Debate on the Address

My Lords, the debate has been hugely enriched by a speech of high distinction from the noble Lord, Lord Low, and I count it a privilege to follow him. We have been friends for 35 years, working in increasingly close rapport to improve the status and advance the well-being of disabled people here and across the world. I have heard many speeches, both here and in the House of Commons, that were informed by his expertise. So it was with delight that today I heard him deploy his expertise in a parliamentary speech of his own. It was deeply moving—a speech of sparkling humour and excelling sincerity—and I congratulate him. The whole House will, I know, want to hear from him often again as the parliamentary Session unfolds. An aphorism familiar to us all is: "““By their deeds ye shall know them””." I recall it now because in 1978, when I was the Minister for Disabled People, I appointed Colin Low, as the noble Lord then was, to a committee of inquiry into disability discrimination from whose landmark report all our legislation on disability rights lineally descends. Adapting the aphorism for Ministers to ““By their appointees ye shall know them””, I am wholly content to be known by that appointment. The noble Lord speaks with unquestioned authority on disability issues, a policy area in which, as he knows, I speak as a serial legislator. Thus I want briefly now to add to what he said. First, I thank Caroline Ellis and Graham Nickson at the Disability Rights Commission (DRC) for the customary excellence of their briefing for this debate. None of us today—and many other noble Lords will have had their briefing—can possibly do justice to the range of informative comment it provides relative to the gracious Speech. And yet, none of it should go unheard and unseen by Ministers as they strive to turn precept into practice in implementing their legislative programme. Indeed, what bliss there would be if my noble friend Lord Hunt and I swapped briefs. His winding-up speech today would be widely acclaimed, while as an old ministerial hand I would know exactly how to deal with his brief. The DRC's findings make disturbing reading. For example, even such basic healthcare as cholesterol tests and statins for those with heart conditions are delivered less often for people with mental health problems than for non-disabled people. This is despite annual health tests being incentivised through GP contracts. For people with learning difficulties who have diabetes, even their body mass index is checked less often than that of non-disabled people with diabetes. Similarly those who have had a stroke received fewer blood pressure checks than other stroke patients; and the same scenario is repeated with low cervical and breast cancer screening rates. While documenting wrongs done to disabled people, the DRC also points the way forward with eminently sensible recommendations, not only on inequalities in health provision but in human rights. Others deal with transport; housing, about which my noble friend Lady Wilkins spoke to such good effect in the debate on last year's Queen's Speech; further education; and independent living, on which my noble friend Lord Ashley sought so ably to legislate earlier this year. I urge Ministers also to take full note of the highly informative briefing for this debate from the National Rheumatoid Arthritis Society with its emphasis on the grave underfunding of local service provision for people with inflammatory arthritis, to which I hope the Minister will respond. I trust he will respond as well today to the plea of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People to help the many people now waiting for more than two years for digital hearing aids. I ask him also to respond to the concerns of the British Academy of Audiology about the serious consequences for patients of the Department of Health’s failure to consult the professional organisations when setting up the Independent Sector programme. Other findings worthy of a ministerial response in this debate are those of the Snowdon Survey 2006 on the denial of equal opportunities for disabled students in further and higher education, due to lack of funds and inadequate support services and advice. Happily, one of the survey's recommendations has already been acted on in the announcement last week on making further education free for under-25s. Asa founder trustee and now vice-president of the Snowdon Award Scheme, I trust this can be taken as a good augury of further positive action to come on its findings, one of which is that students with severe visual, hearing or mobility impairment, although they make up only 10 per cent of all disabled students applying for higher education courses, account for80 per cent of applications for Snowdon awards. Turning from unmet need to what has been done, I congratulate Ministers on the major advances made in improving provision for disabled people. Only under them—I refer not least, indeed especially, to my noble friend Lady Hollis—could the DRC's new agenda on priorities for change have evolved or its many successes been achieved, because it did not exist until this Government came to power. Nor could the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, in whose enactment my niece Estelle, Lady Morris of Yardley, had such a leading role. The Government’s achievements include, among others, the extended coverage from 2004 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, significantly improving protection in employment and occupation as well as access to services. For all this, I am grateful, as I am, too, for the inclusion in the gracious Speech of the new Mental Health Bill, to which my noble friend Lord Warner referred. The Mental Health Act 1983 needs to be updated urgently; and I am extremely glad that my right honourable friend Rosie Winterton, the Minister of State for Health Services, is promoting the Bill. No one is more certain to listen and respond to constructive points made in this House than she is, as her success with the mental capacity legislation so clearly demonstrates. She is a Minister who has proved herself to be eminently worthy of trust. As Ministers know, I was much involved in originating the call for a United Nations Charter on the Rights of Disabled People, and I hope that we may hear before the debate concludes that when the time comes, probably very soon now, Britain will not only act quickly to ratify the convention but will even—not inappropriately—be the first to do so. What the convention underlines is that there is still a long unfinished agenda of unmet need worldwide: one that only the closest possible working together of statutory and voluntary agencies can meaningfully address. With others on all parts of this House—and most certainly with the noble Lord, Lord Low—I shall be doing all that I can to ensure the success of that endeavour. I conclude by paying tribute to the earlier maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Bradley, who for10 years represented my native city with me. I had to wait until my 23rd year in the House of Commons to hear his maiden speech there, but here in your Lordships’ House I have achieved it in my 10th. It was well worth waiting for, and I congratulate him on a memorably effective maiden speech.