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Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay: My Lords, the way in which we treat disabled people in our country is the mark of a civilised society. I therefore salute the Bill as a signpost towards the society that we all want to build.
I hope that noble Lords can hear me. As noble Lords may have gathered, I am partially vocally disabled this afternoon but, unlike most disablement, it will soon pass. As a new boy on the Front Bench, I start by paying tribute to my colleague, Paul Holmes, our shadow Minister for the disabled in another place, and my noble friend Lord Addington, who will wind up
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this afternoon from these Benches, for their help and advice to me and for their doughty campaigning for the disabled over many years.
When I saw that the Bill was being introduced, my first reaction after the rigours of the Pensions Bill, with all the battles and the time that we had spent on it, was what doctors call "heart sink", not just for myself, but also for the Minister, after her sterling efforts. But what a contrast this is. We have a draft Bill that has been carefully considered and which has had proper pre-legislative scrutiny and we have had a well-argued and basically sensible response from the Government to the Select Committee's recommendations. So, as the Disability Rights Commission suggested, let us get the Bill on the statute book as soon as possible.
Many noble Lords in this House have lived with disability at first hand and are in a unique position to scrutinise the Bill with the expertise of experience. Many of us who are not in that position may nevertheless have had temporary experience of mobility problems. Just before I entered the House, I was run over. I broke several ribs and my leg, which was in plaster for two months. It was quite difficult to learn to walk on crutches with broken ribs. I was very lucky. My wife is a doctor, I had plenty of money for taxis and I knew that my disability was time-limited. But it was still a salutary experience. If one can only use one hand, it takes a lot longer than double the time to clear a table and load a dishwasher. People do not treat one the same when one is in a wheelchair or on crutches. At St Thomas's Hospital, after my leg was set, I would have been blocking an NHS bed for at least another day if I had not argued long and hard with the porter, who was quite sure he knew best about which ward I had to return to after my X-ray. He did not. Soon after I was back at work, I went to a grand commercial property function where I knew most of the movers and shakers. Normally, we would all be circulating, keeping in the swim and perhaps picking up the odd deal. Not for me that time, on my crutches. I was stuck in the corner and only a couple of old friends dropped by to talk to me, out of charity as I thought.
On transport, taxis worked well, once I had learnt how to kneel down to get into them. My 159 Routemaster bus with a conductor was fine. But the new, single-manned No. 3 was a nightmare, with sudden stops and starts—I think that must be the automatic transmission—so that I was knocked off my crutches twice, and had several near-misses. My worst travel experience of all was flying from Heathrow to Edinburgh. Despite buying two tickets, as required, and giving advance notice to British Airways, the wheelchair at Heathrow was very late both ways. I very nearly missed the flight. I shall not forget in a hurry feeling so isolated and helpless. That was my experience on a very temporary and short-term basis.
Many noble Lords accompany people who rely on wheelchairs and walking aids and they are all too well aware of the difficulties that disabled people face all the time, for example, steps without rails into public buildings, steep kerbs and uneven pavements. In particular, central London is not a disabled-friendly place. That is probably because of the age of its buildings, but there is no excuse for the problems not
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to be solved. To give an example, last week I went to Westminster Cathedral with a person with walking difficulties for the splendid Parliamentary Choir concert in which the Minister, my wife and others sang so beautifully. But even there, the main entrance had steps with no handrail. We owe it to disabled people—and, looking some years ahead, this may well be an appeal to the enlightened self-interest of many of us in this House—to make life more accessible than it is now.
More and more people live longer and longer. Inevitably, this means more and more people with mobility problems. There are now about 10 million such people in all. Most of these people are used to leading active, useful and full lives and are anxious to play their part in society in spite of their difficulties. Their default position is to live their lives in the world of the able-bodied, not to be treated as different and needing special treatment. In leisure time, they make every effort to go to the theatre, the cinema, concerts, festivals, sporting events and so on. It is clear that actions already taken, thanks to the earlier Act, such as the provision of disabled lavatories, mean that many disabled people now have the confidence to go to venues knowing that they will not have to cross difficult roads or find less accessible public conveniences closed.
But it is even more important that disabled people should have access to work through more accessible transport. In view of the substantial cost implications, this is the area of the Bill that we will need to scrutinise and consider most closely in Committee. I am very grateful to my noble friend Lord Bradshaw for his advice on this as he has a lifetime's experience on the railways. Clearly, there are several key questions that we will have to consider. In particular, will the Minister say how many people who want to travel, by train in particular, use wheelchairs or have severe difficulties in travelling? If she cannot answer now, will she answer when we come to Committee?
I shall give one example as regards buses. There is not much point in making sure that we have kneeling buses if no effective action is being taken to ensure that parked cars are cleared from bus stops so that those buses can get right up to the pavement.
When dealing with disablement, we need to bear in mind that there is no such thing as "free money" in the equation. There is no separate disabled budget. All expenditure on the disabled has to come out of what would otherwise be spent on service improvement for public transport in general. That is not an argument against the expenditure, but it is an argument for clarity and consistency and for being clear about what we are asking for. In particular, is the appropriate date for full compliance for the railways 2017 or 2020? The regulatory impact assessment suggests that to make the date 2017 rather than 2020 would more than double the cost: £350 million compared to £170 million. I find that a surprising statistic and we will probe it in Committee. None the less, these improvements are clearly not cost-free and it is very important that improvement is done in a way that does not interfere with the general service to other people.
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A recent survey by Leonard Cheshire shows that 60 per cent of households with a disabled member do not have access to a car, compared to 27 per cent of the general population. About half the people in that survey said that inaccessible transport restricted their choice of jobs or that they had been forced to turn down a job interview because of it. These are matters that we need to take very seriously. In general, both the regulatory impact assessment and the Government's response strike me as fair and balanced. Most of society and all parts of this House are united on the aims of the Bill. The need is for the disabled and those dealing with them to know exactly where they stand and for Parliament to have the full facts on the costs and who will pay.
I should like to give one further example on cost from my business experience as an investment manager dealing with commercial property. The regulatory impact assessment estimates the cost of adjusting buildings for disabled tenants on page 29 and says:
If we are talking about commercial property, how will that be done? Will it be reasonable to include an increase in rent as part of giving consent for alterations to the premises? Does the Minister agree that the regulatory impact assessment significantly underestimates the number of premises likely to be affected because it considers only the numbers of disabled people actually starting their own business or renting premises directly, not the much larger number of disabled people who are working in other business premises which are not rented by disabled people.
The disabled are well served by the charities which fight their corner. Both my noble friend Lord Addington and I have received many well argued briefings, and look forward to having more detailed discussions with the disabled groups as the Bill progresses.
As a new boy, I have found the common front projected or presented by the Disability Rights Commission on behalf of Leonard Cheshire, Mencap, Mind, RADAR, the Royal National Institute of the Blind, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and Scope, especially helpful and effective.
I should also flag up concerns about Clause 3, which creates a duty on public authorities to promote disability equality, which I have received from Barbara Cohen, one of the special advisers to the Joint Committee, and my noble friend Lord Lester of Herne Hill. They have suggestions, if I can put it in layman's language, for read-across from the Race Relations Act.
As a fellow special adviser to Roy Jenkins at the Home Office many years ago, I always stuck to economics and politics and left the legal and human rights arguments to my noble friend Lord Lester, and I look forward to hearing his superb advocacy in Committee.
We on these Benches welcome the Bill; we wish it Godspeed, and will do our best to help it pass into law before it is overtaken by the general election.
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3.52 p.m.
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