Disabled Persons (Independent Living) Bill [HL]

My Lords, I beg to move that this Bill be now read a second time. As noble Lords know, the Bill received its Second Reading on 14 July this year, but there was no time for it to complete its remaining stages. So, here we are again, full of hope that noble Lords will support the Bill and pass it through all its stages. I said at that time that the purpose of the Bill was to transform the lives of Britain’s 11 million disabled people from frustration to fulfilment by providing a legislative framework for rights to independent living. It is an idealistic and a practical proposition, and it is a blueprint for the future of disabled people. The Bill aims to change the whole ethos of the debate on disability from a discussion on how we take care of helpless people to a discussion of equal citizens who happen to have a disability. So how can we best help them cope and exercise the same choice, freedom, control and dignity that we all expect? I want to pay tribute to the Disability Rights Commission, its chairman, Bert Massie and its staff for their extremely constructive assistance. The extraordinary Caroline Ellis has worked extremely hard to make the Bill a success, and I put my warm appreciation on record. She has been of more help than any noble Lord has the right to expect, and I am deeply grateful to her for her efforts. The springboard for the Bill is the appalling discrimination that disabled people still suffer. In realistic terms, they are second-class citizens and are treated as such. The Prime Minister has said that one in five British adults is disabled and that they can find themselves cut off from the opportunities that other people enjoy. They are more likely to live in poverty, to have fewer educational opportunities and to experience prejudice and even abuse. Most have low expectations. Only 50 per cent of disabled people of working age are in employment, compared to 80 per cent of non-disabled people. The question before the House today is this: how can we rescue this one-fifth of our adult population from being an underclass? The answer must be nothing less than comprehensive legislation that will provide real opportunities of equality and independence and place specific duties on public authorities. There will be a duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and implement a national strategy for independent living. Before I explain the provisions in the Bill, I shall say one further word on one urgent need for it. Seventy per cent of our councils offer services only to people whose needs are judged as ““critical”” or ““substantial””. The rest can go to pot. The rights that they have are disgracefully minimal. For example, their right to services means help with being washed and fed, rather than comprehensive assistance and rights that would help towards independence. There are no positive rights in existing legislation to enable disabled people to choose where they live and no legal protection against their being forced to live in institutions against their wishes. That really is scandalous. There is no legal entitlement to advocacy, except in limited circumstances, or to communication support. It is simply impossible for disabled people to have independence when they have no communication support and no advocacy. There are no rights of support to cover a disabled person who moves to a different part of the country. They have to start all over again and negotiate a new care package from scratch and from many different sources. It is an awfully confusing business. The Bill provides that right. People with mental health needs have no right to assessment or support for their needs. The notorious postcode lotteries prevent the provision of services all over the country. It is luck rather than judgment as to who actually gets what—fancy that in 2006. I hope that, like me, other noble Lords feel ashamed and angry at this neglect. It is basic neglect. A basic element of the Bill is the provision of rights for disabled people and the imposition of duties on local authorities and the NHS. It is a twin-track attack. As a starting point for assessing needs, I want to emphasise the need for contributions from disabled people themselves. In the simple but profound words of Plato: "““Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches””." Disabled people are the best qualified to define their own requirements. This is one hundred times better than a local authority assuming what they are and simply handing out what it thinks is best. At present, many disabled people are forced to live, first, in an institution against their will, and, secondly, with someone they do not want to live with. They are forced into it just because of their disability. It is absolutely unbelievable. The Bill empowers disabled people to determine where they live and with whom they live. If and when the Bill becomes an Act, it will be unlawful to force anyone into an institution against their will—and about time too. Local authorities will have to identify all disabled people in the area and maintain a register of them. They will need to provide a wide range of assistance, such as communication aids and other forms of equipment, technology, independent advocacy and practical assistance in the home and elsewhere. Those are crucial elements of the Bill. Some people will say that they are all-embracing; in a sense, they are, but we must aim high. The neglect at present is so gross and so frustrating that we need to do something. This kind of element in the Bill will ensure that people are not left fighting alone with their disability. There will be a new system of individual budgets. The present range of different funding streams to help with personal care support, equipment and adaptations will be brought together, and disabled people will be able to use their individual budgets in the form of cash or services, or a mixture of both, to spend as they wish, on housing, equipment, personal assistance, transport or whatever they desire. I assume that some local authorities will try to evade their responsibilities, although of course I cannot calculate how many. To outmanoeuvre them, the Bill provides that regulations will be made specifying minimum outcomes. That will effectively prevent local authorities wriggling out of their responsibilities. I am anxious and hopeful that Gordon Brown will support the Bill. David Cameron says that, although he shares my aims and aspirations, such as extending direct payments, individual budgets and others, he is not convinced at this stage that legislation is the way in which to make all these changes. As we all know, however, history has taught us that the voluntary approach has failed and that there will be no new rights for disabled people and that no new duties will be imposed on public authorities without legislation. I firmly and deeply believe that simply requesting change is like the cooing of a dove in a cage—it sounds good, but it is perilous. This is what will happen when people are begging, pleading, asking and urging. We need strong legislation to ensure that these things happen. I hope that Gordon Brown and other Members of both Houses will recognise the important economic benefits of investing in independent living. As people become more independent and return to work, earning from their employment and paying taxes, savings will be made in the social security budget. There will also be a big reduction in the use of health and social services as people become active and return to work. Vitally, the net costs incurred under the Bill will be far less than people first assumed when they saw these demands. I was impressed by the comments on housing made my noble friend Lady Wilkins in an earlier debate. The provision of disability housing services is, of course, supremely important in the Bill. Each local authority will have to compile a list of accessible properties and disabled people requiring such properties and then—this is an important part of the answer—provide a matching service. The terrible shortfall of accessible housing will no longer be a bugbear, because people will be able to fit properties via the matching service. All new dwellings of whatever type will have to meet minimum standards of access—and about time, too. As a result, there will be a vast saving for local authorities by avoiding the very heavy cost of later adaptations. It is not possible to do justice to the many provisions in the Bill in such a short debate. I hope that the House will accept that the thrust of the Bill is to transform the lives of millions of disabled people and to provide them with the necessities for real independence which we all take for granted but which are so cruelly denied them. Among the other provisions is the duty on the Secretary of State to prepare and implement a national strategy for independent living. I offer these proposals to the House in the hope that we can initiate a movement to enrich the lives of disabled people with new rights for them and new duties on public authorities. None of it will be easy, and we can expect a great deal of opposition and indifference from various quarters. But the rewards for disabled people are enormous, and we can literally transform their lives with this far-reaching legislation. Independence, dignity and freedom can transform the lives of disabled people, and we can do this job working together. We often use the words ““freedom”” and ““independence”” without realising what a lack of them means, and many severely disabled people lack those vital things. The Bill aims to put that into practice and ensure that something is done. Without those things, their lives are sadly diminished. It will be a far happier story if and when the Bill is passed and implemented. I commend the Bill to the House. Moved, That the Bill be now read a second time.—(Lord Ashley of Stoke.)