Examination of Witnesses (Questions 220
- 230)
WEDNESDAY 3 MARCH 2004
MR BRIAN
LAMB OBE, MR
STEVE WINYARD,
MS KATE
NASH AND
MR DAVID
CONGDON
Q220 Baroness Wilkins: The 1927 Act
does not work basically?
Ms Nash: Indeed.
Q221 Baroness Wilkins: Your evidence
raises the prospect of the draft Bill being amended to cover prospective
lettings of accommodation. Does this mean that the prospective
tenant could require reasonable alterations to be made before
they had moved into the property?
Ms Nash: I believe so.
Q222 Baroness Wilkins: Or before
the letting had been given to that tenant? Surely this potentially
could lead to major problems. A landlord would say, "Why
should I take this tenant because it is going to cause me a lot
of trouble?".
Ms Nash: Anticipating that the
disabled person would not then take the flat?
Q223 Baroness Wilkins: Or that the
landlord would not let the flat to the disabled person. How would
you see it working?
Ms Nash: Of course, there are
tensions that we would need to legislate for. The reality is that
at the moment there are such significant weaknesses within the
1927 Act that they allow for a state of play where disabled people
quite simply cannot make the alterations to be able to live in
the way that they would wish for themselves.
Q224 Baroness Wilkins: That is for
existing tenants, is it not?
Ms Nash: Yes.
Q225 Baroness Wilkins: It is prospective
tenants I am asking about.
Ms Nash: Can any of my colleagues
help me out here? We are just conferring.
Q226 Chairman: What you might like
to do is that if you need some advice from other colleagues you
can write to us after you have taken the advice.
Ms Nash: Yes, we can. A colleague
has just submitted a little piece of paper here suggesting that
the flat would be taken on on the basis that the consent would
be given.
Mr Lamb: We will write to the
committee.
Q227 Chairman: There are two areas
which we have not quite reached. I am sure you are familiar with
our interest in employment tribunals and volunteers. Perhaps you
would like to write to us on that because we are now, I am afraid,
a little tight for time. Before the last question, you have in
the new draft clause 15, and I think I did mention that: relationships
between local electable authorities. We have only just received
this. Is there anything that you would like to say on that briefly?
Mr Lamb: Obviously we welcome
it. It was one of the recommendations that the Government promised
they would come back with. We do have a slight concern regarding
the powers that are given to the Secretary of State within the
legislation because it allows the Secretary of State to designate
at a later date amendments "relating to the justification
for less favourable treatment" and under what circumstances
this is not justified. It is our position that under no circumstances
would we accept anything other than less favourable treatment
test, so there are one or two issues we have around how the powers
will be used, but in terms of the intention and who it covers
and those kinds of issues I think we are quite content so far.
I would also have to say that we have only seen this this week.
We have not had time as a group to discuss it. So far, so good,
but I would like to reserve judgment to come back after we have
cogitated.
Q228 Chairman: If you would like
to write to us on that, that would be extremely helpful. Thank
you very much. Are there any comments you would like to make about
the Bill?
Mr Winyard: Before my colleagues
come in can I just say one thing? In terms of Anne Begg's test
of one to ten, I would like to get on record that on the whole
issue of tribunals being a better forum for the determination
of discrimination cases that would come out as a ten. I want that
message to come through very strongly. Otherwise the whole of
Part 3 becomes a voluntary code. It is terribly wrong.
Q229 Chairman: Would you like to
write to us in some detail on both tribunals and volunteers?
Mr Winyard: We will.
Q230 Chairman: Are there any other
final comments you would like to make?
Ms Nash: Two final comments. One
is that we want to reiterate how important this Bill is. We very
much want this to achieve Royal Assent. We would not want this
to be done at any cost. We recognise that it is not quite the
last chance saloon but it is a moment in history which provides
for an opportunity to ameliorate the huge weaknesses in the current
legislation. We would like to write to you about pre-employment
questions on disability but we can supplement that later.
Chairman: Thank you. You do realise that
there is the commitment which has been underlined by the minister
that this Bill must pass by the end of this Parliament, so we
will definitely get this Bill without a doubt. Thank you very
much for coming. It has been an extremely helpful session. If
there is anything you wish to write to us about please do.
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