---

Address in Reply to Her Majesty’s Most Gracious Speech

My Lords, I, too, congratulate both noble Lords on their maiden speeches, and welcome my noble friend Lord Adonis to the Front Bench. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Warner on his new post, and welcome my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath back to the Front Bench. I will be changing the theme of this evening’s debate yet again, and will be speaking on the area of social affairs—specifically about independent living, which will be one of the main issues for disabled people during this Parliament. I declare my interests, both as president of the College of Occupational Therapists and as vice-chair of my local disabled people’s organisation, which is HAFAD. First, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lady Hollis of Heigham for the major contribution she has made to furthering disabled people’s civil rights during her time as Minister, and particularly for her work on the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. As she has shown in her outstanding speech today, her perceptiveness, her knowledge and tenacity are daunting, and we owe her a great debt. I welcome the confirmation in the Queen’s Speech that the Government will continue with their reform of public services to promote opportunity and fairness, and their emphasis on choice and diversity. A touchstone of this reform will be the progress that is made during this Parliament towards enabling independent living for disabled people. The Strategy Unit report, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People, published in January this year, set out the Government’s vision that,"““By 2025, disabled people in Britain should have full opportunities and choices to improve their quality of life and will be respected and included as equal members of society””." The promotion of independent living sits at the heart of this strategy, and it is essential that the building blocks for its realisation are set in place during this Parliament. To me the most important of these are accessible housing, individual budgets and a network of centres for independent living. ““Independent living”” is often misunderstood. It does not mean disabled people doing everything for themselves. It is about choice, control and freedom. It is about services enabling disabled people to have the same choice, control and freedom as any other citizen, at home, in education at work and as members of the community, so that we can become equal citizens. The disabled people’s Independent Living Movement grew out of the experience of a group of severely disabled university students back in the 1960s on the Berkeley campus in the USA. They included the late Ed Roberts, a quadriplegic who was on a ventilator. These students, originally in a hospital wing, began to realise that if services were organised around their own needs—for instance, with personal assistants getting them up and putting them to bed when they themselves wanted—they could lead lives as full and active as any other student. That was the start of the first CIL, or centre for independent living. By the time I interviewed Ed Roberts for a documentary in the early 1980s, there were scores of them throughout the United States, and he was head of rehabilitation for the city of Sacramento. In Britain, the Derbyshire CIL, developed by Ken   and Maggie Davis, was among the first to appear in the 1980s, along with the Hampshire CIL, developed by residents from Le Court Cheshire Home, and the Greenwich CIL, led by Rachel Hurst. They developed the original Berkeley list of five core services essential to enable disabled people to live independently—that is, accessible housing, personal assistance, accessible transport, an accessible environment and peer counselling—and added information and technical assistance. Since then, a further five basic needs have been added to that list: an adequate income, inclusive education and training, equal opportunities for employment, advocacy, and appropriate and accessible healthcare provision. That list demonstrates the breadth of reform that is required. The Strategy Unit report, which is in effect a White Paper, as it has been agreed by all the relevant departments—the DWP, the ODPM, the Department of Health and the DfES—recognises that,"““One of the most significant barriers to enabling disabled people to be full citizens is the culture of care and dependency within health and social care structures””." This culture effectively fits people to services, rather than services to people. The report stresses that a new approach to supporting disabled people is needed, in line with the Government’s new vision for adult social care set out in the Green Paper in March. This approach would allocate available resources according to individual needs in the form of an individual budget, which could be taken in cash or services. The disabled person would   know the amount he or she had to spend and would have more flexibility in choice in the support and equipment needed. This approach to independent living would not only improve disabled people’s lives immeasurably but would also represent a sound, social and economic investment. Government departments need to jettison their silo mentality in order to see the whole picture and recognise that higher expenditure in one area can mean much lower expenditure in another. There is clear evidence that investment in aids and adaptations can reduce expenditure on social care, reduce hospital admissions and prevent delays in hospital discharge. For example, the Audit Commission estimates that £130 million is spent each year as a result of falls by people with a visual impairment, which could be avoided with suitable aids and adaptations. Disabled people and their organisations have welcomed the Government’s proposals to extend choice and control through individual budgets. It is very important, however, that their implementation is done in a way that really delivers self-determination for disabled people. Centres for independent living will be crucial here because, controlled and run by disabled people, they have already performed a key role in enabling disabled people to use direct payments to provide real choice and control in their lives. Indeed, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People recognises that by committing the Government to a user-led organisation modelled on CILs in each social services area by 2010. Unfortunately, this commitment is not mentioned in the Green Paper. That is worrying. We should learn from the past that public policy is vastly improved and resources are used more effectively in the disability field if disabled people are fully involved. However, strong organisations cannot be conjured out of thin air. There is a need for capacity building among disabled people and their organisations and for this resources are essential. My third point concerns successful housing—the bedrock of independent living. How can you have any control and choice in your life unless you can get around and in and out of your own home, let alone any others? As the John Grooms Housing Association points out in its current Build for Equality campaign, there is a chronic lack of accessible housing—currently a countrywide shortfall of 300,000 wheelchair-accessible houses. Following the housing announcements this morning, could my noble friend the Minister give me an assurance that the Government will heed the campaign’s call that 10 per cent of all new housing should be built to wheelchair standard, as is the requirement in London. Urgent action needs to be taken as the housing industry has ignored the needs of disabled people for far too long. But new build can address only a small portion of the problem. The Strategy Unit report recommends urgent action on the current disabled facilities grant system, which creates significant barriers both to disabled adults and to families with a disabled child. I look forward to the conclusion of the ODPM review of the disabled facilities grant, which is due to be published next month and hope that at the very least it follows the action of Northern Ireland and Wales in abolishing the means test for families with disabled children. I understand that the ODPM commissioned a comprehensive piece of research from Frances Hayward of Bristol University, who is an expert in this field. Will that research be published along with the review group’s recommendations, so that we can see the basis on which the decisions have been made? Many disabled people were dismayed that the Government expect that it will take another 20 years, until 2025, before we can be fully included as equal members of society. It is about 20 years since I was exploring these issues in a Channel 4 documentary in Derbyshire where the CIL had challenged the paternalism of the social services department by making a bid to run the local residential home. It challenged the ““duty of care””, which is as radical today as it was then, and we have much to do before our statutory services begin to adopt instead a ““duty of equality”” as is called for in the DEMOS report Independent Living: the right to be equal citizens, which is to be launched tomorrow. We need to start now on the major transformation of structures and culture that this will require, or it will take much longer than those 20 years.