Welfare Reform Bill

My Lords, I regard this as one of the most important amendments we are considering because of the importance of the message it carries. If we were alive then, most of us remember where we were when President Kennedy was shot, or when 9/11 occurred. I remember exactly where I was when I first came across the social definition of disability. I was in Sweden, it was 30 years ago this year, and it was the International Year of Disabled Persons. I was in the process of trying to get a disabled person’s Act on to the statute book in the House of Commons. With the support of a number of people here, we were successful. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Low, gave me a considerable amount of help outside the Chamber at the time. The definition was put to me in these terms, which I still carry in my mind. Handicap is the relationship between a disabled person and his or her physical, social or psychological environment. By medical intervention, we may or may not be able to do something about the basic disability, but our ability to amend and adjust the environment can prevent disability becoming a handicap. In those terms, it is glaringly clear where responsibility lies to minimise the degree of handicap that people, for various unfortunate reasons, whether accidental or congenital, have to face as the consequence of disability. It is the responsibility of any Government in any civilised country to have that at the core of their approach to disability politics. I am not certain of the extent to which the words in the amendment will change the thrust of policy, but I am certain that the commitment to this approach must be central. If we have that commitment at the heart of our thinking, other decisions in this Committee and in later stage will work out for the benefit of disabled people.