had not been trained in how to use a kneeling bus. On a further occasion, the excuse was that the optics were grimy and would not operate the equipment. On three separate occasions, this one constituent was unable to access these wonderful kneeling buses, for reasons connected with training, operational practice and awareness among staff of the company.
I recently spoke at the Royal College of Nursing conference at Harrogate and talked to a group of nurses who worked on improving the access of the learning disabled to the health service. One of the nurses from Scotland provided an example of what happened two or three years ago in the NHS in Scotland. His brother-in-law, who had learning disabilities, was rushed into hospital. The nurse drove some miles to get to the hospital, and when he went in he saw his brother-in-law sat there white faced, with clenched teeth, sweating and obviously in pain, but unable to express what was wrong with him on account of his learning disabilities. The brother-in-law took the nurse to one side and told her that he was really in pain. Apparently, the nurse patted him on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, they do not feel pain like we do." That took place in the health service only two or three years ago.
I also spoke recently at a care conference in Leicester, where one of the delegates talked about his experience within the last year of working in a residential care home in the south-west. He got into trouble because, while he was working there, he took people with learning disabilities and people in wheelchairs down to the local pub in the evening for a couple of pints. That was viewed as unacceptable. We can congratulate ourselves on how much progress has been made, but there is an awful lot more to be done in respect of people's attitudes and awareness.
To conclude that subject, I should like to make a few comments about Ofcom. In respect of how access to telecommunications should be interpreted, Ofcom started out by saying that it would not insist on television companies subtitling live programmes because it could not technically be done. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People took me and other Members from here and the other place to visit a company in London that subtitles programmes. There we saw people sat at their computer screens subtitling live sports and news programmes and live debates with no problem at all. It is perfectly possible to do so, yet Ofcom had said that it was not prepared to press that requirement because it could not be done. Subsequently, Ofcom admitted that it could be done and that it had been wrong.
In that light, I would like the Minister to tell us whether she is aware of the basic technical errors that Ofcom made in its consultation on access to telecom services. Does she share the view of Lord McIntosh, who expressed his hope in the other place that Ofcom would accept the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Older and Disabled People? Does she
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accept that access to television is a basic right and that the growing choice of channels and programmes offered by digital television should be equally available to all? Answers will be needed quickly, because Ofcom will soon report its requirements for the telecommunications industry on subtitling, access and so on.
Then there is the question of Government delay. I have already said that I support and praise the vast majority of what they have done, but in certain respects they are delaying and not moving fast enough. We have already mentioned the draft Disability Discrimination Bill. It was promised in the 2001 manifesto and disability groups were very disappointed that it did not appear in the Queen's Speech that year, or the subsequent year. It finally appeared in the Queen's Speech in 2003. Responses from the draft scrutiny are now being considered. Will it be timetabled to get through Parliament before the next general election destroys it? Had the Government given more priority to this issue and introduced the draft Bill last year or the year before, as they promised in the manifesto, the Bill would already be on the statute book. Clearly, the Government could have moved faster in some areas.
In her closing comments, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) referred to the need for a single equality Bill and asked the Government to look into how it could be drafted. The experiment has already been done. In the other place, Lord Lester, a leading civil rights lawyer, and others, produced a draft single equality Bill in order to clarify the complex mess of equality legislation across six different strands. At the moment, disabled people do not have the same equality rights as people in other discriminatory strands. That was taken through the other place and 247 Members of this House supported an early-day motion stating that a similar measure should be introduced here—but the Government ignored it completely. A draft Bill has been produced, debated and thoroughly gone through. About 40 per cent. of hon. Members supported it straight away, but there has been no sign of any action from the Government. Sarah Spencer, the chair of the equality and diversity forum, told the inaugural meeting of the all-party group on equalities on 20 April that there was a clear and urgent need for such a Bill.
I turn now to the possible establishment of a single commission. The DRC was originally critical of the proposal, although it has accepted some of the Government's reassurances. However, despite the Government's concessions, it remains concerned that a single commission could mean that disabled people will have no organisation to speak for them. It has said that, without a single equality Act, it will be difficult for disabled people to argue for the equal rights that they lack in the law as it stands.
A recent Age Concern campaign estimated that about 2 million people do not claim attendance allowance, even though they are entitled to it and need it. In answer to parliamentary questions, most recently last autumn, the Government said that the size of the problem was not known, and that it would be too difficult and expensive to determine it. They said that they would not mount a mass publicity campaign to encourage people
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to take up the allowance because it was better to work through local authorities and welfare rights organisations.
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