Offender Management Bill

My Lords, I support the amendment, which has the crucial support of the Disability Rights Commission. As we know, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 gave the DRC the right to be consulted on additions to the specific disability equality duties, so it is important that it is in favour of the amendment. The Prison Reform Trust and Diabetes UK have reported cases of hypoglycaemia being treated as a disciplinary issue. I do not have my noble friend’s experience of prisons, but as a member of the murder and life imprisonment inquiry in 1989 I visited a few prisons. My noble friend Lord Ramsbotham said that the existing Prison Service disability equality scheme covers only staff and he said that it should apply also to prisoners. He also put in a plea for disabled visitors. I found that there was nothing there for a disabled visitor. Parkhurst changed and improved its disabled loo because of my visit. One was discovered in Durham jail that no one knew existed. There was another upstairs but there was no lift to get up to it. I hope that that was changed, but I would put in a plea for visitors to be included under the scheme.