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Equality Bill [HL]

I strongly support all those amendments to which the noble Lords, Lord Carter, Lord Ashley of Stoke and Lord Addington, spoke. Consequently, I shall speak only to those amendments to which my name is attached. As my noble friend Lord Ashley of Stoke said, the purpose of Amendments Nos. 51, 52 and 53 is to ensure that the review of the Disability Committee is genuinely fair and open-ended. The independent review may well find overwhelming evidence that the Disability Committee should continue—and that it should be this committee which continues with its current composition and accumulated experience and expertise, not a new committee for which the Bill provides. I am very grateful to my noble friend the Minister for her letter setting that out as a possible option, but it does not meet disabled people’s concerns at what looks like a pre-emptive decision regardless of how the committee works out in practice. It would be very unfortunate if the Bill demanded the demise of a committee that had won the confidence and respect of disabled people. I hope that the Minister will see her way to accept the amendment. Amendments Nos. 76 and 82 are both probing amendments, as my noble friend Lord Ashley of Stoke said. They seek ministerial assurance that the CEHR will carry on the breadth of the DRC’s essential work on independent living. They also seek to spread awareness of the way that independent living should be promoted under each of the CEHR’s pillars. My noble friend Lord Ashley has spoken at length about the importance of independent living and, as he said, it is central to the equality of disabled people. It means that disabled people have the same choice, control and freedom as other citizens. Many people assume that already exists; but disabled people are only too aware that it does not. Although the amendment is to Clause 8, the equality pillar, independent living is also central to the CEHR’s work under each of its three pillars—equality, human rights and good community relations. Clause 8 gives the CEHR a duty to promote equality of opportunity, which is about positive action to remove barriers to inclusion and participation. The CEHR will need to carry on the DRC’s work on closing the equality gaps between non-disabled people and disabled people in employment, education and access to services and health. That means not only continuing the work in promoting access to dedicated services and entitlements for disabled people, such as the Access to Work scheme, but to continue to champion key components of the DRC’s independent living agenda, such as the right to protection against enforced or inappropriate admissions to residential care and positive rights to choose where and how you live. Under the good relations pillar, the CEHR will have a duty to combat the involuntary isolation of disabled people and the other strands, which means challenging enforced institutionalisation or separation from the wider community, and challenging the barriers in housing, transport and the built environment that lead to involuntary isolation. Under the human rights pillar, the CEHR will have a duty to promote the importance of human rights and also to encourage public authorities to comply with Section 6 of the Human Rights Act 1998, which prohibits action incompatible with convention rights. Again, that duty will be a key to promoting independent living. The CEHR will need to promote the positive obligations of public authorities to allocate resources in a manner which promotes the family and community life of disabled people and which ensures the avoidance of inhumane and degrading treatment. Again, involuntary placements into residential care, or the failure of services to support people in a manner that allows them to socialise with others and enjoy family life, could be addressed through the CEHR’s work on human rights. I am extremely hopeful that the Minister will give her assurance that the CEHR will be charged with carrying on the DRC’s work on independent living.