Memorandum on behalf of the Mayor of London
(DDB 82)
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Mayor welcomes the draft disability Bill
that will further develop rights for disabled people though anti
discrimination legislation.
In particular the Mayor strongly welcomes the
duty to promote disability equality for the public sector. In
linking disability discrimination to other forms of discrimination
this duty has the potential to make a significant contribution
to the eradication of discrimination against disabled people.
The Mayor has a duty to take account of equality opportunity for
Londoners under the GLA act and the GLA has considerable experience
of promoting disability equality. The Mayor is happy to share
this experience with the Joint Commission.
This experience has shown that, in order for
any public sector duty to promote disability equality to be effective,
action needs to:
— be driven by a commitment to and
a comprehensive understanding of the social model of disability;
— effectively involve organisations
of disabled people;
— be championed at the most senior
levels within organisations; and
— be effectively prioritised and given
appropriate resources.
The Mayor also recommend that:
— the Joint Committee should consider
a duty to promote good community relations between disabled and
non-disabled people;
— action is taken to move forward access
in relation to aviation and shipping and to speed up accessibility
to trains;
— the trigger for reasonable adjustments
should be consistent with the rest of the DDA;
— there should be objective standards
in relation to justification for discrimination;
— the definition of disability be widened;
and
— landlords should be required not
to and reasonably withhold consent for adaptations to property.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 The Mayor welcomes the draft disability
Bill that will further develop rights for disabled people though
anti discrimination legislation. It is very evident from the recent
work the Mayor has done to promote disability equality through
Disability Capital 2003 that disabled people continue to face
widespread discrimination in their daily lives. It is clear that
the provisions of the draft bill are necessary to combat the levels
of discrimination still faced by disabled people.
1.2 In particular the Mayor strongly welcomes
the duty to promote disability equality for the public sector.
In linking disability discrimination to other forms of discrimination
through a direct parallel with the Race Relations Amendment Act,
this duty has the potential to make a significant contribution
to the eradication of discrimination against disabled people.
1.3 The GLA has a duty to promote equality
of opportunity under the GLA act and this includes equality for
disabled people. The GLA has some considerable experience of issues
relating to such a duty and would be happy to share this with
the joint commission. This was recognised by Maria Eagle Minister
for Disabled People when speaking at the Mayor's first disability
equality conference held in December 2003.
1.4 The Mayor also welcomes:
— The extension of the DDA to cover
most functions of public authorities.
— The extension of the DDA to cover
discrimination in relation to transport.
— The promise of further clauses to
prohibit local authorities discriminating against disabled councillors.
— The extension of the definition of
disability to clearly include more people with HIV, cancer and
multiple sclerosis.
— The extension of the DDA's duties
on landlords and managers of premises to include a duty to make
reasonable adjustments to policies, practices and procedures and
provide auxiliary aids and services, where reasonable.
— Coverage of any club with 25 or more
members.
— The pledge that the full Bill will
include an end-date for rail vehicle accessibility.
2. THE ROLE
OF THE
MAYOR AND
THE LONDON
ASSEMBLY
2.1 The Mayor's role is to develop London-wide
strategies, in partnership with service providers and other interested
parties for major public services in the capital. The Mayor's
responsibilities are wide ranging and embrace the police, transport,
fire and emergency planning, regeneration, planning, sustainability
and environmental issues, cultural affairs, health concerns and
equalities issues, as well as the general promotion of London
to the wider world.
2.2 To be effective, the Mayor must obtain
support for the strategies that are developed. This means working
with a wide range of organisations—the boroughs, service
providers, the business community, community organisations, professional
and interest groups—in building a shared vision for the
future development of London. The Mayor has a range of specific
powers and duties, and a general power to do anything that will
promote economic and social development and environmental improvement
in London. Before using many of his powers the Mayor must consult
with Londoners, and in all cases, the Mayor must promote equality
of opportunity.
3. THE MAYOR'S
DUTY ON
EQUALITIES
3.1 Under its enabling legislation, the
Greater London Authority (GLA) Act 1999, the GLA is charged with
express duties relating to equalities. Under Section 30 of the
Act the GLA has general powers concerned with the promotion of
economic development, wealth creation, social development and
the improvement of the environment in the Greater London area.
3.2 In exercising the general power the
Mayor is required under Section 32 of the Act to consult with
"such bodies or persons as the Authority may consider appropriate"
and under Section 33(1) to make appropriate arrangements to secure
that in formulating the policies and proposals to be included
within Mayoral strategies, due regard is had to the principle
of equality of opportunity for all.
3.3 Section 404 of the GLA Act 1999 requires
that in the exercise of functions, the GLA, whether acting by
the Assembly or the Mayor, shall comply with the need to "promote
equality of opportunity for all persons irrespective of their
race, sex, disability, age, sexual orientation or religion"
and to "eliminate unlawful discrimination" and "to
promote good relations between persons of different racial groups,
religious beliefs and sexual orientation".
4. PUBLIC SECTOR
DUTY
4.1 The Mayor welcomes the clause of the
Bill that places a duty on public sector organisations to promote
disability equality. It is a fundamentally important move forward
and recognition that disability discrimination is analogous to
discrimination on grounds of race and gender.
4.2 In this respect it is very important
that there is a clear parity in specific duties with the Race
Relations Amendment Act. The Mayor believes that public sector
bodies should be required to develop and publish effective disability
equality schemes and have a specific employment duty to monitor
the proportion of disabled people among their existing staff,
and applicants for jobs, promotion and training and publish the
results every year.
4.3 It has also proved to be important to
ensure the setting of challenging targets to move towards a workforce
that reflects the community it serves. It is fundamentally important
that effective strategies are developed for the recruitment of
disabled people and that this be done in parallel and with a similar
level of priority and commitment to other equalities strands.
4.4 One area where there is not parity with
the Race Relations Amendment Act is a duty to promote good community
relations. One of the most shocking conclusions of the Mayor's
survey of disabled Londoners was the unacceptable level of hate
crime experienced by disabled people. 50% of respondents to the
survey said that they had experienced abuse or bullying and the
report Another Planet? catalogues a disturbing range of
anecdotal experience of abuse on the grounds of impairment.
4.5 The Mayor believes that this experience
has the same routes as other areas of hate crime and a duty similar
to the Race Relations Amendment Act to promote community relations
would provide an effective strategic route to prioritise action
in this area. It would also provide a driver for the effective
engagement of disabled people and disabled people's organisations
in community cohesion strategies and ensure the promotion of identity
for distinct communities, for example the Deaf community.
4.6 The GLA has a duty to promote equality
of opportunity under the GLA act and this includes equality for
disabled people. The GLA has some considerable experience of issues
relating to such a duty and would be happy to share this with
the joint commission. The Mayor in particular would like to highlight
the following areas.
4.7 In order for any public sector duty
to promote disability equality to be effective, it is fundamentally
important that action taken is driven by a commitment to and a
comprehensive understanding of the social model of disability.
4.8 The Mayor has endorsed the social model
as follows:
The GLA rejects the medical model of disability
and accepts:
— that disability is a social phenomenon;
— that while many individuals have
physical or sensory impairments or learning difficulties or are
living with mental health needs, it is the way society responds
to these which creates disability and not the impairment; and
— that disablism is a form of oppression
in the same way as is for example racism, sexism and homophobia.
The medical model of disability encourages explanations
for the discrimination and disadvantage experienced by disabled
people in terms of the features of an individual's body. The social
model, however, encourages explanations in terms of characteristics
of social organisation. The social model of disability makes the
important distinction between "impairment" and "disability"
and is the response of the disabled people's civil rights movement
to the oppression of disabled people. Disability is caused by
"barriers" or elements of social organisation that take
no or little account of people who have impairments. It follows
that if disabled people are to be able to join in mainstream society,
which is their human right, the way society is organised must
be changed. Removing the barriers that exclude (disable) people
who have impairments will bring about this change.
4.9 The Mayor believes that it is important
that there is a specific reference made within any code of practice
to the social model and effective strategies developed to ensure
effective public ownership and understanding of the model.
4.10 It is important that disability equality
is championed at the most senior levels if institutional discrimination
against disabled people is to be effectively countered within
public authorities. For this to be effective and seen to be effective
by disabled people, it is essential that disabled people undertake
this role.
4.11 It is important to challenge organisational
cultures that exclude and discriminate against disabled people.
Taking positive action through a comprehensive disability equality
strategy and providing the tools to implement this are very important.
4.12 Public authorities need to develop
effective consultation strategies with disabled people through
effective representative organisations controlled by disabled
people.
4.13 Appropriate resources need to be allocated
as a priority to the disability equality initiatives. It is too
often the experience of disabled people that this is not the case.
5. TRANSPORT
5.1 Clause 3 of the draft Bill provides
for the extension of the DDA to cover discrimination in relation
to the use of a means of transport. At present section 19(5) DDA
excludes anything consisting of the use of a means of transport
from Part 3 of the Act. This causes major problems for disabled
people.
5.2 This is clearly highlighted in the Mayor's
interim report on the result of the survey disabled Londoners,
Another Planet? The results of the survey contain considerable
detailed anecdotal experience of direct discrimination in accessing
public transport by disabled people, even when the mode of transport
is accessible. Almost 75% of respondents quoted personal experience
about the difficulty of travelling on London buses; ramps not
working, drivers refusing to use them, buses not close enough
to the kerb, wheelchair spaces taken up by buggies, buses pulling
away before people were in place, lack of equality training, inaccessible
information and experiencing problems with other passengers.
5.3 The removal of this exclusion, and its
replacement with a framework which allows regulations to successively
bring into coverage by Part 3 DDA all different modes of transport,
including but not limited to: taxis, private hire vehicles, trams,
private rental or car hire, buses and trains are an essential
extension of disabled people's rights.
5.4 Clearly equal access to transport is
a fundamental part of ensuring that disabled people have effective
civil rights and is therefore imperative that the timetable for
regulations to lift the Part 3 exemption are set out and that
the regulations are implemented as soon as possible.
5.5 The Mayor would also urge the Joint
Committee to press the government on moving forwards access to
aviation and shipping through the review of the codes of practice,
ensuring effective involvement of disabled people in this process.
Also it is important that work is done to speed up the accessibility
of trains to disabled people and the Mayor would urge the Joint
Committee recommends an end date of 2020 at the latest.
6. DISCRIMINATION
BY PUBLIC
AUTHORITIES
6.1 Clause 4 of the draft Bill makes it
unlawful for a public authority to discriminate against a disabled
person in carrying out its functions. The Mayor believes that
this clause should be amended in three important areas.
6.2 It should make it clear that public
authorities have a clearly stated anticipatory duty to make reasonable
adjustments. It is fundamentally important that disability equality
should be built-in as a matter of course whilst developing functions
and not bolted on at the end of a process. This is both inappropriate
and potentially expensive. The recent experience with access and
City Hall is a very good example of the need for an anticipatory
duty.
6.3 The Mayor is also concerned that the
trigger for reasonable adjustments should be consistent with other
parts of the DDA and would prefer to see the trigger of "substantial
disadvantage" rather than "very much less favourable".
6.4 In relation to "justification"
the Mayor is concerned that there should be objective standards
established because the reason given for discrimination can be
based on wrongly held prejudices and stereotypes of disabled people,
and that, so long as such beliefs were viewed by the judge as
"reasonably" held, they could justify discrimination.
7. DEFINITION
OF DISABILITY
7.1 The extension of definition of disability
to cover people living with cancer, HIV infection and multiple
sclerosis is welcome and necessary. However, the Mayor believes
that the Bill presents a good opportunity to widen the definition
to correct the current anomalous position that some disabled people
find themselves in proving that they are disabled as defined by
the act. Specifically:
— The extension should cover all people
with progressive conditions from point of diagnosis.
— Disabled people in receipt of certain
specified disability benefits should automatically meet the definition
of disability under the act.
— Serious consideration should be given
to covering more appropriately people living with mental illness,
including removing the requirement that a mental illness must
be "clinically well recognised", revising the list of
normal day-to-day activities to include "the ability to communicate
with others" and to ensure that self-harming behaviour is
covered and that for individuals whose day-to-day activities are
substantially affected as a result of depression the requirement
that the effects last 12 months should be reduced to six months.
8. HOUSING
8.1 I welcome the provisions within clause
five of the Bill in relation to the letting and disposal of property.
However I am concerned that a key Task Force recommendation, which
the Government agreed in 2001 to implement, should have been included
in the draft Bill namely:
Landlords should not be allowed
to withhold consent unreasonably from a disabled person to make
changes to the physical features of the premises, although the
landlord should not have to meet the costs.
Both the disability capital survey and the London
household survey indicates that disabled people have considerable
problems in the area of housing. 21% of people indicated that
access to housing was a priority issue and there is considerable
anecdotal experience reported of difficulties getting appropriate
consent from landlords to make adjustments to enhance access.
February 2004
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