Offender Management Bill

moved Amendment No. 32: 32: After Clause 26, insert the following new Clause— ““Disability equality duty Disability equality duty (1) The Disability Discrimination (Public Authorities) (Statutory Duties) Regulations 2005 (S.I. 2966/2005) are amended as follows. (2) In regulation 2(3)(d)(iii) after the words ““Part I”” insert the words ““or Part V””. (3) After regulation 2(6)(c) insert— ““(d) in the case of a public authority listed in Part V of Schedule 1, 1st December 2008.”” (4) After Part IV of Schedule 1 insert— ““PART V Her Majesty’s Prison Service A prison operated by Her Majesty’s Prison Service Any contracted out prison within the meaning of section 84 of the Criminal Justice Act 1991””.”” The noble Lord said: My Lords, before I speak to the amendment standing in my name and that of my noble friend Lord Low of Dalston, who is in America, I should like to make good a failure from earlier in the day. I am sure that all Members of the House will join me in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, on her announced elevation on her party’s Front Bench. We are all delighted about that. This issue was raised by my noble friend Lord Low in Committee and we were not satisfied with the Government’s answer that they would bring back disability legislation by making provision through Prison Service orders. On reflection, we do not think that that is satisfactory. There is a similarity here to what happened with the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill when the noble and learned Baroness described it as a brave move by the Government that Crown immunity was dropped for certain activities. When I inspected Her Majesty’s Prison Frankland in Durham I discovered to my horror a disabled man confined to the healthcare centre because he was wheelchair borne. Frankland was a new prison. I had seen the plans for Frankland, which included provision for disabled people to get around, including those in wheelchairs, but they were not included in the final build. When I questioned the Prison Service about this, I was told that because of Crown immunity the service was not required to conform to the disability legislation and had therefore excluded them. The man was denied access to work, education and everything else because of his disability, as he could not get out of the healthcare centre. Therefore, in the spirit of lifting Crown immunity in the context of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Bill, it is perhaps right to look at all the other aspects of this sort of legislation, including disability, where Crown immunity has previously been prayed in evidence. It was, for example, prayed in aid as a reason why the conditions of the Children Act should not apply to prisons until that was overturned by judicial review. The background to the amendment is explained clearly by what is required by the Disability Rights Commission, which is that there should be a disability equality scheme in every public place. There are already requirements on probation boards, schools, NHS trusts, passenger transport executives and many other public sector bodies to produce such a scheme. The Prison Service has one, but it is not one of its own; it is an adjunct of the Home Office disability equality scheme, and it applies only to staff, not to prisoners. That is not acceptable. The Prison Service must have a scheme of its own, applying to both prisoners and staff. In the context of lifting Crown immunity, the disability regulations must apply. A Prison Service order is not good enough. An explicit duty must be laid on the Prison Service, quite separate from anything connected with its sponsoring department. That is the purpose behind the amendment. The current treatment of disabled people in prison is not adequate for a whole range of disabilities, as has been mentioned many times. Merely putting a requirement in a Prison Service order does not add any urgency to the requirement to put the situation right, but I believe a duty would. I beg to move.