Commons Sitting of 10 June 2004

Preamble
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[MR. SPEAKER in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY
  The Secretary of State was asked—
  TRADE AND INDUSTRY

    Miners' Compensation
    Adam Price: What response her Department has received from the Union of Democratic Mineworkers to her Department's letter on solicitors' charges to coal health claimants. [177750]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Nigel Griffiths): The Union of Democratic Mineworkers has stated that its members are not charged. Non-members pay a deferred membership fee. I understand that the National Association of Colliery Overmen, Deputies and Shotfirers in south Wales makes similar charges and has pocketed more than £13 million, though that does not apply to NACODS elsewhere in the UK. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman could explain that and ask the Plaid Cymru leader of NACODS to give that money back to the miners.
    Adam Price: I am grateful to the Minister for his reply. Thousands of former miners and their families have been ripped off by the Union of Democratic Mineworkers through its subsidiary company, Vendside. Why have officials in his Department, in statements to the press, defended a practice within the UDM that amounts to little less than corruption? Why do the Government continue to honour their agreement with the union when it is clearly to the detriment of so many people?
    Nigel Griffiths: The House will not take lessons from the hon. Member about corruption and creaming off money when the Plaid Cymru leader of NACODS in south Wales stands accused of creaming off more than £13 million for an organisation that has, I understand, about 40 members. What are they doing with the money? The agreement reached with other solicitors and representatives of miners has been longstanding and has generally delivered a considerable amount of compensation, amounting to the biggest public sector pay-out of compensation in history. It has generally
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    been delivered fairly; if it were not fair, I would be the first to criticise. The hon. Gentleman should make sure that he joins my colleagues and me in criticising NACODS in south Wales, but he will not, because of Plaid Cymru's deep involvement with it.
    Mr. Dennis Skinner: Does the Minister agree that for the Welsh nationalist MP to raise this matter, it is a case of the kettle calling the pot black? Will he also take into account the fact that there were problems with Vendside? It is true that some involved were directors of the firm. While it seems that we have caught the Welsh nationalist, Bleddyn Hancock, red-handed, does the Minister agree that we need to ensure that all the other areas are clean as well?
    Nigel Griffiths: I agree, of course, with my hon. Friend, who speaks with great authority on this issue. The Department of Trade and Industry looks into the propriety of the agreements and keeps them under review. I am grateful to my hon. Friend and other hon. Members for their work in ensuring that this matter is continually at the forefront of debate. I know that hon. Members share a common commitment to ensure that every penny of compensation goes to sick miners, their widows and their families.
    Mr. Kevan Jones: I congratulate the Minister on his tough action against solicitors, including those associated with the Union of Democratic Mineworkers. However, is he aware that in many cases solicitors are paying money back to claimants only when claimants have made a complaint? I urge the Minister to have an urgent meeting with the Law Society to press the organisation to ensure that all those solicitors who have taken money return it to claimants, irrespective of whether the individuals—some very elderly and frail—actually complain.
    Nigel Griffiths: I certainly join my hon. Friend in pressing the Law Society to ensure that those solicitors—a minority, I understand—who may have double charged, go through their list of clients and pay back any double payment. The Department of Trade and Industry has already paid several hundred millions of pounds in solicitors' fees. We covered their costs and we do not want to see a penny of compensation for miners and their widows coming out of the fund.

    Renewable Energy
    Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory: If she will estimate the cost of the additional transmission network necessary to meet her target for renewable electricity generation. [177751]
    The Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services (Mr. Stephen Timms): The transmission issues working group reported in June last year that the overall cost of connecting the additional 12 GW of renewable energy generation for the GB network will be about £2.1 billion. If shared just among domestic consumers, it would add around £10 per year to each customer's bill. A recent study by Mott MacDonald for the Carbon Trust and the DTI suggested that the cost would be in

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    a range from £1.4 billion up to an upper bound of £2.1 billion, some of that being required in any event for asset replacement.
    Mr. Heathcoat-Amory: That is a huge extra subsidy to be paid for by the general electricity customer. When will the Government realise that the policy of vastly increasing wind-generated electricity is technically inefficient and will not solve an environmental problem? Indeed, it will create one by industrialising our rural upland and coastal areas. As we just heard, it will greatly increase electricity costs, which will create fuel poverty for individuals and add to business costs. Does that not show that the waffle that we get from the DTI about the need for businesses to remain competitive in international markets by keeping down their costs is completely hollow?
    Mr. Timms: The right hon. Gentleman is wrong on every point. There is a need for investment in the transmission network, to facilitate much more distributed generation and to replace equipment that is now worn out. That investment will have to be paid for, of course, but the price is entirely affordable, especially given the environmental benefits of generation from wind and other renewables, and the advantages for security of supply.
    The right hon. Gentleman is also wrong about industrialisation, as he calls it. There will be a proper planning process for every wind farm planning application, to ensure that projects that go forward are not environmentally damaging in the way that he fears. However, I accept that we need to address urgently the challenge of climate change. We cannot simply go on burning oil, gas and coke as we have in the past. We need to develop new ways of generating electricity, and wind generation is the most cost effective of the renewable technologies available today. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will support it.
    Miss Anne Begg: The right hon. Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) has a very narrow view of what constitutes renewable energy. As well as onshore wind generation, there is also offshore wind power and tidal power. In addition, people at the Robert Gordons university in Aberdeen are working on tidal race technology. However, regardless of what type of renewable energy is developed, the grid must be upgraded. I go to many conferences and meetings on this matter, and one of the biggest problems is the lack of grid in areas where it has traditionally been lacking. If a tidal race were to be placed in the Pentland firth, for example, the existing grid from Dounreay would still have to be upgraded. I therefore encourage the Minister to do all he can to ensure that that barrier to the development of renewable energy is removed, so that we can fulfil the renewables obligation.
    Mr. Timms: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We are supporting a range of renewable technologies beyond wind, although wind is the most cost effective at present. I welcome the progress being made in upgrading the network. The first project likely to come forward will be the 220 km upgraded line from Beauly to Denny in Scotland. That is expected to cost £200
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    million and to be submitted for consent this autumn. With Ofgem, we have set up an industry-wide distributed generation co-ordinating group to ensure that the issues involved are addressed in a timely way.
    As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) says, it is essential that we address all these matters and enable the grid upgrade to go ahead so as to allow the much more distributed profile of electricity generation that renewable and other developments will make possible in the future. No longer will we have the small number of huge power stations that have characterised the grid in the past. The profile is going to change.
    Mr. Stephen O'Brien: Will the Minister join me in congratulating his comrade, the hon. Member for Brighton. Kemptown (Dr. Turner), whose amendment No. 189 to the Energy Bill was accepted in Standing Committee? That success was due to the fact that the amendment won the support of all the Conservative members of the Committee, and of the two members from the minor parties. The amendment will make the Government's renewables targets less unachievable by making it more affordable for energy produced from renewable resources to connect to the grid. Why did the Government and the Minister oppose the amendment?
    Mr. Timms: Unfortunately, the hon. Gentleman is mistaken. The arrangements that have applied since the Utilities Act 2000 came into force mean that the primary duty of the regulator is to protect the interests of consumers, through competition where appropriate. The Government believe that that is the right approach. We will return to the subject when the House looks at it again in a few weeks' time.
    Mr. O'Brien: Despite the Minister's somewhat pedestrian answer—and given his failure to dragoon Labour Back Benchers to support the Government in Committee—will he give an undertaking to the House that he will not seek to remove the amendment on Report? He has said that he wishes to revisit the matter. Will he seek to put something in its place that delivers the same outcome?
    Mr. Timms: I answered the hon. Gentleman's question before he posed it for a second time.

    Manufacturing Industry
    Mr. John MacDougall: What measures her Department is taking to increase the UK's manufacturing industry productivity; and if she will make a statement. [177753]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): We are working with manufacturing industry, the trade unions and others in all the areas identified in the Government's manufacturing strategy, which is, of course, the first UK industrial strategy for more than 30 years, to help UK manufacturing industry to increase productivity. For example, the

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    manufacturing advisory service has already proved a real success, particularly with smaller manufacturers, generating a total value added of more than £53 million.
    Mr. MacDougall: Does the Secretary of State agree that prospects for UK manufacturing industry are improving?
    Ms Hewitt: I certainly do, and I warmly welcome the fact that all recent business surveys of manufacturing have been positive. The report by the Engineering Employers Federation on Tuesday showed the fastest rise in orders and output in British industry for seven years. That encouragement from the manufacturers themselves is confirmed by figures released yesterday by National Statistics, which show a much bigger than expected increase in output between March and April. That does not mean there are not challenges for manufacturing industry, but the industry is much more confident about the future.
    Mr. John Wilkinson: If the prospects of British industry are so good, can the right hon. Lady explain why the United Kingdom's position in the international league of competitiveness has dropped dramatically? Why was the United Kingdom's rate of increase in productivity during the first five years of her Government half of what it had been during the last five years of Tory government? Is the answer not something to do with the huge extra tax and regulatory burden and the fact that British industry is paying an extra £7 billion a year in taxation?
    Ms Hewitt: I simply do not accept the hon. Gentleman's criticisms. In spite of his personal commitment to manufacturing, his comments come ill from a member of the party whose Government wrecked a large part of British manufacturing, particularly in the recession of the early 1980s, but throughout nearly 20 years of neglecting, ignoring, talking down and doing their best to undermine it. Over the past seven years, we have seen a significant improvement in Britain's productivity position compared with those of Germany, in particular, and France and the United States. We will go on working with manufacturing to improve productivity, particularly through our investment in science and innovation, which the Conservative party completely neglected and underfunded during its years in government.
    Tony Cunningham: New Balance, a company in my constituency that makes running shoes, has hugely increased its productivity through investment in training and, in particular, in multi-skilling. So successful has it become that it has been granted the Queen's Award for Industry. Should we not learn from best practice?
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, and I am delighted, through him, to add my congratulations to New Balance on its excellent achievement of the Queen's Award for Industry. That is a superb example of how wrong people are to say that there is no future for British manufacturing and that
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    everything will go off to low-wage countries. The truth is, even in a country with high wages and proud of it, if management and employees work closely together and invest in skills and in the right technology, Britain can continue to have some of the best manufacturers in the world.

    Rural Post Offices
    Mr. Alistair Carmichael: If she will make a statement on Government support for rural post offices after April 2006. [177754]
    The Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services (Mr. Stephen Timms): The Cabinet Office performance and innovation unit report on the future of the post office network recommended that Postcomm should advise the Government on the main policy options beyond 2006. We are considering that advice and will reach conclusions on the shape of the rural network after 2006 in time to allow a smooth transition from the current support arrangements.
    Mr. Carmichael: Can the Minister confirm that the advice given by Postcomm in a report last year included the possible closure of up to 1,600 rural post offices and a reduction in the support money currently available to them? Will he publish that advice in full so that Members and people in rural areas throughout the country can be made aware of the nature of the debate going on within government rather than being consulted in a few years' time on a decision that has already been taken?
    Mr. Timms: I can say only that we are looking at the range of options available. The advice was submitted in confidence, although a summary may well be published in due course. The hon. Gentleman will appreciate that it contains commercially sensitive data, so I cannot commit to full publication, He will recognise that we have provided strong support for the rural post office network, which has led to a significant fall in the number of rural closures. We want to build on the lessons learned as a result of that strong Government support.
    Mr. Harry Barnes: When a post office is closed down, the Post Office usually explains where the alternative is and may suggest transport, such as bus routes or boat and helicopter routes for the Orkney and Shetland islands. However, problems can arise with the buses themselves. It is not just post offices that close; bus routes get closed down, too. Is the Department of Trade and Industry involved in assessing transport arrangements in rural areas and how they may develop in future, because that has a knock-on consequence in terms of whether people can handle the change?
    Mr. Timms: My hon. Friend raises an important point. We have imposed an obligation on the Post Office that there should be no avoidable rural post office closures. There is a different arrangement for urban post offices. Where urban closures are proposed there is a requirement to look at the public transport and other arrangements that would allow people to access alternative branches. For rural areas, we said that

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    wherever possible there should be no closures of branches. The support that we are providing to allow that obligation to be delivered will last at least until 2006.
    Malcolm Bruce: Will the Minister acknowledge that because business is collapsing underneath rural post offices, many of them see no future beyond 2006? Therefore, it is important that the Government publish an early indication of whether they wish to continue with the subsidy or what alternative business rural post offices can look forward to after that date. What are the Government doing about Tesco's plans, having taken over convenience stores, to close post offices in rural communities? Will he undertake that the Government will ensure that those communities continue to have access to a post office on their criteria, not Tesco's?
    Mr. Timms: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely wrong to speak about post office business collapsing. We are making sure, through investment and rationalisation, that the Post Office can serve today's needs. We have invested £500 million in technology, which is unprecedented, to allow banking at every single post office branch in the country. Basic bank accounts are available from every high street bank and 20 million ordinary current accounts can now be accessed from every post office branch in the country. The Post Office is developing new products to build new markets. We are putting in place a business with a strong commercial future in both urban and rural areas, thus giving the prospect of a successful future for the thousands of people who work in post office branches.
    Where Tesco proposes a closure, the company has agreed to talk to the Post Office to ensure that if it is needed—it is not part of an urban reinvention arrangement—alternative arrangements can be made. I hope that will satisfactorily resolve the small number of instances in which that problem has arisen.
    Mr. Henry Bellingham: Does the Minister recall that I contacted him about North Wootton post office in my constituency? It was categorised as an urban post office, yet it is opposite a village green, there are cows out the back and perhaps the odd pig or sheep, children ride by on their ponies and farmers go by on their tractors. Despite that, some sharp-suited bureaucrat from the Post Office characterised it as an urban post office. What is a rural post office? Will he tell the House whether the social network payment scheme will continue after 2006?
    Mr. Timms: The definition that the Post Office uses depends on the contiguous population in the area served: whether it is more or less than 10,000. That definition has been rigorously applied and I have no doubt that it was applied in the case of the hon. Gentleman's constituency, but I will check that a consistent definition has been used. We are looking at a range of options for the form of support that will be provided to the rural network beyond 2006. The current
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    arrangements, strongly supported by the Government, will last for almost a further two years, so we have plenty of time to make sure that once we have made the decision there is a smooth transition from the current arrangements to those that will apply after 2006.
    Mr. Andrew Robathan: Has the Minister noticed the many campaigns against the closure of individual post offices, including petitions backed by Members of Parliament? Does he agree that if a Member of Parliament voted for Government policy on 15 October 2002 to close one in three urban post offices, it would be the utmost hypocrisy for that Member to present a petition or campaign to keep open a post office?
    Mr. Timms: I do not agree, because—as Members on both sides recognise—the urban post office network is getting less business, so rationalisation is necessary. The Post Office has made proposals for closures area by area, but it is essential that a careful process of consultation take place on each proposal. Some of the closures initially proposed were not appropriate and should not—indeed, will not—go ahead. Members of Parliament can play a part in drawing attention to such inappropriate proposals and I would encourage them to do so.

    Small Businesses
    Ann Winterton: If she will introduce legislation regulating the activities of shadow directors in small businesses. [177756]
    The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Mr. Gerry Sutcliffe): The answer to the question is no: the activities of shadow directors are already regulated, as the hon. Lady knows. We would not want any unnecessary red tape.
    Ann Winterton: I welcome the fact that the Department of Trade and Industry has recognised the problem of shadow directors. They are not illegal, but surely the public have the right to know who directs or runs a company. Fewer cases of abuse now exist, but is the Minister aware that some still persist in manipulating the system, virtually defrauding individuals and companies—more often than not
    smaller companies that can least bear the loss—that have provided goods and services? I have one such example in Congleton. Will the Minister undertake to look into the matter on behalf of my constituents to see what further action could be taken?
    Mr. Sutcliffe: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for raising the issue of how directors operate in certain conditions, which causes concern to many people. She will know about the disqualification hotline, which has produced much information about people who act as directors inappropriately. For the information of hon. Members, its number is 0845 601 3546. If the hon. Lady gives me details of the individual case that she mentioned, I shall look into the matter as soon as possible.

    European Commission Cohesion Report
    Mr. Michael Moore: What assessment she has made of the European Commission's third cohesion report. [177757]
    The Minister for Industry and the Regions (Jacqui Smith): The Government welcome proposals in the report to ensure a greater strategic focus for EU regional policy and the commitment to simplify the delivery mechanisms for structural funds projects. However, we have serious concerns about the proposals for the future size and focus of the structural funds, which fail to meet the objectives that we laid out in our consultation document of last year and our statements to Parliament following that consultation.
    Mr. Moore: The south of Scotland has an allocation of £50 million for the current European structural funds programme, which is vital for the restructuring of the fragile local economy, especially in the Scottish borders. How will the Minister reconcile the Commission's proposals in the document with the Government's plans and ensure that we continue to receive support after 2007?
    Jacqui Smith: The important point about the Commission's proposals in that plan is that no money is currently on the table, because time has not yet been agreement on the overall budget. There are now many member states, and the majority of net contributors have made clear their wish to ensure that the EU budget as a whole remains within 1 per cent. of EU gross income. No agreement has been reached about the total amount of money, nor are the data available that would be necessary to determine how any future funds would be distributed. There is no money on the table, but the Government have made it clear—in the guarantee in our document and in subsequent parliamentary statements—that we remain committed to regional policy. If our recommendations are accepted, we will ensure that we increase the resources necessary in the regions and the devolved Administrations to continue the focus on productivity and skills and make the necessary investment to ensure that they are successful.

    National Grid
    John Thurso: What plans she has to facilitate the connection to the national electricity grid at affordable prices of potential consumers living in remote areas. [177759]
    The Minister for Energy, E-Commerce and Postal Services (Mr. Stephen Timms): I have no new plans to announce on this. There are no firm data on homes without mains electricity, although the proportion is thought to be less than 1 per cent. Certainly the vast majority of properties for which mains connection is cost-effective have already been connected. Properties without a grid connection tend to be in very remote locations without neighbours with whom connection costs could be shared, so there is a substantial cost barrier.
    John Thurso: I am grateful to the Minister for that answer. I draw his attention to one of my constituents who lives relatively near the village of Lairg, but who is two miles away from the grid and would have to pay about £50,000 to be connected. Does the Minister recall that when the Hydro Board was set up, a statutory duty was laid on it to enable people in remote areas to be connected to the grid? In many rural areas in the United Kingdom, there are still homes for which connection to the grid is prohibitively expensive. As wind generation is being put in place in many such areas, will the Minister consider a scheme to lay a statutory obligation on wind generators to help the people who host the generating facilities to be connected?
    Mr. Timms: I am not familiar with the case of the hon. Gentleman's constituent. I draw to his attention the fact that there is a safeguard in the system: once a formal request for connection has been made, the person can seek a determination on the terms that are being offered from Ofgem. Ofgem is empowered to make a determination on the appropriateness of the charges and the terms. Whether that will be helpful in this particular case, I do not know.
    The hon. Gentleman raises the previous arrangements that applied in the north of Scotland, and he will welcome the steps that we are taking in the interests of electricity customers there. For example, in the Energy Bill, we are introducing a replacement for the hydro benefits scheme, which may well be of similar age to the one to which he referred, to protect customers from the impact of high distribution costs in that region. We are also replacing the common tariff obligation to ensure that rural customers in the north of Scotland are not discriminated against in favour of urban customers. That will be in the interests of quite a number of the hon. Gentleman's constituents.
    I am afraid that I cannot offer the hon. Gentleman the prospect of additional legislation to place obligations on parties in the way that he proposes, because in some instances the cost of connecting a remote location could be very high indeed. It would be unfair to expect other customers to subsidise what might be a costly arrangement.
    Lawrie Quinn: I know that my hon. Friend has visited my constituency on a personal basis, but he has generally been there in the summer. During the winter period, my constituents who live in remote locations in the North York Moors national park and along the coast in Scarborough and Whitby are vulnerable to loss of supply, often for many days, if not weeks, when power supply cables are blown down. Does he have any proposals to hold discussions, or does he keep under review with the electricity supply companies the quality and nature of the infrastructure that links such customers? The fact that supply cables are blown down and people are disconnected in winter often comes down to the need to reinforce the infrastructure; we need better security of supply.
    Mr. Timms: I am a great admirer of my hon. Friend's constituency and I always enjoy visiting it. He raises important issues, which were highlighted by the storms

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    of October 2002, when we saw serious disruption to the electricity supply in many parts of the country. A great deal of work has been done since then. The Select Committee on Trade and Industry carried out a valuable investigation that highlighted many of the issues. We have seen significant improvements in the procedures followed by the electricity distribution companies, and I hope that my hon. Friend's constituents will benefit from that. I hope that my hon. Friend will see improvements, but if he feels that insufficient progress is being made, I will be happy to have a look at the issues in his constituency.

    World Trade Organisation
    Tony Baldry: What progress is being made on the World Trade Organisation negotiations. [177761]
    The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry (Ms Patricia Hewitt): WTO Ministers are working towards securing the framework agreements on the major elements of the Doha development agenda by the end of July. That will enable negotiations to resume and to progress at a faster rate.
    Tony Baldry: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. If that happens, it will be very good news. There is a sense that the momentum has gone out of the process, although that may simply be because we have not heard much about it publicly. However, there is a suspicion that everything is being adjourned until after the American presidential elections, so it would help the House if the Secretary of State indicated where she thinks things are in relation to the discussions on agriculture, because there has been a lot of low-level snarling between the EU and the United States. Have the Singapore issues finally been dropped? Given all the promises made at Cancun, it would be helpful if she could assure the House that there is still the same momentum and that the same importance is accorded to the issues as at that time.
    Ms Hewitt: I am extremely grateful to the hon. Gentleman for being in the House to give me precisely that opportunity. Earlier this year, I shared his concern that the negotiations had run into the ground and that nothing would happen until after the end of this year, with the transition to a new United States Administration and a new European Commission. I am glad to say that those fears proved unfounded; both Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Ambassador Zoellick have made it very clear that they want to get the framework agreement in place before the end of July and that, because of those other factors, it must be in place before the end of July.
    The joint letter that Commissioners Lamy and Fischler sent on 9 May to all WTO members represented a significant step forward. It reassured, in particular, developing countries about the willingness of the European Union to negotiate an end date to all agricultural export subsidies, provided of course there is parallelism in the approach of other developed countries on equivalent support for agricultural exports. The
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    letter also made it clear that although we, and indeed most others, would like to proceed with negotiations on trade facilitation, the other Singapore issues can be dealt with differently and need not form part of the single undertaking or the round as a whole. Although the framework is not yet in place, the work being done in Geneva and the discussions between Ministers and negotiators around the world is leading all of us who are utterly committed to the Doha round to be more optimistic about the prospect of that interim agreement by the end of July.
    Mr. John Grogan: What measures is my right hon. Friend taking to encourage capacity-building among developing nations, so that when the talks resume they will be more equal partners in the negotiations?
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend raises an important point. The British Government, especially the Department for International Development, have been at the forefront of supporting, and indeed putting money into, capacity-building efforts, both directly with developing countries and through the WTO. That is one of the reasons—not the only one—why the voice of developing countries was so much stronger at the Cancun meeting last September, despite, all the other difficulties we experienced there, than it had been before. We shall continue that very important work.
    Mr. James Arbuthnot: We know that trade is more important than aid in helping developing countries to develop, but has the Secretary of State considered why it is that under the Government British trade has run into such difficulties? Why did yesterday's trade figures show another decline—£3.7 billion? The trade deficit under the Labour Government is the worst since records began 300 years ago. Why is that?
    Ms Hewitt: The right hon. Gentleman does not seem to have noticed that the downturn in economic growth in almost all our trading partners over some years has inevitably had an impact on UK exporters, nor that the British economy has been growing steadily every quarter for the last seven years and indeed is enjoying its longest period of uninterrupted growth for more than 200 years—I think that is what the Chancellor said most recently; the Financial Times suggested this week that it may be the longest in all human history—and because of that it is inevitable that at the moment we are importing significantly more than we are exporting. But with resumed growth, especially in the United States, and with very strong growth in China, India and other Asian countries, British companies exporting to those markets are doing extremely well. As and when growth resumes in our major continental trading partners, I have no doubt at all that that deficit will shrink again.

    Commission for Racial Equality
    Keith Vaz: What representations she has received on her proposals to abolish the Commission for Racial Equality. [177763]
    The Minister for Industry and the Regions (Jacqui Smith): We have already received a number of responses to the White Paper "Fairness For All", which was published on 12 May and sets out our proposals for the creation of a commission for equality and human rights. The CEHR will draw together the work of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission and the Equal Opportunities Commission to promote an inclusive vision of equality and human rights and to bring a coherent approach to supporting discrimination legislation, including that for the new strands of sexual orientation, religion, belief and age. We welcome debate on those proposals, which are open for consultation until 6 August.
    Keith Vaz: Nobody doubts the Government's commitment to racial equality, bearing in mind the fact that the Secretary of State herself represents with distinction the great multiracial city of Leicester. However, my right hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and the Regions must be aware of widespread concerns in the community about the proposal to abolish the Commission for Racial Equality and incorporate it into a body in which other organisations will be involved. Will she reassert and reaffirm the Government's commitment to the race agenda in its entirety? Will she ask the Secretary of State whether she will be prepared to meet a delegation of Members of this House so that we can express the concerns that have been raised and so that there is a proper and appropriate dialogue with the ethnic minority community on such an important issue?
    Jacqui Smith: The proposal certainly does not represent the abolition of the Commission for Racial Equality. It will build the commission's work into that of a commission that will provide a stronger and more coherent voice on race equality and equality more generally. The organisation will better recognise the needs of employers and service providers and also recognise the full breadth of how we see ourselves. Importantly, with respect to race equality, it will enable a fuller range of powers to be used to tackle discrimination; up to this point, the Commission for Racial Equality has not been able to use such powers, unlike other equality commissions. Those powers include the ability to use conciliation services, a broader scope for named investigations and the ability to use binding agreements.
    Following consultations on the White Paper in various regions, I have agreed to meet the all-party groups on sex equality and on equalities. I understand that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State would be pleased to meet hon. Members to discuss how we may ensure that the new commission builds on existing commissions and creates something better both for people who are worried about race equality and all of us who want to develop an economy and society that are built on the talents of everyone and the inclusion of all in our communities.

    Doha Development Agenda
    Mr. David Borrow: What discussions she has had with the new Indian Government on the Doha development agenda. [177764]
    The Minister for Trade and Investment (Mr. Mike O'Brien): I look forward to my first meeting with the new Indian Commerce Minister, Mr. Kamal Nath, next week in Sao Paulo, where the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development meets. We hope to have the opportunity to discuss making progress on the Doha development agenda.
    Mr. Borrow: I thank my hon. Friend for his reply. Will he join me in welcoming the statement at the G8 summit yesterday that was aimed at breaking the deadlock on the Doha agenda? During his discussions with the Indian Government as one of the key players in the Doha round, will he try to get greater movement from them? Does he agree that without a successful completion of the Doha agenda, the economies of the world's poorer countries will not prosper and that agreement is essential if those countries are to achieve their long-term economic goals?
    Mr. O'Brien: As has been said already, if the Doha agenda can be completed and we can achieve trade growth, it will lift more people out of poverty than all the aid budgets of all the western countries combined and multiplied by three. So that is the real ball game—the serious effort that we can make to alleviate world poverty. I believe that India will see yesterday's G8 statement as giving political momentum to the efforts to unblock the Doha round. It is clear that the United States and the EU are willing to put in the extra effort to make progress to secure the framework agreements by the end of July, after when, no doubt, the US will focus on its presidential elections and the EU on its new commissioners. But it is very positive that the G8 members agreed to discuss all forms of agricultural protection and agreed on the importance of special and differential treatment for developing countries to allow them to liberalise at their own pace. India will, no doubt, be very pleased with that.
    On the Singapore issues, the statement makes it clear that the G8 supports trade facilitation and implies that the remaining issues—investment, competition and transparency in Government procurement—should be dropped. I hope that that will be accepted by the G20 group of developing countries, which includes India in a very important role. I hope that we will get the movement that is sought.
    Mr. Peter Luff: India does indeed now enjoy a leadership role in the developing world, so I hope that the Minister will join me in welcoming the fact that the newly elected Indian Government appear to be as committed to privatisation, reform and liberal, open markets as their predecessor. In that context, does he agree that it would be wrong to demonise India for any problem in relation to the Doha round? Is not the real problem still the appalling record

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    on agricultural trade of the developed world, particularly America and the EU? Is that the real key to unlocking the Doha round?
    Mr. O'Brien: Getting a deal on agriculture is the key to unlocking the Doha round. We need to consider a wider agenda, but agriculture matters to India, for example, more than anything else. Certainly, that is what the Trade Minister in the previous Indian Administration told me when we met. If we can get that issue unblocked and make progress on non-agricultural access, we can, if everything goes well, get the broad frameworks for discussion agreed in about July. That will give us a period for the technocrats—the technicians—to consider the detail, so that after the various elections and the appointment of a new EU commissioner, we can hope to reach a political agreement early next year.

    Call Centres
    Roger Casale: If she will make a statement on changes in employment levels in the UK call centre sector in the last three years.[177765]
    The Minister for Trade and Investment (Mr. Mike O'Brien): The call centre industry is enormously important, and the recently published DTI study on the UK contact centre industry found that employment in the industry grew by nearly 15 per cent. from 2001 to 2003. It forecasts that the industry will continue to grow and could directly employ more than 1 million people by 2007.
    Roger Casale: I thank my hon. Friend for that reply. Of course, call centres are a very competitive part of the British economy, but there are fears that jobs could be lost overseas. In that context, surely the best thing that the Government can do to help people in the call centre industry, as in other parts of the economy, is to continue to ensure that individuals working in those industries have the opportunity to get the skills that they need to adapt to change; that firms enjoy the most competitive fiscal environment in Europe, which we have under this Government; and, above all, that Britain continues to enjoy the growth in jobs and prosperity on which all our futures depend.
    Mr. O'Brien: I agree with my hon. Friend; he is exactly right. The flight of jobs overseas is not inevitable. The UK has an absolute advantage in a range of things, certainly including call centres, given its cultural fit with its customers and an enormous pool of contact centre expertise and knowledge. However, the industry must move up the value chain, competing on service quality and the value added, not on price. We are in the business not of trying to pay people low wages but of getting the quality up and making sure that we provide a better product. That will enable us to be competitive.
    My hon. Friend is entirely right. The Government's record of getting the basis of our economy right and of providing the best period of growth and prosperity that this country appears to have ever known is the basis on which we can look forward with some optimism to the future not only of the call centre and contact centre industry, but the whole of our industry.

  MINISTER FOR WOMEN
  The Minister was asked—
  MINISTER FOR WOMEN

    Equality and Human Rights Commission
    Vera Baird: If she will make a statement on progress towards a commission for equality and human rights. [177772]
    The Deputy Minister for Women and Equality (Jacqui Smith): We believe that a single commission for equality and human rights is the best way to contribute to our vision of a fair, prosperous and cohesive society. We published the White Paper "Fairness for All: A New Commission for Equality and Human Rights" on 12 May, setting out details of the new commission. We will be consulting on it until 6 August.
    Vera Baird: I am very grateful for that reply. The White Paper is extremely welcome—in particular, for its expressed intention to take concrete steps towards implementing the Government's long-standing commitment on a gender duty. Does my right hon. Friend expect that, in due course, that gender duty will be included in the statute that will set up the commission?
    Jacqui Smith: My hon. and learned Friend raises a very important point about public duties. Earlier, in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, East (Keith Vaz), I outlined some of the new powers that the commission will have. It will have the important role of monitoring and ensuring that the public duties already existing for race are applied in respect of disability and gender. Frankly, the point at which we legislate for the gender duty depends on the progress that we can make in designing the duty to ensure that it makes a difference in developing better, more accessible and more responsive public services without a heavy bureaucratic burden.
    I assure my hon. and learned Friend that we have now significantly stepped up activity. The Equal Opportunities Commission is engaged in that design work, and officials from across government have met. I am very confident that we will make good progress.
    Mr. Harry Barnes: Whatever the pros and cons of an overall equality commission involving disability, race and gender, the fact is that such a commission is off the ground and developing in Northern Ireland, because that was part of the Belfast agreement. What has been learned from developments in Northern Ireland?
    Jacqui Smith: My hon. Friend is right. We need to learn not only from Northern Ireland but more broadly, not least because there were particular circumstances in Northern Ireland that necessitated the development of the approach taken there. Part of the reason for the consultation process and for the process that we engaged in up to the publication of the White Paper, which brought together a taskforce of stakeholders from business and the different equality groups to consider how best to set up the commission, was to

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    ensure that we learned the best lessons, that we took the best from the existing arrangements and that we came out at the end with something more effective than we have at the moment for embedding equality and diversity and for tackling discrimination where it exists.
    Miss Anne Begg: I am sure that the Minister will be aware that when a single equality commission was first proposed, many disabled people were concerned that disability would lose some of its impact, especially because the Disability Rights Commission is still a relatively new commission. Many of these fears have been addressed with the guaranteed place for a disabled person on the board of the proposed commission for equality and human rights and the provision for a separate committee that would have policy-making powers. However, the concern remains that there will be less focus on disability, so can the Minister assure people in the disabled community that that will not happen and that work will go on to introduce a single equality Act? That is also important in underpinning the work of any single equality commission.
    Jacqui Smith: As I have spelt out in response to other questions, disability stakeholders have much to gain from an organisation that is able to provide a much better service to employers and to service providers. Because of the way in which we have set up a disability commission, which my hon. Friend mentioned, with specific expertise on some of the areas of disability legislation such as, in particular, the idea of reasonable adjustment, we shall ensure that that expertise is also fed into the commission. The benefits for disabled people of having a commission that will enable them to see also the different elements of their identity and the different challenges faced by, for example, a black disabled person or an older disabled person will ensure that we end up with something that is both more effective for disabled people across the piece as well as for all the other stakeholders for whom the commission will play a very important role.

    Women's Entrepreneurship
    Ms Meg Munn: What progress has been made on the strategic framework for women's entrepreneurship launched in May 2003; and if she will make a statement. [177773]
    The Minister for Women and Equality (Ms Patricia Hewitt): I am glad to say that all nine English regions and all 45 business link operators have set targets to increase the number of women starting their own businesses, and to ensure that they give them proper support to do so. In the past year, according to the labour force survey, the number of self-employed women in the UK has risen. The total number of businesses started and run by women now amounts to almost 1 million.
    Ms Munn: I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. The other evening I attended the launch of the British Chambers of Commerce report entitled "Achieving the Vision: Female Entrepreneurship" with
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    my right hon. Friend the Deputy Minister for Women and Equality. I met many truly inspirational women who were being very successful in their businesses.
    How do we get that enthusiasm and obvious real experience of running businesses across to other women who might want to start up a business? Secondly, what more can my right hon. Friend do—
    Mr. Speaker: Order. It is only firstly.
    Ms Hewitt: My hon. Friend raises an extremely interesting point. Like her and my right hon. Friend, I welcome the report that the British Chambers of Commerce, in association with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor, published a couple of days ago. It shows that although the United Kingdom still has a lower level of business start-up among women than many other developed economies, things are improving. In 2003, women were more than twice as likely to see good opportunities for themselves to start a business compared with 2001. One of the best things that we can do is to continue supporting organisations such as Prowess—the women's entrepreneurship network—that are helping to bring together women
    who have already successfully started a business with other women who might have an interest in doing so. That is one of the most successful ways of inspiring other women and giving them confidence, as a result of practical support, to move into self-employment and entrepreneurship.
    Mrs. Eleanor Laing: I welcome what the Secretary of State has said and I share her praise of the British Chambers of Commerce, but does she not realise that women entrepreneurs, like all other entrepreneurs, are completely fed up with the red tape of Labour's nanny state? What they really want and need is choice, freedom and flexibility in their businesses and in their working lives, which is, of course, what a Conservative Government will give them.
    Ms Hewitt: The hon. Lady knows that this Government made pioneering steps to give women in employment much greater choice and control over their working hours and introduced far better rights for both paid and unpaid maternity and parental leave—things that I recall the Conservative party opposed.
    I remind the hon. Lady that according to the most recent surveys undertaken by Barclays bank, in 2003 no fewer than 465,000 new businesses were set up in Britain. That is an increase of 19 per cent. over the previous year. The Government have presided over the most successful record of economic growth, with nearly 2 million more people in employment. I am delighted to say that we are also supporting and encouraging far more people to enter into self-employment and to set up the new businesses that will generate more new jobs in future.
    Mr. Peter Pike: Does my right hon. Friend agree that in the north-west women entrepreneurs can play a vital role in improving the economy? In call centres, it has been shown that they have done extremely well in that role.
    Ms Hewitt: I warmly welcome my hon. Friend's contribution to Questions to the Minister for Women.

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    He is absolutely right—together with the regional development agency, employers and unions in the north-west, we are funding a further project to ensure that our call centres remain competitive in the north-west and continue to create good jobs for my hon. Friend's constituents and other people in the region.
    Sandra Gidley: I welcome that improvement, but the Minister is probably aware that New Business recently pointed out that there are still significant barriers to overcome and stressed the important link with vocational training. The Equal Opportunities Commission recently highlighted the skills gap or divide and suggested that encouraging women to take up modern apprenticeships was a way forward. Has the Minister seen the Learn Direct website? The first picture one sees is a young man saying "Do you want to work with cars", followed by a chunky male chef and a hunky male fitness instructor. The unwritten question is clearly "Do you want to be a man?" Will she take a look at such sites and work with organisations to devise suitable strategies so that
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    women are not immediately put off when they first access a website to try to find out more about the scheme?
    Malcolm Bruce: My hon. Friend obviously enjoyed that website.
    Ms Hewitt: With that encouragement, I shall go straight back to my internet connection and take a close look at the Learn Direct website. I assure the hon. Lady that we are working closely with the Equal Opportunities Commission, Learn Direct, the Learning and Skills Council and so on to encourage far more women to come into a well-paid and interesting range of jobs, including plumbing and engineering, which are not only highly paid but, unfortunately, male-dominated. By doing so not only can we make it much easier for women to take up well-paid jobs and set up extremely successful businesses but we can help to close the skills gap. I shall certainly, make sure that Learn Direct is properly on board for that project, and shows women the full range of careers and business opportunities available to them.

Business of the House
12.31 pm
Mr. Oliver Heald: Will the Leader of the House give us the business for next week?
The Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Peter Hain): The business for next week will be as follows:
MONDAY 14 JUNE—Second Reading of the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill [Lords ].
TUESDAY 15—Opposition half-day [10th Allotted Day] (Part Two). There will be a half-day debate entitled "The Failure of the Government's Transport Policy" on an Opposition motion, followed by motion to approve European documents relating to the financial perspective and to the structural and cohesion funds.
WEDNESDAY 16 JUNE—A debate on European affairs
on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
THURSDAY 17 JUNE—Second Reading of the Public Audit (Wales) Bill [Lords ].
FRIDAY 18 JUNE—Private Members Bills.
The provisional business for the following week will be:
MONDAY 21 JUNE—Second Reading of the Health Protection Agency Bill [Lords ].
TUESDAY 22 JUNE—Opposition day [13th Allotted Day]. There will be a debate on an Opposition motion. Subject to be announced.
WEDNESDAY 23 JUNE—Consideration of Lords amendments, followed by a debate on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.
THURSDAY 24 JUNE—Estimates, [3rd Allotted Day]. Subject to be confirmed by the Liaison Committee
FRIDAY 25 JUNE—The House will not be sitting.
Mr. Heald: I thank the Leader of the House for the business. Can he give us any news about when the debates promised by the Foreign Secretary on Zimbabwe and Iraq will take place?
I pay tribute to the electoral registration officers who are working hard today, and in difficult circumstances this year, to ensure that the elections take place. The Leader of the House will know of the widespread concern in the House and the country about the fraud, intimidation and sheer incompetence that has marred the postal ballot for the European elections. Police are apparently investigating a raft of complaints, which range from heads of families filling in ballot papers for the whole family; ballot papers being collected door-to-door by Labour party officials in breach of guidelines from the Electoral Commission; a candidate alleged to have collected ballot papers for an entire family and claiming that he had done nothing wrong; one in seven people not receiving a ballot paper at all while others received more than one; and an employer threatening to sack staff unless they voted Labour. The Leader of the House was warned in advance that this was folly, particularly with so little time to prepare. We need an urgent statement setting out how the Government intend to address what is being called the fistful of ballots fiasco and how many legal challenges are likely to follow. Before he says that more people have voted,
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will he admit that the effect of electoral fraud is always that there are more votes in the ballot box? But we want them to be genuine.
May we have two statements about false figures put out by the Government? First, can we expect an oral statement of apology and correction from the Minister with responsibility for the armed forces? He told us he had not received reports from international bodies about abuse in Iraq, but then he was forced to change his tune. He told us that there were only 33 cases of brutality being investigated, but it now turns out that there were 75. Is it not wrong to correct such information in a written statement? Should he not come to the House and face the music?
Secondly, a senior Home Office official told Swansea Crown court yesterday that immigration could be six times higher than official figures and that there were no serious removal arrangements for illegal immigrants. May we have an urgent statement on the true position and an explanation of why Ministers have not been frank with the House? Like the country, we have been let down by Labour.
Mr. Hain: On the question of the debates on Zimbabwe and Iraq, it is intended to have a debate on Zimbabwe within the next few weeks. As soon as I am able to give a date to the hon. Gentleman and to the House, I will do so. We have made it clear that that is the Government's intention. On Iraq, when the time is right, yes, there will be a debate. As the hon. Gentleman knows, and I am sure he and the whole House will welcome it, the United Nations Security Council resolution was unanimously adopted, providing for the transfer of sovereignty to a new Iraqi Administration. They will take office at the end of the month and there will thereafter be an opportunity to assess the success of the Government's policy on Iraq, which has been to ensure that Iraq was liberated from Saddam Hussein and that the Iraqis can take control of their own destiny, which Saddam's murderous and dictatorial rule had prevented them from doing.
On postal voting, I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to electoral registration officers. Yes, a series of allegations has been made and that is being investigated, in some cases by the police. If any fraud is discovered, it will be dealt with in the appropriate way. As a politician, the hon. Gentleman knows that it is not the case that elections under the previous system were perfectly in order in every respect. He knows from Northern Ireland, for example, that there was a regular slogan, "Vote early, vote often". He knows that there were other instances of postal vote fraud and electoral fraud. Indeed—[Interruption.]
Mr. Speaker: Order. Let the Leader of the House reply.
Mr. Hain: Where there are instances of malpractice or possibly fraud, they should be dealt with harshly. There is no question about that. However, the idea that all elections in the past have been run perfectly and that unscrupulous individuals or politicians did not seek to exploit them is an illusion. I remember more than 30 years ago a Liberal by-election organiser saying proudly that he had voted in every Liberal by-election. I remember many cases of people alleging various kinds

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of fraud in postal votes. In some ways, it is easier to go into a polling station and impersonate someone when one does not have to sign and have that signature witnessed than it could be under a postal votes procedure.
Fourteen million people have been given the opportunity to vote from the comfort of their homes in the biggest exercise in spreading democratic opportunity anywhere in Britain—and probably anywhere in the world—in a series of pilots that we need to assess. We also need to find out whether any mistakes or procedures need to be rectified. I should have thought that every good democrat would welcome the possibility that turnout will be significantly up on the 1999 European elections. What are the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats afraid of? Are they afraid of a high turnout? That is the issue; they are afraid of a high turnout. Although we must put right any malpractice, the increase in democratic participation is welcome. The Electoral Commission says that there is no reason to believe that the pilot schemes have
"resulted in an increase in the incidence of electoral offences."
On the armed forces, the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald) knows that the Minister of State, Ministry of Defence has set out the facts, corrected the record and explained what happened. Amnesty International welcomes that statement and the increased investigations as a result of the verification exercise conducted by the Royal Military Police and the Ministry of Defence. The record of investigations has been corrected and no attempt has been made to hide that correction. The synthetic anger of the hon. Member for North-East Hertfordshire is just that—synthetic.
An immigration official has made an allegation. The truth is that asylum applications have halved in recent months under this Government's policy of cracking down on illegal human trafficking. The number of returnees—removal—has doubled, which shows that the Government's successful policies are enabling us to take control of that worldwide phenonmenon. When we introduced those policies, the Conservatives often opposed them in this House and, in particular, in the House of Lords.
Malcolm Bruce: In the light of the changeover, does the Leader of the House think that the time for a debate on Iraq rapidly approaches? We must understand both the future deployment of British troops and the engagement of British agencies.
The Leader of the House's reply on postal votes suggests that a debate is required. He was anxious to debate the matter himself, so he should accept that a debate is required.
The Government should consider calling a full-day debate on the environment. Such debates have mostly been left to Liberal Democrats and Back Benchers. The Government claim that the environment is a major feature of their policy, so they should call a debate to explain how they intend to meet their own targets.
In advance of next week's formation of the all-party group on deafness, will the Leader of the House ask the Department for Work and Pensions to make a statement to the House on Government action to
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promote the recognition of sign language? The Council of Europe has apparently asked the Government to organise such work—the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle) is on the Front Bench, and I appreciate her involvement. I understand that the Government will hold a conference on the matter in conjunction with the Council of Europe and it would be helpful if a statement were made to the House and further information were given about what I hope is a positive Government initiative.
Finally, I ask the Leader of the House whether the Government will indicate their policy on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development review of corruption in British business worldwide, because French inspectors will carry out the peer review in this country during the next few weeks. The Government have indicated that they favour legislation to implement the UN charter on corruption, but they have not said when that will happen and have not introduced any draft proposals. Will the Government come to the House soon and explain the exact policy to be implemented to deal with our obligations to stamp out corruption?
Mr. Hain: On deafness and sign language, I pay tribute to the work of the hon. Gentleman, who pays close attention to and raises that matter in the House. I will certainly draw his point to the attention of the Secretary of State and examine the extent to which we can meet his wishes.
On the OECD review of corruption in business, the hon. Gentleman knows and probably applauds the fact that British business is renowned internationally for being relatively, if not entirely, free of corruption compared with other businesses worldwide. Nevertheless, the issue must be dealt with and the Secretary of State is e twinning it closely.
The environment is regularly debated in both Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs questions and other debates. The Secretary of State will obviously want to consider the opportunities to hold a wider debate, but the hon. Gentleman can apply for one in the normal way.
I have indicated that a time will come when it will be proper for the House to debate Iraq and the Government are considering that point. However, the United Nations Security Council has just agreed a resolution and the transfer of power is only weeks away. The House will have an opportunity to take stock of the policy and we are bearing that point in mind.
Let me return to the subject of postal votes. The Government will assess the whole experiment and the results will be reported to the House. It was an experiment—legislation was introduced to allow pilots in four English regions. What is exciting is that 14 million voters have been given an opportunity to vote from the comfort of their own homes, and more and more are doing so. It appears that 2 million more are voting in this way than voted under the old system in 1999.

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I must emphasise that the number of complaints and instances of malpractice is tiny compared with that figure of 14 million—the number of people voting from the safety and comfort of their own homes, or having the opportunity to do so. According to the Electoral Commission, there have been few cases of fraud or malpractice; and, incidentally, allegations have been made about every party in that regard.
I stress that there will be a proper assessment. That was the whole point of introducing pilots rather than setting new legislation in concrete. We wanted to see what lessons could be learned. I find it interesting that it is the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats who want to deny people that opportunity to vote from the comfort of their own homes, when it could result in a higher turnout and therefore a better quality of democracy.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: Is my right hon. Friend aware that among a few complaints received by some Labour Members is one about the requirement for a witness to signatures in the postal ballot pilot scheme? Is it true that that requirement was included because the Tories and the Liberals ganged up to force people signing to obtain a witness?
The Leader of the House has given us the agenda for the next 10 days. That takes us almost to July. Will he confirm that at some point in July he will announce the introduction of a fox hunting ban? Time is running out.
Mr. Hain: My hon. Friend is absolutely right about postal voting. There was a Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition. [HON. MEMBERS: "Good."] Ah! There we have the platform for the next general election: a Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition, with the Liberal Democrats moving to the right as they have done consistently over recent months. Those two parties united in insisting on a witness to the signatures, which has caused some complications.
Mr. Eric Forth: Why?
Mr. Hain: Anyone who has filled in the forms knows that to be the case. We will obviously want to review the exact circumstances, and any lessons to be learned.
As I have already made clear to my hon. Friend, who has played an honourable role in regard to the fox hunting issue for many years, the Government intend to resolve the matter. I have nothing to add to that and I have no timing announcements to make at this stage.
Sir Nicholas Winterton: On Monday evening the Deputy Leader of the House gave me, and the House as a whole, a firm assurance that two Procedure Committee reports would be debated on the Floor of the House before the summer recess. They are the report on Sessional Orders and resolutions—which is widely supported not only by Members but, if I may say so, by you, Mr. Speaker, and the House authorities—and the report on procedures for debate, private Members' Bills and the role of the Speaker. Will the Leader of the House confirm that they will both be debated here before the recess?
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May I also support my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Hertfordshire (Mr. Heald), the shadow Leader of the House, in requesting a debate on Zimbabwe—again, before the summer recess? The situation in that country continues to deteriorate. The dictator, Mr. Mugabe, has apparently announced that all land in Zimbabwe will be nationalised and we are deeply worried about those developments. May we please have a debate at an early date?
Mr. Hain: On the question of Zimbabwe—the hon. Gentleman has consistently raised it and properly so, given the dreadful state of that country under Robert Mugabe's regime—we intend to have a debate within the next few weeks. As soon as I am able to announce the date, I will do so. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman encouragement. The Deputy Leader of the House has made the situation clear regarding the two reports to which the hon. Gentleman refers. There is no question but that they will have to be debated because they involve issues that are very important to the House.
Mr. Eric Joyce: My right hon. Friend might be aware that the majority of Scots—broad-minded lot that we are—will be supporting England during the European championships. We are more broad-minded than the Scottish premier league, which, it seems, is about to deny Inverness Caledonian Thistle access to the premier league, even though it won the Scottish first division. Indeed, it did the same to Falkirk FC last year. Will he find time for a debate on this important subject, given that this looks suspiciously like uncompetitive practices by the Scottish premier league?
Mr. Hain: I am very concerned to hear about that. The Scottish Parliament is commissioning an inquiry into Scottish football, and I am sure that close notice will be taken of my hon. Friend's points. As a Welsh MP, may I join him and other Scots Members of Parliament in wishing England all the best for the European championships? I hope that the England team will be putting crosses into the box on Sunday, just as voters will be putting crosses into the box for Labour in the European elections.
Mr. Michael Jack: My postbag tells me that aerospace workers in my constituency continue to be worried at the lack of an agreement to tranche 2 of the Eurofighter programme. May I ask the Leader of the House for an urgent statement by the Secretary of State for Defence on exactly what is going on and why no decision has been reached? A year ago, an agreement was signed that enabled the RAF to take into service the first aircraft in tranche 1. We have now had a year for this matter to be resolved and there is considerable anxiety among the aerospace workers. I hope that an early statement will put their minds at rest.
Mr. Hain: I know that the Secretary of State for Defence is very mindful of the right hon. Gentleman's constituency interests in this respect, which he raises properly and with persuasion. As he knows, Defence questions will take place on Monday week-21 June—so he will be able to question the Secretary of State then.
Mr. Tony McWalter: One cannot help thinking that the rather thin programme that the Leader of the House has announced gives the Government scope to be imaginative. Perhaps he might think about having a debate on the 40,000 civil servants who form part of the slimming down operation. One rumour going around is that a slimmed-down Department commissioning Government contracts will, as a result, have less scope to place contracts with small businesses. I am sure that my right hon. Friend will agree that that would be a most lamentable consequence of such a decision.
Mr. Hain: I am deeply pained by my hon. Friend's suggestion that it is a thin business programme; it is full of meat and important business—apart from the Opposition debates, of course. On civil servant numbers, he will doubtless want to endorse the Government's strategy of focusing public money on front-line services and of using the advantages of new technology and modern efficiency measures, many of which operate in the private sector, to reduce back-room staff and to allow individuals to transfer their skills and to take up other job opportunities, or to take early retirement if they so wish. I am sure that there is no intention that small businesses should lose out, and I would be very disturbed to discover that that was the consequence. Indeed, contracts to businesses large, medium or small should be applied on a uniform basis, according to whether or not they are competitive.
Mr. Eric Forth: Given the recently expressed worries about obesity, is the Leader of the House concerned that he is effectively preventing 14 million people even from walking to their local polling stations? He did say a moment ago that a full assessment is going to be made of the postal voting fiasco, and he mentioned a report back to the House. Will he give us an absolute undertaking that there will be a proper debate in this House on postal voting, and that such voting will not be extended—or, indeed, continued—until both Houses of Parliament express their full satisfaction with every detail of the postal voting regime? We cannot have this going ahead with people being unable to trust the process, and we cannot regard an increase in turnout, if it is based on fraud, as acceptable.
Mr. Hain: I strongly dispute the idea that an increase in turnout would be based on fraud. The instances of malpractice are tiny in comparison with giving 14 million people the chance to vote from the comfort of their homes. I would have thought that the right hon. Gentleman, as a parliamentary champion, would be the first in line to say that he is very worried about the consistent decrease in election turnouts since the second world war. If, as previous pilots have shown, turnout has been increased—I am sure that, by the end of today, we will know that it has increased—more people will have participated in democracy, and more people participating makes our democratic system much more legitimate. That should be seen in perspective and set against the small number of instances of malpractice that have been uncovered, and which involved officials and members of all parties.
On the right hon. Gentleman's substantive point, he knows that this legislation applies to today alone and expires after that. It is pilot legislation, and there will of
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course be an opportunity to debate it fully in the House after the Government, the Electoral Commission and others have made a proper assessment. There is no intention to bounce anybody into this. The intention was to improve the quality of our democracy and its legitimacy by increasing turnout. If the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats are content with the remorseless decline in turnout, that says something about their view of democracy.
Ms Meg Munn: May I add my voice to the demand for a debate on the real benefits of all-postal ballots? Not only were they welcomed by many of my constituents on the doorstep, many of whom would otherwise have been unable to vote, the 41 per cent turnout reported in Sheffield on Wednesday constituted a significant increase that demonstrates that the Opposition's claims are completely false.
Mr. Hain: I could not agree more with my hon. Friend. Indeed, I was in Sheffield last Thursday campaigning in the elections, and the turnout is very encouraging. It is only the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who are frightened of democracy and the ballot box. Labour is proud to be a party that wants more and more people to vote, regardless of which party they vote for, although we would of course prefer that they voted Labour. Many will have the opportunity to do so as a result of the extra postal votes.
Mr. Alistair Carmichael: Could time be made available for a Minister from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to explain to the House what it is doing actively to support the case of Kenny Richey, the Scotsman on death row in Ohio, and in particular why it has yet to get around to lodging an amicus brief? There is a new urgency in Mr. Richey's case, as the campaign suffered a severe setback yesterday when the Ohio supreme court refused to rule on a point of law referred to it by the sixth circuit court of appeal.
We no longer have, an automatic right to lodge an amicus brief, but of course application can be made to the court to do so. If the FCO were to take that opportunity, it would send the clear signal that people in this country are not prepared to sit back and see the execution of one of our citizens, whose case has been described by Amnesty International as one of the most compelling cases of it innocence that it has come across.
Mr. Hain: The hon. Gentleman has made the point very eloquently and with passion, and I know that the Foreign Secretary will want to take close note of it. Because of the urgency of the situation, I shall ensure that the Foreign Secretary's office is notified as soon as possible.
Keith Vaz: May we have a debate on the use of school facilities after school hours? A constituent of mine, Mr. Rahman, wants to teach the Koran to Muslim children within the mainstream setting of a primary school after school hours, but he has not been allowed access to Northfield House primary school. He is asking not for a separate school but to be able to use such facilities to give something to the local community that our mainstream education system does

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not provide. May we have a debate on this issue, which affects not just the Muslim community but other communities that might want to teach their religion in such settings?
Mr. Hain: I know that it is very, important, both for the Muslim community itself and for the wider community, to ensure that young people have the opportunity to learn about the Koran and the Muslim faith in a proper environment. I know that many imams have also strongly taken that view so it is a matter that I am sure the Secretary of State for Education and Skills and the Home Secretary will want to examine closely, bearing in mind the important point that my hon. Friend has raised.
Mr. John Wilkinson: Will the Leader of the House grant a debate on the way in which the Government are mortgaging the country's future through the abuse of the private finance initiative? Would the Chancellor or the Exchequer wind up such a debate by explaining how in this financial year he is going to sign off 75 PFIs at a cost of £7.7 billion, which did not appear in the Budget statement or the documents attached thereto? Could the Chancellor also explain at the end of such a debate, how the £40 billion worth of PFIs already approved since 1997 will be financed without increases in taxation?
Mr. Hain: The point of the private finance initiative is to ensure that the private sector, including private sector capital and expertise, is brought in to enable us to construct many more new hospitals, schools and other public sector projects than were ever contemplated under the Conservatives or would have been possible had we relied entirely on the public purse to generate that finance. That is the point. We keep the procedures under constant review, but I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would welcome the fact that there are more new hospitals being built, more new schools opened, and more new construction projects going ahead as a result of this extra facility.
Mr. Gordon Prentice: May I return to the allegations of cheating and stealing votes? If the Electoral Commission finds that the election has been seriously contaminated, will there be an opportunity for a rethink on the decision already taken to have all-postal voting in the regional referendums to set up assemblies, which are coming up in October'?
Mr. Hain: I make the same point to my hon. Friend as I did to Conservative and Liberal Democrat Members. I am sure that my hon. Friend, as a good democrat, would want more people in his constituency to have the opportunity to vote today and in the forthcoming regional assembly elections. We need as high a turnout as possible in all our elections, particularly in referendums. That is self-evidently desirable.
Dr. Julian Lewis: I assure the Leader of the House that Conservative Members want all their constituents to have the opportunity to vote, but we want each to have the opportunity to cast his or her own vote, not other people's votes en masse on their behalf. Does he accept that, when he accuses us of
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being insufficiently democratic, the sort of democracy that he may be talking about is the democracy of the former German Democratic Republic, which used to have turnouts of 98 per cent. in elections? Will the Leader of the House deal with the fact that a journalist reported last Sunday that he was able individually to obtain 36 postal votes? Of course the turnout will go up if he chooses to use those 36 votes, and if he had not disclosed them, he could have used them.
Mr. Hain: The hon. Gentleman's comparison with the German situation is, frankly, insulting drivel. On the question of postal votes, he is making a case against such votes under the old system. He is making a case against postal votes of any kind at all, ever. That is what he is saying. We know that there were instances of fraud under the previous system. We know that that is the case. That is why extra procedures were put in place. The concerted attempt by the Conservatives—the hon. Gentleman, I am sorry to say, included—to derail the opportunity for at least 2 million more people than before to vote from the comfort of their own homes means that the Conservatives are scared of democracy. They are scared of a high turnout, and the question is why.
Mr. Clive Betts: May I add to the calls for a full debate on all-postal ballots after today's elections so that we can have the opportunity to comment on the efficient and effective way in which the ballots have been distributed in places such as Sheffield? In many parts of the country, again including Sheffield, there have not been widespread allegations of fraud or malpractice. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner) has already pointed out, the one point of confusion causing concern on the doorstep is the requirement for a witness statement. That was brought in at the last minute on the insistence of the Tories and the Lib Dems and against the advice of the Electoral Commission, which said that it would add nothing to ballot security. It could lead to thousands of ballot papers being disqualified, which shows that Government Members should be congratulated on enhancing democracy and that Opposition Members should accept the responsibility for the adverse consequences for democracy of their actions.
Mr. Hain: I fully agree with my hon. Friend. Arguably, if there were any opportunities for malpractice, they would be increased by the need to have the witness statement. That is precisely what we argued, supported by the Electoral Commission, against the wrecking tactics of the Tory-Lib Dem coalition on this matter.
Mr. Graham Brady: As late as yesterday, the borough of Trafford reissued 483 ballot papers. For most of the people concerned, postal voting is simply out of the question. Will the Government assess how many tens of thousands of people in the northern regions and the east midlands will be deprived of the right to vote by the Government's postal vote shambles? I also ask the Government to reflect on the real evidence about turnout in postal voting. My borough has had previous

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pilots for postal voting. A couple of years ago, the turnout in the borough of Trafford went up from 35 per cent. to 52 per cent. The indications are that, this year, it has come down again to closer to 40 per cent. Could it be that people vote when the system is new, but when it settles down, the turnout decreases, or is it that combining the ballot with the European elections has depressed interest in the local elections?
Mr. Hain: There is a whole series of questions there. It is possible that after the novelty of postal voting has worn off, the turnout may decline. Who knows? That is exactly why we want to assess how the scheme has gone and what lessons can be learned. It is also why the legislation was time limited to a series of pilots. I am advised that in Trafford, the hon. Gentleman's area, where a pilot was conducted a year or so ago, the Conservatives actually benefited from it. That shows just how broad-minded the Labour Government are in favouring democracy over party interest and in wanting a high turnout rather than a low turnout, disengagement, apathy and alienation, from which the right wing has always benefited in politics across the world. Fundamentally, Labour is on the side of democracy and the Conservatives have always, historically, been opposed to the extension of democracy.
Mr. Harry Barnes: And now for something completely different. Has my right hon. Friend seen early-day motion 1259 on the treatment of victims of crime?
[That this House recognises that the Police and the Crown Prosecution Service are expected to act under the provisions of the Victims Charter in providing explanations to those claiming to be victims of crimes whenever it is decided that these bodies will not instigate criminal charges or will drop or reduce such charges; is deeply concerned that Government departments and agencies invariably avoid giving such explanations by claiming legal professional privilege under the Code of Practice on Access to Government Information in similar cases where they are legislatively responsible for exercising the prosecuting role; believes that such blanket exemptions from acting on the provisions of the Victims Charter should be ended forthwith and that all of those who have been denied explanations for non-prosecutions by Government departments and agencies since the update of the Victims Charter in 1996 should retrospectively be supplied with these; and further believes that relevant Government amendments to the Data Protection Act 1998 and the Freedom of Information Act 2000 should urgently be placed before this House to ensure that this matter can be rectified in law.]
If the police or the Crown Prosecution Service do not follow up a prosecution on behalf of the victim, they are obliged by the victim's charter, as amended in 1996, to provide an explanation as to why not. If a Government Department with the responsibility for prosecution refuses to do so, it uses legal and professional privilege in order to escape that responsibility. If the code of practice on access to Government information was adjusted, it would end that anomaly. It would also save
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the House's time if that were done quickly; otherwise, my alternative avenue is to table an amendment to the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Bill on Monday.
Mr. Hain: I am not sure about that being something completely different. If someone's ballot paper has been stolen by a Liberal Democrat, he is a victim of crime. The issue that my hon. Friend has raised is a complicated one. We do not believe that there is a need to amend the legislation. Balancing public rights of access to information with the need to preserve confidentiality in certain circumstances requires careful judgment, and we are confident that the public interest in those areas is protected under existing law. My hon. Friend will have the opportunity to make his case when the moment comes.
Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire) (Con): I think that I ought to be asking for a debate on the Leader of the House's grasp of history and logic. In respect of his answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Altrincham and Sale, West (Mr. Brady), he first ignored the fact that it was Benjamin Disraeli who piloted through one of the biggest expansions of the franchise in this country. Secondly, he said at one stage that postal voting had benefited the Conservatives and then that it always benefited the left. He simply could not make up his mind. Never mind, that is not what I want to ask for. What I want to ask for is an urgent debate on postal voting, which we need to inform the consideration of the pilot schemes by the Government and the Electoral Commission. The debate should come before the Government produce a report, not after. We are all in favour of increasing election turnouts. Declining turnouts are a terrifying wake-up call to politicians that we are failing to engage the people. Raising turnouts does not depend on gimmicks such as all-postal voting, text voting or e-voting. The secret is to re-engage with the public.
Mr. Hain: I can applaud the hon. Gentleman's sentiment. At least, a Conservative Member is saying for the first time that a higher turnout is desirable. That is a good thing, but in the modern age, people's lifestyles, aspirations and behaviour are very different from what they were the past. There has been a long decline in election turnouts, under Governments of all parties. It is right to look at all sorts of different ways to encourage turnout. In the future, that may involve the use of information technology or greater postal voting. All such possibilities should be considered, but the hon. Gentleman should know that the legislation specifically provides for an assessment of the pilots, so that the lessons can be learned for the future. That assessment will be carried out.
Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown: My question is more of the same, I am afraid, Mr. Speaker. The Leader of the House has powerfully advocated the case for postal voting. We all want higher turnouts, so will he say when he intends to schedule a debate on the subject? We want the postal voting system to work properly, and with integrity. We also want it to be evaluated properly. My information is that in this election, for the first time ever, spoiled ballots will be counted as part of the turnout. There may be a case for

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that but, if we are to evaluate properly increased turnouts as a result of postal voting, we need to be fully informed of the facts. I should be grateful if the right hon. Gentleman will say when a proper debate on this matter is likely to be forthcoming.
Mr. Hain: I am intrigued by the way in which Conservative Members are seeking to rubbish the results of these elections in advance, as though they have something to fear. That is very interesting indeed. As I have made clear all along, all the aspects of the new procedure, including the one mentioned by the hon. Gentleman, will be evaluated properly, by the Electoral Commission and other bodies. There is no intention to string that evaluation out, as we want to draw lessons for the future.
However, I want to return to the historical point made earlier. It was the labour movement that joined the Chartists in pressing for universal suffrage, and it was the labour and trade union movement that pressed for women's right to vote—against the consistent opposition of the Conservatives and right-wing forces. That is our history: the Opposition's history is very different.
Paul Holmes: Will the Leader of the House clarify his earlier comments about the reintroduction of the Hunting Bill? The Government have made various apparent commitments in that regard, but they chose their words very carefully—as the right hon. Gentleman did—by talking about "resolving" the issue. The House has repeatedly voted, by large majorities, to ban that cruel sport, and all legitimate opinion polls show that about 70 per cent. of the public agree that the sport is cruel and should be abolished. Will the right hon. Gentleman confirm that the Hunting Bill will be reintroduced in the six weeks left before the summer recess? Will he confirm that the rules and procedures of the House, and the Parliament Act 1911, mean that the Bill could pass through the House in one day, if it is reintroduced before the summer recess? If the other place rejected it, could not the Bill still be law by the autumn of this year? Alternatively, when the Government talk about resolving the issue, does that mean letting it drift into the long grass until after the next general election?
Mr. Hain: The House of Lords sought to long-grass the matter, as the hon. Gentleman knows, by using the Tory-dominated hereditary vote. We are determined to resolve the matter, and we intend to do so.

Disability
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Maria Eagle.]
1.14 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (Maria Eagle): When he stood up in this House on 31 January 1992 to move the Second Reading of his Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, Lord Morris of Manchester—then the MP for Manchester, Wythenshawe, and previously the first ever Minister for Disabled People—posed two questions to the House. As he said, one was moral and the other practical. What sort of society did we want to create? What must we do to create that society?
As the current occupant of the ministerial office that Lord Morris pioneered, I still remind myself of those questions, because I believe that it is important not to lose sight of the main reason for the intensive continuing action in respect of disability civil rights on which this Government embarked from their early days in office.
The main reason for that action is that disabled people in Britain are still not equal. They still have to deal with social exclusion, discrimination and poorer life chances purely because they are disabled.
This is not a minor issue. After all, we are talking about the life chances of almost 10 million of our adult fellow citizens, and of at least 360,000 children. The Government believe that continued inequality and discrimination blight our society as much as the lives of disabled people. Creating a society that values disabled people, enables them to fulfil their potential in life and gives them the right to do so is still a challenge that we, as a society, have not fully met. However, it is one that we, as a Labour Government, are determined to make massive and irreversible progress towards meeting.
Let there be no doubt that that is our aim. The establishment of full civil rights for disabled people is one of the last great causes in the emancipation of people in our time. It is on a par with securing rights for women and ending discrimination on the grounds of race. The emancipation of disabled people is our aim and our vision, and I welcome very much the chance to debate disability civil rights for a full day, on a Government motion, here on the Floor of the House.
I am not the only one who welcomes this opportunity. The Disability Rights Commission, an excellent and effective advocate and champion for the rights of disabled people even though it is only four years old, in its briefing for today's debate said:
"The DRC is pleased that the Government have tabled time for a disability debate."
So the DRC is pleased, but the official Opposition have not welcomed this opportunity. Instead, they have written to me and to my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House to complain. That is typical. In his letter, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) called the timing of the debate a decision of astounding insensitivity to those whom he calls in his letter "people with disabilities". He suggested that Ministers were effectively telling disabled people that they are at the bottom of the Government's list of priorities.

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That is not the case. This debate shows that the Government are interested in the rights of disabled people, and highlights the priority that we attach to establishing and furthering those rights.
Mr. Harry Barnes: Is not today an appropriate day for this debate, given the elections that are taking place? In the past, disabled people have encountered considerable problems with access to polling stations. The postal ballot arrangement has the advantage that it means that there is no distinction between disabled people and other people. However, polling stations are still used in many areas, so the problem of securing proper and full access for disabled people remains. Does my hon. Friend agree that the right to proper access should be established in legislation?
Maria Eagle: I am glad to see my hon. Friend in his place, as he has a fine record of work in ensuring that disabled people can vote, despite the inaccessibility of polling stations and the difficulties encountered in getting to them. Also, he has a fine record as a Back Bencher who has pushed for disability civil rights more widely. Moreover, he was one of the hon. Members in charge of the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, and he fought a very hard and tough battle to get that on to the statute book, at a time in the mid-1990s when the climate was rather colder. I shall say a little more about that later in my speech.
I believe that today is a good day to have this debate, but I acknowledge my hon. Friend's point: many disabled people undoubtedly find postal ballots easier to access, although there are still issues in respect of those who have sensory impairment and who may need further assistance, which is available, in completing ballot forms. Postal balloting and higher awareness among politicians and others in society about the needs of disabled voters mean that we have an opportunity to make voting even easier for those who were excluded in the past.
Paul Holmes: Further to the remarks of the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), will the Minister comment on the number of people who are blind and partially sighted who have complained that the reliance on all-postal ballots makes things more difficult for them? At a polling station, Braille templates are available but are not available at home.
Maria Eagle: There is an issue about accessibility to polling and proper arrangements for disabled people. In the end, the answer is not about whether we have all-postal ballots, but about making arrangements and adjustments to the process that maximise opportunities for disabled people to take part in our democratic process, whatever their impairment. I believe that some of the arrangements made for the elections being held around the country today will assist many disabled people, including those with sensory impairment, because people can get help in their homes, in one-stop shops or in places where people can deliver ballot papers. There are better arrangements now than there
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have ever been for taking into account the needs of disabled people with all types of impairment when it comes to exercising their democratic rights. The disability discrimination Act will place obligations on people and organisations not to discriminate and it will extend further into public life and the political process.
Mr. Tim Boswell: The House will want to move on from consideration of elections only, but before we do, will the Minister reflect on the fact that of the mere dozen or so Members in the Chamber for this extremely important debate, no fewer than six, including me, are from the east midlands, which may be related to the fact that we have no proper election campaign and polling day and can therefore be here to debate the matter? Is that not an example of the effective discrimination that the postal arrangements have brought about?
Maria Eagle: Unusually, I cannot accept what the hon. Gentleman says I often agree with much of what he says when he is in one of his reasonable modes, but I do not agree that the only determinant of whether a Member of the House can be here today is the type of balloting arrangements made for the elections, or even the fact of there being elections.
Tom Levitt: Further to the point made by the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell), may I point out that the House will not have failed to notice that no fewer than five of the six east midlands Members present come from Derbyshire? That is because Derbyshire MPs, Derbyshire county council and the Derbyshire community rate disabled issues very highly and have campaigned on those issues for many years.
Maria Eagle: I am happy to pay tribute to my hon. Friend's record as a campaigner on issues affecting disabled people, but I do not think I should be drawn any further into precisely why anybody is here today. I know why I am here; others can speak for themselves.
I am sorry that the hon. Member for Wycombe, the Opposition spokesman, chose to write in the terms that he did. That was the latest in a long line of misjudgments and pieces of churlish opportunism, not by the hon. Gentleman personally, but by a Conservative party that seems to be making a habit of opportunism these days. Choosing this subject for debate in fact shows the high priority we attach to it, and we are determined to make yet more progress, in marked contrast to the Conservatives as shown by their record in office.
Mr. Paul Goodman: On the point of making progress, can the Minister guarantee that the draft Disability Discrimination Bill, which has just been considered by the Joint Committee, will be introduced by the Government as a full Bill in this Session?
Maria Eagle: I can guarantee that the Government are considering with the utmost seriousness the 75 recommendations made by the Joint Committee and that we will reply and set out our intentions, arising from those recommendations, as soon as possible, and certainly within the time scale set out by the Committee. Further than that I cannot go: the hon. Gentleman

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tempts me to turn myself into a Government business manager or the author of the next Queen's Speech, knowing very well that I am not so elevated as to do either of those things. I assure the House that the Government made a manifesto commitment to introduce the measures set out in the draft Bill during this Parliament, and we consider ourselves fully on course to meet it.
Lord Morris's second question was what we would have to do to create the society set out in his vision. To free disabled people to fulfil their potential in life, we need a framework of comprehensive legal rights, outlawing discrimination and promoting equality. We have to couple that with a comprehensive package of practical assistance to enable disabled people to overcome the barriers that they face in all areas of life and society, and we have to take tho rest of society with us, for only by changing attitudes to disabled people in our society among the non-disabled community will we truly meet in full our vision of achieving equality. Civil rights legislation provides an indispensable framework—a first step—to the transformation of the life chances of disabled people, but though necessary, it is not sufficient.
Vera Baird: My hon. Friend has spoken of the Disability Rights Commission and its excellent work, and I fully agree with her. When she turns to the question of driving the culture forward and of public opinion understanding disability and dealing with it properly, does she have high hopes, as I do, of the commission for equality and human rights announced in a recent White Paper, which will have a special configuration for disabled people's representation, which should give them a great deal of optimism? Does she share my view that that will be a huge help in driving the culture forward?
Maria Eagle: Yes, I do, and so does the Disability Rights Commission, which has welcomed the plans in the White Paper for a commission on equality and human rights. Indeed, the DRC has made it clear that that will be an exciting opportunity to put human rights at the centre of Government activity, which we would all welcome. There is much to be gained from having the commission as a single body, but as yet we have only a White Paper, and we will see what reaction it brings from the rest of the country in due course.
We need practical assistance to remove barriers for disabled people and to transform attitudes in the rest of society if we truly wish to meet our objectives. In employment, for example, there are now more disabled people in employment than ever before—three quarters of a million more than in 1998, some 150,000 of whom were helped by the mainstream new deals and others who were helped by various specialist disability employment programmes.
For the first time, there has been a narrowing of the gap between the employment levels of disabled people and non-disabled people of more than 5 per cent., although it must be admitted that the gap is still too wide. We are implementing the first ever widespread, tailor-made programmes to help people on sickness and incapacity benefits back into work, and we have specialist programmes such as the new deal for disabled people. We have trebled the number of people helped by
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such programmes as access to work and workstep, which provide specific assistance to particular disabled people in work.
We should compare that with the record of the Conservative party, which, during its time in office, trebled the number of people on incapacity benefits and did nothing whatever to help those who were on those benefits, instead simply leaving them to rot, condemning them to a life on benefit. What is the Conservatives' policy now? They would abolish the new deals that have enabled us to cut unemployment to its lowest in 30 years and led to almost 2 million more people being in work. They would slash public spending to 35 per cent. of gross domestic product, or by £35 billion according to the shadow Chancellor—a policy that would undoubtedly hit vulnerable disabled people harder than anyone else. How characteristic all that is of the Conservatives: they wrote disabled people off in the past, and they are set to do it again if they are given the chance.
Recently, the hon. Member for Havant (Mr. Willetts) referred to training as investing in what he called the "empty vessels of these unemployed people" as a waste of public money. That was reported in The Independent on Sunday on 30 May. If that is what he thinks, we can guess where he will be looking for cuts in public spending—disabled people will be the first to feel the effects.
Mr. Goodman: On sensitive language about people with disabilities, did the Minister read the recent article by John Pring in disabilitynow entitled "Anger at Blair bungle"? The Prime Minister was apparently heckled in Downing street by Rachel Hurst, director of Disability Awareness in Action, for repeatedly using the phrase "the disabled." Disabilitynow reports:
"that Disabled People's Minister Maria Eagle was visibly 'squirming' at the PM's repeated blunder."
Maria Eagle: From somebody who is still referring to disabled people as people with disabilities, that is the pot calling the kettle black. Language is undoubtedly important, but the most important issue is the intention behind it. Those who do not deal daily—the hon. Gentleman does—with disabled people should not be condemned out of hand for misuse of language. It should be pointed out to them and then we should hope that the use of language will improve. In the spirit of that stricture, perhaps he would like to reread the letter that he wrote to me and remember that the current correct term according to the disability lobby and disabled people's organisations is disabled people rather than people with disabilities.
Mr. Goodman: On that point, is the Minister aware that there are differences of view among groups that represent disabled people? Some prefer one term, some prefer another. Some argue that the term "disabled people" implies that disabled people, to use the Minister's preferred phrase, are in some sense incapable of functioning fully and properly.
Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman is making the point that I was trying to make: we should not get too hung up about language. Our intentions and how we deal with people should be looked at carefully. That is undoubtedly the case.

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I began my remarks with a reference to Lord Morris of Manchester not by accident, but as a way of acknowledging his remarkable record, characteristic as it is of the great championing of disability civil rights by Labour parliamentarians. When the history of the legal, social, political and practical emancipation of disabled people is written, he will surely merit an honourable mention in it along with disabled campaigners themselves, not only because he was the first Minister for Disabled People—a post to which he was appointed by Harold Wilson and in which he served with distinction until 1979—but because of his unrelenting pressure for and advocacy of disability civil rights over an extended period and long before he was a Minister. He was responsible for the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, which was passed as a private Member's Bill. Long after he ceased being a Minister, as chief Opposition spokesman for disabled people from 1979 to 1992 and even thereafter as a Back Bencher, he tried repeatedly to get civil rights legislation on to the statute book. I pay tribute today to his parliamentary efforts, which continue in the other place. Along with my noble Friend Lord Ashley, whose efforts have also been of long-standing persistence and ferocity, he represents the true spirit of the Labour party carrying out its historic mission of making our society better for those who live in it and more equal for those who have been marginalised and oppressed.
Other colleagues on the Labour Benches also merit honourable mention in respect of disability civil rights, in particular, my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), who is in his place, my hon. Friends the Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing) and for Kingswood (Mr. Berry), my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke), and my hon. Friends the Members for Tooting (Tom Cox) and for Bolsover (Mr. Skinner), who have fine records on fighting hard for disability civil rights in what was a cold climate.
Anybody looking back at the parliamentary battle for disability civil rights can only be struck by the fact that it has been led and won by Labour Members with the assistance of Back Benchers of all parties who were enlightened on the issue, but against the opposition—at times, outrageous opposition—of the Conservative party in government. That is not to say that there have not been perfectly decent Conservative Back-Bench Members who have fought alongside Labour Members. Nor is it to say that there have not been decent Ministers for Disabled People from the Opposition Benches. I single out in particular the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). Tory Governments did not want disability civil rights. They spent 16 of their 18 years in office fighting against them, whatever the private views of individual Ministers, until the political damage being done to them was so severe that to stave off further embarrassment they were dragged kicking and screaming to put partial and inadequate legislation on the statute book. That was the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. In doing so, they killed off for the third year in succession the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, which some of my hon. Friends had fought for year after year.
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It has taken a Labour Government to make the Disability Discrimination Act work. It had gaping holes and omissions. Although the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks improved it a little during its passage, he was clearly operating in a climate of disapproval within Government. His room for manoeuvre was limited. The resulting legislation was certainly inferior to the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill being promoted by my hon. Friends, with the support of disabled people and their organisations.
Mr. Goodman: Will the Minister confirm that a Conservative Government at least introduced the Bill which became an Act, and that many people in the world of disability believe that if an anti-discrimination Bill is not brought in this Session there will be no Bill from this Government before the election and they will not have succeeded in bringing in an Act?
Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman forgets the Disability Rights Commission Act 1999, the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Act 2001 and the regulations that become operative on 1 October and massively extend the DDA.
Mr. Goodman: They are part of the 1995 Act.
Maria Eagle: A section of it is, but much of it implements the European directive on anti-discrimination, so it is much wider than just regulation making.
The regulations that implement the anti-discrimination directive on employment go much wider than the provisions of the DDA. The only reason why that could be done by regulation and did not require an Act of Parliament, although the changes are extensive, including bringing 1 million new employers and 7 million new jobs within the scope of the legislation and extending it to excluded occupations, was because the regulation derived from a European directive, and regulation-making powers under the accession treaties are wider. The extent of the measures being implemented by those regulations would normally require an Act of Parliament. The hon. Gentleman should not assume that our 2001 manifesto commitment is not going to be fulfilled. We are on course to fulfil it and I have every intention of ensuring that we do.
Miss Anne Begg: I am aware that my hon. Friend was not in Parliament during the 18 long, cold years of the Tory reign, and it is true that one Act went on to the statute book during that time, but has she done any research to find out whether the Tory Government of the day gave any debating time—a whole day debate or an Adjournment debate—to the issue of disability?
Maria Eagle: My hon. Friend makes an interesting point. I tried to find that out, but discovered that the way in which Hansard can be searched online does not allow it. I looked at many copies of Hansard when researching the previous attempts to legislate on civil rights and I did not find any debate held in Government time in those years. I cannot say for certain that no such debate occurred, but many hon. Friends were here

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during those 18 long, cold years and took a particular interest in this subject. They might be able to remember any debates on the issue.
Mr. Dennis Skinner: I shall try to help. Those years were very cold, but Labour Members—including my hon. Friend the Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes)—tried to keep everybody warm on a Friday by introducing Bills on civil rights, year after year. We used to have a difficult time getting them through. Perhaps the most vivid illustration of how the Tories operated was one Friday when we managed to get the Bill on disability on the agenda, but the then Minister was not present. The Tories filibustered on the other matters to kill the Bill. The Minister arrived and a Tory Back Bencher moved amendments that had been given to her by the Minister. She was brought into disrepute for doing so, but the result was that they talked out the Bill again. We saw the first inklings of a change of heart in my right hon. Friend the Member for Newport, East (Alan Howarth), who was then a Tory Back Bencher. He joined forces with us on that occasion and later became a Labour Member of Parliament. Those were the cold days indeed, and they continued year after year. Let us not have any Tory romantic mythology about their wonderful association with the disabled. They kicked them into the gutter.
Maria Eagle: My hon. Friend makes some interesting points.
Tom Levitt: My hon. Friend the Minister lists the comparisons between the two parties. I understand that the 1995 Act introduced the right to access to goods and services, which was intended to take effect from 2007. It was this Government who brought that date forward to October this year. Why the Tories chose 2007, nobody knows. Nobody asked for it to be delayed that long and even the Federation of Small Businesses has welcomed the new introduction date.
Maria Eagle: I am about to contribute my theory on why the 1995 Act was largely uncommenced when we took office, if my hon. Friend will bear with me. It happened because the Conservative Government had no intention of making the Act effective, but simply wanted to stave off the criticism of their hostility to effective disability civil rights legislation, at a time when their majority was crumbling and the demand for action was growing.
The 1995 Act sat on the statute book doing little. In 1997, when we took office, disabled people only had two effective civil rights after 18 years of Tory government and at least 14 attempts to bring forward legislation. One of those attempts was described by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover. Those two rights were the right not to be directly discriminated against in employment if working for a firm that employed 20 or more people and the right to not be directly discriminated against in the provision of services. The first right excluded 94 per cent. of employers from the obligation not to discriminate, and both rights outlawed only the most direct and blatant acts of outrageous abuse and discrimination.
Mr. Boswell: The Minister has taken a more political tone than I had anticipated. Can she tell the House how many cases have gone before employment tribunals as a result of the 1995 Act in each year since it was implemented?
Maria Eagle: I am afraid that I do not have the figures in my head, but the number of cases has built up year on year, and the resulting case law is tremendously helpful.
Miss Begg: I may be able to help my hon. Friend. One reason why the 1995 Act was so ineffectual was that the Conservative Government refused point blank to set up a disability rights commission, so no body existed to take cases to tribunal. This Government set up the DRC and that is why cases have started to go before the tribunal. If it were not for the DRC, disabled people would still not have the representation that they deserve.
Maria Eagle: My hon. Friend is right, and I hope that it is not too political for the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) to say so.
The Tories' record was a meagre return on 18 years of effort by disabled people and their supporters in this place fighting for the rights that the rest of us take for granted. However, it was fully in line with the ideological view of the Tory government. I exempt some of their Back Benchers from that charge, but the Tories in government consistently opposed legislating for civil rights.
It need not have been that way, because in 1979, as Minister with responsibility for disabled people, Lord Morris established the Committee on Restrictions Against Disabled People, chaired by Peter Large. It reported in 1982 and concluded that civil rights legislation was a necessary part of tackling the discrimination faced by disabled people. The report presented a massive opportunity for the Tory Government, early in their time in office, to lead the world in emancipating disabled people. Unfortunately, they failed. The report was shelved and nothing was done.
In 1982, Lord Ashley, then MP for Stoke-on-Trent, South introduced a ten-minute Bill, the Disablement (Prohibition of Unjustified Discrimination) Bill. It was not supported by the Government. In 1983, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby introduced a similar Bill. The Government killed it, as they repeatedly did every effort to legislate for civil rights for disabled people. They failed to act because of their ideological opposition to such legislation.
By 1990, the rest of the world had forged ahead of us. As President George Bush senior signed the Americans With Disabilities Act into law, he said the following to the US business community:
"You have in your hands the key to the success of this Act, for you can unlock a splendid resource of untapped human potential that, when freed, will enrich us all. Let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down."
Those are fine sentiments, but what were the Tory Government here saying at the time? I shall remind the House. Their view was expressed in a consultation document published in June 1990, "Employment and

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Training for People with Disabilities". It was a comprehensive statement of the Tories' position at the time, and it states:
"An anti-discrimination law would be too complex to draft and uncertain in its application. There is a danger that faced with a law uncertain in its application, employers would become more reluctant to hire people with disabilities. The relationship of people with disabilities with employers may be damaged and the task of persuasion made harder. Some kind of enforcement agency (perhaps like the Commission for Racial Equality) would probably be needed, involving substantial cost. Anti-discrimination legislation, therefore, is unlikely to be effective in achieving policy objectives and might be counter productive by making a constructive approach by employers less likely."
In other words, civil rights were seen as inconvenient and costly burdens on business. Who was the author? It was the then Secretary of State for Employment and now Leader of the Conservative Party, the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe (Mr. Howard). I doubt that his views have changed. Indeed, only yesterday he emphasised the importance of tax cuts above all other Tory priorities.
The ideologically driven dismissal of the value of civil rights legislation was not merely characteristic of the Thatcher Governments and illustrative of the current Leader of the Opposition's antipathy to legislation, but it was unfortunately the view of the Major Government. There began in 1991–92 what can only be described as a four-year battle for civil rights that redoubled the ferocity of previous fights and during which hand-to-hand fighting on private Member's Bill Fridays—mentioned earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Bolsover—led to heavy Tory casualties. Some hon. Members—two in particular who are in their places—will recall precisely what happened. I watched it fascinated, as an interested member of the public, because it was before I was elected. It was both dramatic and illustrative of the length to which the Conservative party was prepared to go to stop disabled people having civil rights.
The sequence of events was, characteristically, set in motion by Lord Morris who had the good fortune to come high in the ballot in that Session. He introduced the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill. After widespread cross-party support, although not from the then Minister, Nick Scott, it was talked out on Second Reading by Robert Hayward, the then Tory Member for Kingswood, after he had give the House an undertaking not to talk it out. That sequence of events led to his making a personal statement to apologise for misleading the House about his intentions. At the subsequent general election, he was punished severely and, on a good night for the Tories, was defeated by my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood, who has become a great champion for disability civil rights—not surprisingly.
Mr. Hayward was not the only Tory Member who had to apologise for misleading the House during those battles. In the 1993–94 session, both the Minister, Nick Scott, and Olga Maitland, then Tory MP for Sutton and Cheam, famously had to do so when caught misleading the House about the authorship of 80 or so beautifully written amendments to the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill that had been tabled at the last minute for Report. They had in fact been drafted by the
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Government to wreck the civil rights legislation, despite assurances on the Floor of the House that they were all the work of Olga Maitland. That fact was ferreted out after tenacious parliamentary detective work by some of my hon. Friends. Eventually, following a complaint to Madam Speaker, she was strongly rebuked for her conduct. The Minister himself had to make a personal statement and apologise for misleading the House.
That blatant Tory sabotage originating in the heart of Government, but not encompassing all Back Benchers, did not amount to the "benevolent neutrality" with which the Minister claimed in 1992 to view the Bill. In fact, it represented active, hostile Tory Government determination to scupper any progress towards disability civil rights.
A careful examination of the record makes revealing and fascinating reading and would be great source material for a good thriller or perhaps, more accurately, a whodunnit. But the point that I seek to illustrate is that Tory Governments consistently opposed civil rights legislation for ideological reasons and those who were prominent in doing so still run the Tory party today, not least the right hon. and learned Member for Folkestone and Hythe. In stark contrast, Labour parliamentarians, starting with Lord Morris have led the parliamentary part of this fight from the start, and in conjunction with disability campaigners and supportive Back Benchers from all parties, have made huge breakthroughs. But it could have been done years before it was if it had not been for the hostility of those Governments.
On coming to office, we decided to turn the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 into something more like the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill, and we have done so by strengthening, widening and deepening it and by setting about actually implementing its provisions instead of leaving them sitting uncommenced on the statute book. As a result, disability rights have been transformed from their parlous condition in 1997 and by the end of this Parliament will be comprehensive, fulfilling a major Labour manifesto commitment.
Indeed by 1 October, 70 per cent. of the measures recommended by the disability rights taskforce, which was established in 1997 to advise us on how best to establish civil rights will be fully implemented. The draft Disability Discrimination Bill secures the rest, going beyond our commitments in some spheres. That builds on the achievements of our first term, when we set about plugging the gaps in the DDA—turning it into a more comprehensive piece of legislation and fully commencing its operation in the large areas where that had not happened.
Mr. Barnes: I accept everything that my hon. Friend is saying, and I thank her for her comments about my involvement in some of the earlier developments. Is there not still an overlapping problem with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, in that it is based on a medical definition, whereas the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill was based on a social definition and was directed towards the discriminator? Although we have gone along with it and are going further with the measures that she has described, a further breakthrough might be needed to bring fully to fruition the measures in the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bills?
Maria Eagle: I accept my hon. Friend's point about the definition. For legislation throughout the world, definitions have been one of the most difficult things to get right. A distinction has often been made between a medical model, which defines disabled people in terms of their impairments, and a social model, which looks at what barriers society puts up, the removal of which would give disabled people their rights.
It is absolutely the case that the DDA relies on a more medical model. Aspects of it might be seen as taking a social approach, but it depends on a largely medical model. The Joint Committee report makes some suggestions about further improving the definitions, but nobody across the world has come up with a perfect definition that is workable in legislation. It is hard to do. That is not to say that we cannot make progress towards it, but at a time when we are extending the coverage of the legislation to more than 1 million new employers, for example, now perhaps is not the best time to set about making significant changes to the definition. It is important that those on whom obligations are placed have a pretty certain view of who might be covered by them.
Mr. Goodman: The phrase "civil rights", which the Minister has used several times in the course of her speech, is usually associated with the social model. Will she confirm that the Government's Bill is indeed based on the 1995 Act, which, as she says, is largely founded on the medical model?
Maria Eagle: It is not useful in this field to tear everything up and start from scratch.
Mr. Goodman: So it is not civil rights.
Maria Eagle: Well, it is civil rights. I do not know what kind of dictionary the hon. Gentleman has, but it is clearly not the same as mine. We are talking about making real differences to people's lives and the way to do that is not to get too hung up on precisely how one describes the differences between a social and a medical model but to get on with giving people real rights that they can enforce.
Thanks to this Government, we now have an admirably functioning Disability Rights Commission, which not only acts as a champion for disabled people and supports court cases to end discrimination, but is also trusted by business to provide good-quality advice about how they can improve as employers and service providers and meet the needs of their disabled customers and employees. Indeed, some 40 per cent. of the calls that it takes on its helpline are from business organisations, which underlines how important it is that those with obligations under the legislation see the sense of the legal requirement that it imposes and have confidence in the DRC to give advice about what they need to do to improve.
We have also extended the DDA to education, which was surely one of the most disgraceful omissions from the original Act. How can we hope to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people if we do not remove the barriers that they face in getting a good education? From the nursery to the university, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 is creating
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more opportunities for disabled children and adults and I believe that in the long term its provisions will be among the most influential in transforming the life chances of our disabled fellow citizens. By next year, it too, will be fully operational.
The DDA is being extended in October to cover 7 million more jobs, with the final abolition of the small firms exemption from its employment provisions and its extension to previously excluded occupations. It will help 600,000 disabled people who already work in those jobs directly by giving them rights not to be discriminated against on the ground of their disability that they do not currently enjoy. It also brings 1 million smaller employers into full coverage—a fact that has been welcomed by employers' organisations such as the Confederation of British Industry, the Employers Forum on Disability and generally supported by small business organisations such as the Federation of Small Businesses.
The draft Disability Discrimination Bill published this year has been widely welcomed, not only by the DRC but by organisations of and for disabled people. The DRC calls it "an exciting Bill," and also says that
"current activity is vast in the field of Disability Rights".
What a contrast to the record of the Conservative party. The draft Bill will widen coverage of the DDA and its anti-discrimination obligations to include councillors, larger private clubs, including political parties, and more people with HIV, cancer and multiple sclerosis. It will deepen coverage by extending the anti-discrimination obligations to all the functions of public authorities that are currently excluded and it will also extend to some aspects of landlord and tenant law. It will restrict the transport exemption from part III obligations and specify end dates for full accessibility of existing public transport vehicles and thus effectively end the transport exemption.
It will strengthen coverage by introducing a duty on public bodies to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people, something particularly welcomed by the DRC, which calls it
"A major shift of emphasis"—
to
"tackling systematic barriers rather than relying on a post-hoc system of redress."
In future, that will provide excellent opportunities for removing some of the current problems before they can even arise—at least, I hope so. Once enacted, which I hope will be soon, the new measure will be a landmark piece of legislation, further consolidating the progress of disability civil rights as well as completing in full our manifesto commitment.
All that is a means to an end: more life chances for disabled people, equality in practice not just in theory. While we have been getting on with improving civil rights legislation, there has been steady progress across Government. There have been major improvements in part M of the building regulations, for example, and the incorporation of lifetime home standards to require an even better standard from registered social landlords under the guidance of the Housing Corporation. The next few years should see real improvements in the accessibility of homes.

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In transport, we have already done much, although it has to be admitted that, in some instances, our existing transport infrastructure presents significant challenges. We have improved accessibility to public transport vehicles. All new buses and trains have to be accessible and the draft Bill will make provisions to end transport exclusion and set dates by which existing vehicles will have to be accessible. The obligation to make reasonable adjustment to the physical features of the infrastructure, such as stations, will come in on 1 October. Again, we have to deal with a historical legacy of inaccessibility, but that is being tackled consistently across the sector. Awareness is much higher among operators and those responsible for running our public transport services.
Access to education is improving. The schools access initiative and programmes such as the disabled students allowance are giving money to disabled people to enable them to access education. As the legislation places obligations on education providers to meet the needs of disabled people, we shall see even more improvements over time. As well as the disabled students allowance, the learner support funds are helping in the further education sector. Disabled people are a priority group for support. We are seeing real improvements that matter to disabled people and their lives.
All those important initiatives are taking place across Government in all spheres and will have practical effects. As the DRC said in its briefing, current activity is vast in the field of disability rights. By the end of this Parliament, the Government will have brought about the biggest ever improvement in civil rights for disabled people in this country, as a foundation on which to build real improvements in life chances for more than 10 million of our fellow citizens who are disabled. It is a record that I am proud to commend to the House.
2.3 pm
Mr. Paul Goodman: It is a privilege to be speaking from the Dispatch Box for the first time in a debate on disability. I pay tribute to the many organisations in my constituency that do so much for and, more important, with people with disabilities, and to all the organisations that do similar work nationally. Their advice, experience and wisdom are invaluable to me.
According to the Library, the last opportunity we had to participate in a general debate on disability-related matters was on the Third Reading of the Disability Rights Commission Bill on 30 June 1999—almost five years ago. It is reasonable to assume, therefore, that a similar opportunity will not arise for some time—I will not say "for another five years", although of course I could—and perhaps not until after the next general
election.
Talking of elections, I wonder whether anything strikes you, Madam Deputy Speaker, as significant about the timing of today's debate—it certainly struck the Minister, who was extraordinarily defensive. I suspect that she is somewhat embarrassed. I am sure that it will not have escaped your attention, Madam Deputy Speaker, that European elections, the London mayoral election and many local elections are being held today. If the Government's business managers had
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deliberately chosen the one day in this Parliament on which Members were most likely to have inescapable commitments that would necessitate their absence from Westminster, it would be today. So this is the day that the Government have set aside for what may be the only major debate on disability in Government time in this Parliament. The Minister knows that many Members on both sides of the House—including, doubtless, many Labour Members—wanted to be here today but cannot be.
Today is almost certainly the worst possible day of this Parliament on which to hold a debate on disabled people.
Tom Levitt: The hon. Gentleman paid tribute to organisations working for and with disabled people, but not of disabled people. I am sure that he would want to correct that omission, but it is an interesting omission none the less. The House would take a little more seriously his concerns about timing and the arrangements for the debate if he did not have one of the worst attendance records at meetings of the Joint Committee over recent months. As he was unable to attend those meetings, perhaps it would have been better for the Conservatives to be properly represented by someone who could have spared the time to attend.
Mr. Goodman: I do not accept what the hon. Gentleman says about the meetings of the Joint Committee and I am sorry that he felt he had to make that remark. Representations have been made to me from senior organisations in the world of disability expressing serious reservations about the timing of the debate. I believe that they have also written to the Minister.
There are elections today—the day the Government have set aside for what may be the only major debate on disability in Government time in this Parliament. Many Labour Members who wanted to be in the Chamber are absent. It would be easy for me to say that that represents the Department's view of where people with disabilities stand in the Government's list of priorities, but I will resist that temptation. I believe that the intentions of the Department are admirable, and I believe that, despite a speech of astonishing negativity and backward-lookingness, the Minister is dedicated. I suspect that the blame for the crass timing of this debate lies, fair and square, with the Government's business managers.
Maria Eagle: The hon. Gentleman says that he is not making the point that the Department's view is that disabled people are at the bottom of its list of priorities, but in his letter to me complaining about the timing of the debate he says:
"Ministers are effectively telling disabled people that they are bottom of the Government's list of priorities."
Mr. Goodman: Now the hon. Lady is claiming that she is the only Minister in the Government. It is perfectly clear that I was referring to the Government's business managers who are—in case she has missed the point—Ministers, unless she would care to correct me. I believe that the blame lies fair and square with them and judging from the fact that the Minister held up my letter

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at the beginning of the debate—for which I am extremely grateful—I suspect that she is severely embarrassed by the timing.
Of course, ultimately it is not my judgment that matters, nor is it the Minister's; it is not even that of the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt). The view that ultimately matters is that of people with disabilities themselves, and they will make their own judgment.
I want to consider three policy pillars in relation to disability: first, the duties contained in part 3 of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which come into effect this autumn; secondly, the draft Disability Discrimination Bill, about which the Minister was remarkably unforthcoming—I shall come to that in a moment—and the recent report of the Joint Committee on that Bill; and, lastly, the possible impact of the Government's proposed commission for equality and human rights on disabled people.
First, however, as would surely be right in the kind of wide-ranging debate I had hoped we would have—it has not happened so far—I want to consider not only the dry legislative dimension, but to look more fully and, I hope, warmly at the human dimension: at people with disabilities themselves, and at their lives.
The challenges are daunting. If someone is born a member of an ethnic minority, they will always be a member of that ethnic minority, whatever other choices they make. If someone is born a man or a woman, they will usually remain, under law, a man or a woman. I will leave aside the debate about sexuality and orientation because it is complex. But what is certain is that disability is even more complex.
People can be born with a disability, such as cerebral palsy, that will remain a disability through life. People can be born with a disability, such as some forms of sight impairment, and lose it. People can be born without a disability and acquire one, such as blindness. People can be born without a disability, acquire one and lose it again. For example, I had cancer earlier in this Parliament, and the doctors tell me that I am now free of it. I have been fortunate—I had it in a mild form—and millions of people, and their families and friends, have endured far worse. I mention the experience only as an illustration of the complexity of the debate about disability.
Mr. Barnes: The hon. Gentleman is making an interesting point. Is not disability discrimination very odd? Other forms of discrimination should not take place, but we may perhaps understand how they may emerge: men may be biased against women, or racial discrimination may occur because people belong to different groups. However, given that people can move in and out of disability or acquire disabilities later in life, disability discrimination is like exercising a form of discrimination that is against oneself or the group to which one belongs. That is quite an odd form of discrimination. If those factors were spelt out, perhaps people would be much more sensitive to them and not discriminate against disabled people.
Mr. Goodman: I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman, who is a great expert in these matters. He made a sound point earlier about civil rights that perhaps the Minister did not fully appreciate. What he says is right: disability
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discrimination is peculiarly complex, if only because it is so often invisible, which is one of the points that he has just made.
Mr. Boswell: Does my hon. Friend agree that the remediation or criticism of, for example, an employer's or service provider's attitude to disability is also a complex matter? It is a matter not simply of whether discrimination takes place, but of whether the adjustments made to meet that situation are reasonable or appropriate.
Mr. Goodman: My hon. Friend, who has a very fine track record in these matters, is of course right.
Bert Massie, the chairman of the DRC, recently made a point to the largely non-disabled members of the Joint Committee on the draft Disability Discrimination Bill. He told them, brutally but cheerfully—I roughly paraphrase—that it is a case of join us, or die young. That is a sobering thought. If there is a third way between those two choices, Bert certainly did not mention it. So at one end of the life cycle, more and more people are living longer and acquiring disabilities as they do so. Between 2005 and 2020, 13,000 more people each year are expected to require residential care than currently receive it—a 25 per cent. increase. At the other end of the life cycle, more and more children who would not have survived for long after birth 20 years ago, perhaps even 10 years ago, now survive and have, in consequence, special educational, health and employment needs. Between the very old and the very young, there is a more health-conscious and disability-conscious work force, and as the population ages that work force will age too.
All that has over-arching implications for the Government, families and the private and voluntary sectors—for society itself. Older people need specialist equipment and care. I have just received a letter from the Bucks Association for Blind and Partially Sighted People, urging me to urge the Government today to ensure that the keypads provided in post offices follow Royal National Institute of the Blind guidelines. Children need teachers who are trained to assess and deal with special needs. Workers need help with rehabilitation, transport and retraining.
Above all, perhaps, people with disabilities will no longer be content, if they ever were, to be the passive recipients of help: to be, in short, dependent on the state or other people. Increasingly, they want to be active shapers of their own destinies—to be independent and, as we say in these enlightened times, empowered. They often want to be viewed not just as people with disabilities, but as people with unique skills and talents. I suspect that that has always been true. The focus on rights that are to be claimed assertively, even aggressively, is more modern.
Rights are, of course, a good thing. Some of us, however, will have been struck when observing the recent D-day coverage by the contrast between, on the one hand, the reticent, modest, dutiful, responsibility-focused bearing of the now-old soldiers, sailors and airmen who risked their lives and were often gravely injured—and thus disabled—in the fight for freedom and, on the other, the more rights-focused modern generation. That comparison is not necessarily in all senses to our advantage.

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I was present, as I expect the Minister was also—I am slightly surprised that she did not mention this in her journey through times past—at the recent launch of Scope's thought-provoking "Time to Get Equal" campaign, which the leaders of all the main parties support. I was struck, as others will have been, by its assertive central message: "disablism"—as Tony Manwaring, Scope's chief executive and others put it—should be, and eventually will be, as unacceptable as racism or sexism. My first reaction on hearing that was to wonder, given the number of "isms" that are already in circulation, whether another is strictly necessary, but that response should surely be questioned.
It is true—indeed, it is a truism—that public opinion will not move any faster than it is prepared to move. This is why, for example, I am cautious about the overenthusiastic promotion of the social model of disability. I gather from the Minister's remarks today that she is cautious about that, too.
Miss Begg: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, although public opinion will not be changed only by legislation, by introducing civil rights legislation, the Government have been successful in changing public opinion for the better much faster than would have been the case if the legislation had not existed?
Mr. Goodman: I am not sure whether, as the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes) pointed out earlier, legislation that is partly based on the medical model is exactly the same as civil rights legislation. However, the hon. Lady—I thought she would intervene at some point and she has not disappointed me—is right in the sense that the 1995 Act and the draft Bill contain elements of the social model, as she would concede, given that they acknowledge the need to break down barriers.
I am wary—I believe that the DRC and Ministers are, too—of a possible backlash from business in particular and voters in general against definitions that might seem to fly in the face of common sense or of the casual assumption that all the 9.8 million people with disabilities in Britain believe that their identity is defined by their particular disability and will speak, lobby and vote accordingly. None the less, the argument that there is discrimination worldwide and in Britain against people with disabilities is incontestable.
I am grateful to Rachel Hurst of Disability Awareness in Action for sending me what that organisation accurately describes as a "catalogue of horror", largely based on incidents abroad. I quote one stark example from, as the report terms it, Palestine:
"A disabled woman was raped by a gang of youths. She was subsequently murdered by her brother to alleviate the 'shame on her family'."
In general, of course, we do better in Britain. There has been some progress under Governments of all parties, and it would be churlish not to recognise the commitment of Ministers—I am determined not to follow the somewhat negative tone set by the Minister—or to dismiss the work of the Government, but the challenges identified by Rachel Hurst and others remain.
In 2003, 13 per cent. of non-disabled people aged between 16 and 24 had no qualifications; the figure for
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disabled people was 24 per cent. Some 81 per cent. of non-disabled people of working age are employed; the figure for disabled people is 49 per cent. Some 22 per cent. of non-disabled people are fearful of using public transport; the figure for disabled people is 40 per cent. "Mind the Gap", a Leonard Cheshire social exclusion report, explores the issue in some detail. A recent Health Committee report found that up to 500,000 elderly people have been abused, often by their relatives. The NSPCC's report, "It doesn't happen to disabled people" suggested that children with disabilities
"are more vulnerable to abuse than non-disabled children".
I have a final figure People with learning disabilities are 58 times more likely to die before the age of 50 than other citizens.
It is in the light of these stark contrasts that I turn to the first of the two anti-discrimination measures that I want to consider this afternoon, namely the duties contained in part Ill of the 1995 Act, which will come into effect this October. As the Minister reminded us, it was a Conservative Government and a Conservative Minister—my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), whom she at least credited by name—who introduced that Act, the first ever Government-hacked anti-discrimination measure in Britain relating to disability. We naturally take pride in it.
Vera Baird: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
Mr. Goodman: I will be very happy to give way, but perhaps the hon. an I learned Lady will express her hope that the Bill that will succeed the Act that I have just mentioned will be introduced this Session.
Vera Baird: I shall make my own intervention if it is all the same to the hon. Gentleman.
The hon. Gentleman has made a great point of saying how complex and difficult it is to understand disability discrimination. It is not obviously blatant and straightforward. Can he therefore explain why the 1995 Act, which he has trumpeted so much, did not outlaw indirect discrimination at all?
Mr. Goodman: I will accept lectures from Government Members about the Act when they introduce their own Bill in such a way that it is likely to come into force in this Parliament. May I make it clear that I believe that the 1995 Act was right for the time? Events move on and one has to consider them in the light of time. However, I shall not say anything at the Dispatch Box today that indicates any shame at the 1995 Act. It is a great shame that the hon. and learned Lady has nothing to say in praise of it.
From 1 October, service providers will have to make changes to the physical features of their premises. Firms employing fewer than 15 people will no longer be exempt from the employment provisions of that Act, and disability in relation to occupational pension schemes will become unlawful. The Minister will be aware that, according to a survey carried out by her Department, only 3 per cent. of employers whose businesses are currently exempt from the provisions of the 1995 Act know that their exemption is due to be

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lifted. Furthermore, very few of these employers were aware of legislation giving rights to employees or knew that they were currently exempt.
Less than half the service providers who were aware of the 1995 Act were also aware of the forthcoming change. Furthermore, a survey carried out late last year by the Federation of Small Businesses, which asked FSB members whether they had made reasonable adjustments to their premises to fulfil the legal requirement that all businesses make reasonable adjustments to their premises to enable disabled access, found that more than 50 per cent. of those polled at that time were non-compliant.
According to new research by Unum Provident, the important disability insurer:
"One million small businesses will have to make adjustments to their workplaces or else"
face
"possible law suits costing tens of thousands of pounds from customers or industrial tribunals from staff."
Joanna Hindle, the corporate services director from Unum Provident, has said:
"Overall, the lack of awareness by small business owners on the potential impact of changes to the DDA is a cause for concern."
Last month, I wrote to the Minister—she has evidently received many letters from me—asking what proportion of business and service providers the Department expected to be aware of and compliant with the part III provisions of the 1995 Act by 1 October, and asking what level of awareness and compliance the Department believed to be acceptable. The Minister duly replied, stating:
"There is a need further to raise awareness of DDA duties among businesses, especially small businesses".
Indeed there is, but—surprise, surprise—the Minister would not be drawn on what levels of awareness and compliance the Department believes to be acceptable, let alone expects. The reason for this, I suspect, is simple. The Department cannot decide what levels of awareness and compliance it should accept and does not have a clue what levels of awareness and compliance it should expect.
Tom Levitt: Has the hon. Gentleman seen the considerable amount of advertising from the Department for Work and Pensions on this subject that has appeared in local newspapers across the country? With 113 days to go, what efforts is he making to help the businesses in his constituency to ensure that they comply with the Act?
Mr. Goodman: I am telling every one that I can about it. Although the hon. Gentleman is right to say that the Department is making efforts, the figures that I have just quoted show that it is being singularly unsuccessful. I wish him as much luck in his constituency when he tells businesses about the forthcoming provisions of the Act as I hope that I will have in mine.
Vera Baird: The hon. Gentleman is rather out of step with the main disability organisation on this point. The briefing for this debate from the Disability Rights
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Commission starts off loudly and in large letters, saying that it
"congratulates the Government on the publicity campaign that it has launched to raise awareness".
Although the Government have not yet been able to achieve 100 per cent. awareness, I would be very pleased to hear what the hon. Gentleman thinks is a measurable acceptable level of awareness and whether he thinks such a thing can conceivably exist. He is missing the boat; everybody is pleased with the effort that the Department for Work and Pensions has put in. It certainly trumps introducing legislation but not putting it into effect. That is all the Tories did.
Mr. Goodman: Everyone is not pleased. I have just expressed the serious concerns of one important organisation. I am puzzled that Labour Members still seem to be living in a world—perhaps they cannot escape from it—in which we are still in government. We are always being asked what we would do and what position we would be in now. The Labour party has been in power for seven years and it cannot happily continue this journey down memory lane without taking some responsibility for its own actions and responsibilities.
The present position is deeply worrying. I spoke earlier about some of the dangers of a backlash from business and voters against anti-discrimination legislation. Here is another example. There is a danger—I will put it no higher than that—that, come October, complaints, justified or, as I suspect, probably unjustified, from small businesses and service providers about unreasonable and sudden demands being made on them by the 1995 Act will start rolling in, and not to the Department but to the media. I have, for my sins, worked in the media, and I know that this is precisely the way in which backlashes begin. So if all this happens—which I devoutly hope it will not—do not let the Minister say that we did not warn her.
I now want to move from the 1995 Act to the present draft Disability Discrimination Bill and to the report issued by the Joint Committee. The official Opposition support the Bill in principle, and we believe that the Committee has issued an excellent report. It would indeed be hard for me to say anything else since I was, of course, a member of the Joint Committee, and I will be checking the claim made by the hon. Member for High Peak very carefully after the debate. I do not commend the report simply out of good manners; I strongly believe that the Committee was able to reach, under the chairmanship of Lord Carter, a consensus on several thorny and potentially divisive issues.
Perhaps the most eye-catching recommendations were in relation to the definition of disability, to mental health and to trains. On the definition, the Committee recommended that all progressive conditions currently covered by the 1995 Act, when they begin to have an effect, should be included from the point of diagnosis. On mental health, it recommended the removal of the requirement that mental illnesses must be clinically well recognised, and recommended that the requirement should instead be that medical evidence must establish the effect of the condition on that person. On transport, it recommended that 2017, with limited exemptions, should be the end date by which trains should be

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accessible. The report said:
"There is no justification for further delay".
The official Opposition support the Bill, they commend the report and they believe that the Bill should be introduced as soon as possible. This view is shared, as far as we know, by the Liberal Democrats, and the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) is nodding. I believe that the view is shared by the other minor parties. It is also widely held outside the House by organisations that work with and for—for the convenience of the hon. Member for High Peak—people with disabilities, and of course disabled people themselves. So we know where nearly everyone stands, with one significant exception. We still do not know, despite the Minister's trip down memory lane today, where the Government stand.
Maria Eagle: I thought that I had made it clear—the hon. Gentleman may not have heard—that we have a manifesto commitment to introduce legislation that represents the remaining 30 per cent. of our manifesto commitments during this Parliament, and we are on course to do so.
Mr. Goodman: I heard that. The point is that many organisations that work with and for all disabled people believe that the next election is likely to be next summer. Any Bill that is introduced in the Queen's Speech this autumn, therefore, is likely to fall before it can pass through both Houses and gain Royal Assent. The Minister said last October, and she made the point again just now, that the final step towards meeting the Labour party's manifesto commitment will be when a disability Bill is passed in this Parliament. We assume that that is a pledge, and I think that the Minister has confirmed that it was. However, only if the Bill is introduced in this Session can the fulfilment of the pledge be guaranteed.
The Minister will know that disabled people and organisations that represent them want such a Bill to be introduced in this Session. I was going to ask the hon. Lady again if she would guarantee that a Bill would be brought before the House during the Session. It seems clear from what she has said, however, that it will not be. Bearing in mind the timing of the debate and the nature of part of it, perhaps I should not be surprised.
I move on to the last of my three pieces of legal architecture that especially affect disabled people, which is the Government's proposed commission for equality and human rights. People with disabilities have special needs and requirements. It can be argued that other groups such as ethnic minorities also have special needs and requirements. However, the barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating on equal terms in modern Britain—this was the point bounced round the Chamber by the hon. Member for North-East Derbyshire and me—are formidable. We regard the proposed abolition of the Disability Rights Commission and its incorporation into the new commission with concern and believe that at the least any new commission must have a special place and role for disabled people.
Before touching on some principles for reform, I shall refer to poverty, prosperity, work and disabled people. Since 1997, the number of people claiming incapacity
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benefit and severe disablement allowance has risen by about 39,000. With incapacity benefit, we are more or less where we were in 1997. The number came down, which was good. It then increased, which was not so good. Since 1999, the number has risen by 133,000. Where has the increase come from?
In January, in answer to a written question that I tabled, the Minister said that
"in recent years, people with mental health disorders are the only broad category of diagnosis not to see a reduction in the numbers claiming."
I tabled further questions about mental health disorders, asking broadly what the trend is in claims for depression, stress and anxiety. The results were startling. The Min ster's statement was that in such instances there had not been
"a reduction in the numbers claiming."—[Official Report, 27 January 2004; Vol. 417 c. 346W.]
That turned out to be somewhat economical with the truth. There has not been a reduction in the numbers claiming, but a whacking great increase in those numbers, with people claiming for longer. The total number of mental health claimants has risen by 718,000 since 1997. That is a 39 per cent. increase. That number represents a quarter of all claims.
The average length of claims for men has risen from four to five years for mood disorders, and from five and a half to six years for neurotic stress-related disorders. The number of women claimants has risen in every year, reminding us that with disability, as with pensions, women—particularly elderly women—are especially menaced by poverty
The Government have recently introduced their incapacity benefit pilots, to which the Minister referred. We believe that they offer the prospect of the sort of tailor-made help for disabled people that we advanced in our incapacity fundholder proposal at the last election, although the pilots have not yet been evaluated. The Department described the results in February as encouraging, but more information about results would be welcome. I shall be happy to give way to the Minister if she is able to tell us whether more information is available or when that information will be available, or both.
Maria Eagle: Evaluation is not yet available because effectively the pilots started their work-focused interviews only during January. We are expecting some better information during the course of the pilots. The first available information should be coming through sometime in the summer or early autumn. We have undertaken to publish information when it becomes available.
Mr. Goodman: I am grateful to the Minister for that information. I think that we would all be a little happier if we could be guaranteed that the information will be available by the time that the House rises for the summer recess. We will not have full information or a full assessment until 2007.
We have been calling for some time for the Government to give extra help to people with disabilities who want to work. Five years ago, the Government launched the new deal for disabled people and began to means-test incapacity benefit. Four years ago, they

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launched the ONE programme. Three years ago, they announced Jobcentre Plus. Two years ago, they promised a new welfare reform Bill to reduce the number of out-of-work disabled people. As we know, their numbers have risen, yet about 1.6 million people who currently draw incapacity benefit apparently say that they want to work. We all know that once someone has been on IB for a year, he or she is likely to be on it for eight years. This is a shaming waste of potential, talent and human capital.
Maria Eagle: I agree that people being unemployed when they can be in work with a bit of help is a waste of their talent and potential. Will the hon. Gentleman explain the record of the Conservative Government, who trebled the number of people on IB during their time in office from 700,000 to more than 2.6 million, and did nothing to help them?
Mr. Goodman: It is a travesty of what happened in our time in government to claim that we tried to do nothing to help people with disabilities. I am sorry that the Minister has chosen yet again to intervene on events that happened more than six years ago when she is responsible for the numbers of people on IB, which are rising. In relation to stress, anxiety and depression, they are completely out of control.
It is not only important to enable people with disabilities to find work and keep it. It is vital also to ensure that people without disabilities do not acquire disabilities that will make it impossible for them to find work or to keep work. More older workers are enduring problems with cognitive skills at work, for example, as they move towards retirement. Many younger workers are enduring problems with obesity, for example, as they move towards middle age. I shall set out some broad principles on a positive note that should, we believe, inform policy making in relation to disability in work.
First, it is clear that prevention is better than cure. A worker who changes his habits and becomes healthier as a result is less likely to acquire illness and disability. An employer who cares for his employees and offers them assessment, retraining and transport, especially as they grow older, is less likely to lose them to illness and disability. Needless to say, I am not an enthusiast for what is sometimes labelled the nanny state. However, the Government have a legitimate role in rewarding good employers and educating future workers.
Secondly, the tax, benefit and employment system must be made more simple and comprehensible. It could not possibly be less simple and comprehensible than it is now. It is curious that incapacity benefit works roughly as follows: the doctor and patient meet; the doctor confirms that the patient cannot do the work that he or she currently does; and the doctor does not have a dialogue with the patient in which both might seek to discover what work the patient might be able to do. That is partly because doctors are trained to diagnose patients, not to help them seek and find work, but consequences follow. The IB claimant may not find Jobcentre Plus advisers who can help him or her get back into work when they receive benefit. The claimant may be discouraged from leaving the benefit for fear of falling back into it at a lower rate, or he may not take up the 52-week rule option.
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We acknowledge that bureaucracies in the assessment of eligibility for benefit want hard-and-fast rules. We recognise that public funds are not limitless and that short-term demand on the Treasury must be contained. None the less, there must be some way of transforming incapacity benefit, which is triggered by what people cannot do, into—I use a phrase that I think Joanna Hindle used in her evidence to the Work and Pensions Committee—a "capacity payment" that responds to what people can do and is less hedged about by difficulties involving eligibility, take-up, perverse incentives and complexity. That leads me to the third principle of a more active role for the voluntary and private sectors.
The concept of the incapacity fundholder, which we advanced at the last election and which the Government are now following in their own pilot model, was a way of seeking to create a capacity payment. It envisaged voluntary and private sector organisations working for people with disabilities to exercise a more active role in the administration and use of the benefit. I know from my constituency experience of the extra dimension that organisations like the Shaw Trust bring to helping people with disabilities to find and keep work. We want to draw on recommendations in the report by the Work and Pensions Committee on Jobcentre Plus on a more direct role for the voluntary and private sector and the marrying up of the administration and use of benefits to employment advice and help.
At the outset, I said that disabled people pose legislators and politicians with daunting challenges. While we are doubtless impressed by the scale of those challenges, we must not be deterred from facing up to them, including the main challenge of reforming a system that is increasingly hard to explore, prone to complexity and means-testing, and lacks joined-up thinking in its attempts to support and empower people with disabilities. The next Conservative Government will not be deterred from that task.
2.40 pm
Miss Anne Begg: I am delighted to be called to speak in our debate, although I am disappointed by the churlishness of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) and his disquiet at its timing. Perhaps because he was elected only in 2001—although that cannot really be the excuse—he has forgotten the number of debates held on disability since 1997, when I was elected.
When I was elected to Parliament as the first Member permanently to use a wheelchair I was determined not to be a spokesperson for disabled people. I was determined not to be the disabled MP to whom everyone turned as the fount of all knowledge on disability matters; I hoped to make my mark on the House, and would do so as an MP who happened to have a disability. I have tried hard to follow that path, but inevitably I have been sucked into debates on disability because I have personal expertise on the issue. The hon. Gentleman said that we should listen to disabled people, so I hope he will listen to me. I did not want to be the fount of all knowledge on issues affecting disabled people because they are not a homogenous mass—they have different views, aspirations and expectations, and no single voice can represent them all—but, despite that view, I have participated in rather a lot of debates on disability in

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Parliament. I served on the Committee considering the legislation that set up the Disability Rights Commission. I also served on the Committee that considered the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001.
More recently, I served on the Committee considering the draft Disability Discrimination Bill. I hope that the Minister will accept our suggestion, originally made by me, that we change its title to the draft disability anti-discrimination Bill. I have participated in a range of debates on disability in the Work and Pensions Committee and in the Chamber itself, so I do not know where on earth the hon. Gentleman has been. He is a fellow member of the Work and Pensions Committee, which he applauded and, indeed, he praised its research on getting disabled people into work.
It is therefore not unusual to discuss disability in the House, and quite a lot has been achieved since the Government came to power. Had I been an MP in previous years, I suspect that I would have spoken about disability but, instead of praising the Government of the time and encouraging them to go a little further, most of my contributions would have criticised the Tories in their failure to act at all. Like the Minister and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird), I was struck by the briefing from the Disability Rights Commission, which says:
"Current activity is vast in the field of disabled rights."
That could not have been said before 1997 of the Conservative party, of which the hon. Gentleman is a member.
The hon. Gentleman was not sure that the Government were advocating true civil rights. When I was elected, I had campaigned on two issues for about 20 years—the establishment of a Scottish Parliament and the need for full, enforceable civil rights for disabled people, the subject of my first speech to the national Labour party conference. The Government have delivered on the first issue, and are about to deliver on the second. The Scottish Parliament is up and running, and has been through two elections. Once the Disability Discrimination Bill is on the statute book, we can probably say that we have achieved full, enforceable civil rights for disabled people.
Thanks to the establishment of the DRC, we have enforceable civil rights. If it had not been set up, any power under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 would have counted for nothing, because we needed a body to take disabled people's cases to tribunal and court. The DRC has done so, and has performed a valuable function by pushing the Government into legislating to fill the gaps in the 1995 Act, including bringing education and transport under the auspices of that measure and introducing regulations to ensure that silly restrictions such as the exemption for all small employers are removed. As my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) said, the Government will also enforce obligations under part 3 of the Act in October this year, and will not postpone doing so for another three years.
Disabled people know when they have suffered discrimination, which is overt and happens daily. It is not an ethereal issue discussed by people in debating
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chambers—it is real, and happens to all disabled people, who feel it very deeply, which is why they often react angrily in such situations. Every time that someone talks not to me but to the person who is with me, I feel that discrimination. Every time that I turn up at a restaurant or meeting place at which there is no wheelchair access, I feel it. Every time I try to get into a place of public entertainment and am told—not recently, luckily—that I am a fire hazard, I face it. I can tell the hon. Gentleman, however, that while that discrimination still takes place, I can now do something about much of it.
In 1973, when I applied to Aberdeen college to take a three-year diploma course so that I could become a primary teacher, I was told that I could not, but I had no legal recourse. I was discriminated against because of my disability, but I could do nothing about it. Three years later, in 1976, having gained a university degree, I returned to the college wanting to take a course to become a secondary teacher. I was refused, but there was nothing that I could do and I had no recourse to the law. Thanks to the Government, that could not happen to a young person trying to get into college today. In fact, the difficulties that I experienced getting into teaching are no longer experienced, and disabled people now have the right to challenge unfair decisions by faceless bureaucrats or, in my case, a college doctor. Powers are now in place giving us the right to challenge such decisions. However, they do not stop discrimination happening. This morning. for example, a taxi was hailed for me, but took off again when asked to wait as I was in a wheelchair. If I had been quick enough to get his number, however, I could have done something about it. That is the difference. As more and more case law is built up, and more and more people realise that it is unacceptable as well as unfair and discriminatory to make such judgments or take such actions against disabled people, the less it will happen.
It is important not just that we get the legislative framework correct, but that we use legislation to change attitudes. In my intervention on the hon. Gentleman I asked whether the changes in attitude would have happened without the legislation. Unfortunately, he did not answer the point that I raised, but the answer is that the changes in attitude would not have come about. Years before I was elected, I remember having a discussion with someone who believed it was a matter of education. If we had left it to education, we would not be where we are today. Legislation sets the framework and the boundaries of what is acceptable and unacceptable behaviour. Because most people want to obey the law and not to fall foul of the law, it has acted as a driver to change attitudes and to make sure that incidents such as the one that I described that happened to me this morning become fewer and fewer.
Mr. Goodman: I am sorry to have upset the hon. Lady, which I try never to do. I make it clear that I believe legislation is essential, but it would be less churlish—to use the word that she has propelled into circulation—if she acknowledged that the 1995 Act introduced by a Conservative Government was one of the pieces of legislation that has made a difference.
Miss Begg: The 1995 Act was an opportunity missed. Much of what the Labour Government have put in place could have beer put in place at the time of the 1995

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Act. The fact that that did not happen was due to the actions of the Tory Government at the time. I remember meeting Lady Olga Maitland a few months before I was elected. I was on a programme called "The Midnight Hour" that used to go out very late—funnily enough, considering its title—on BBC 2. I was a candidate for the election at the time and I was invited down from Scotland. I found myself sitting next to Lady Olga, and I came out of the programme with steam coming out of my ears. She was unrepentant, she was unapologetic for what she had done, and I found her the most patronising person I have ever met in my life.
I know the hon. Members sitting on the Opposition Benches today, and I know the hon. Gentleman very well. I know that they are honourable men and would not have taken the same attitude as Lady Olga Maitland did at the time. I am sure they were just as embarrassed by her actions as others would be. However, she was representative of the tone of the Government at the time. My hon. Friend the Minister was right to say that the 1995 Act came about because the Government were drawn kicking and screaming into passing some kind of legislation to try to dampen down the negative publicity that they were getting from the disabled lobby.
The disabled lobby at the time was angry about the 1995 Act, but it acknowledged, sometimes a little reluctantly, that at least it was a step. It could have been so much better, and we could have been so much further ahead in the delivery of civil rights had the Act had some teeth to it. For instance, had it provided for a DRC it would have been a much better Act and we could have been much further on in introducing the civil rights that we all want.
Mr. Barnes: One of the things that a number of us argued for during the discussions on the Disability Discrimination Bill in 1995 was the establishment of a disability rights commission. We always said that that would be the most important amendment to the measure. Despite the imperfections of the measure, the commission would begin to take action and help to transform it, as it has been doing since its establishment. There were odd little gains here and there as the amending procedure went through, but the big gain that we were after, which would not have given us a civil rights (disabled persons) Bill, would have been a measure with its own dynamic if the commission had been established.
Miss Begg: I thank my hon. Friend for that. He was there at the time; I was not. I was outside, but it was always my impression that that one body would have been a major advance in advising the Government on how they could have improved the 1995 Act.
A debate such as this is so wide and varied that it is difficult to know which parts of the topic of disability one should select for discussion. I have mentioned the fact that education is now covered by the DDA. I do not have time to go into that in more detail. The health service has been reformed to allow access for people with disabilities. There have been great advances in genetics as regards people with disabilities. Many issues are addressed by the draft Disability Discrimination Bill, such as access to housing and duties on local authorities.
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I do not have time to go into as much detail as I would like on all those matters, so I shall concentrate on two areas that are not mutually exclusive—in fact, one is predicated on the other. The first is physical access, and the second is the inclusion of disabled people in society. As I said, one is predicated on the other, because without physical access to goods and services, disabled people cannot exercise their civil rights by being involved in society.
I am pleased to see that in the draft Disability Discrimination Bill aspects of transport that were missing from the DDA 1995 are covered. I hope the Minister will give serious consideration to the recommendation by the Joint Committee that the end date, particularly for rail transport, should be 2017. Rail travel still poses enormous problems, particularly for people with mobility problems. I shall not give any more examples from my own experience—I have given them over the years and they are legion. There are still problems with regard to unmanned stations and inaccessible stations.
There are also difficulties if, for some reason, a rail operator cannot operate trains on a particular section of the track and so puts on replacement buses, possibly while essential repairs are taking place. Inevitably, those buses are not wheelchair-accessible. The Government are legislating to make sure that buses are wheelchair-accessible, and come 2017, hopefully, that problem will not arise and any bus provided to replace a train will be wheelchair-accessible. That is why we need a properly integrated transport policy.
Some operators still do not accept responsibility for getting disabled people on to trains. I was disappointed to hear on Thursday 6 May that in a case taken by the Disability Rights Commission on behalf of Keith Roads to Norwich county court, the judge found it unreasonable that Central Trains should be expected to pay the cost of an accessible taxi to enable Keith Roads to get to the platform to reach the train that he needed. I hope that such a judgment, which was a disappointment to the DRC a month ago, will be covered when the part of the legislation dealing with access to goods and services comes into force in October this year, and that it will be the responsibility of train operators to make sure that, if they offer a service, someone in a wheelchair is not prevented from accessing that service because the station is inaccessible or because of rail works around the station or on part of the rail line. From personal experience, I know how difficult it can be to negotiate payment for a taxi when an operator replaces its trains with an inaccessible replacement service.
On physical access, the obligations that will be implemented in October 2004 are the other issue and in this respect I agree with many of the comments of the hon. Member for Wycombe. Those obligations are a major step forward and disabled people believe that the rights that they will gain in October will make a huge difference. As he said, many employers and providers are still ignorant about their obligations, but it is unfair to criticise the DRC and the Government, because they have made the strongest possible efforts to let people know exactly what will happen.
Unfortunately, the issue has been marred by scare stories put out by employers and small businesses about their obligations. I say, "'unfortunately", but those

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stories are some of the few occasions on which we have been able to obtain publicity. I have been able to comment on the issue in my local evening newspaper in Aberdeen only when I have been trundled out to reply to scare stories. If scare stories obtain the publicity that we need, they may perform a proper function. Unfortunately, misunderstanding exists about exactly what is involved and the costs. I am particularly concerned that the obligations will be used as an excuse for some shops either to close or to claim that they will close.
I pay tribute to the work of the Scottish Federation of Small Businesses, which could easily have taken a negative stance, by saying that its members were terrified of the implications of the legislation. Instead, it has gone out to try to educate its members about their responsibilities and obligations and to allay their fears by explaining that the obligations do not involve major structural changes, which some small businesses are worried about.
Physical access to goods and services is important if disabled people are to play their full part in society. There is no point in saying that disabled people should join political parties or become involved in civic society if they cannot get into buildings to access the meetings and, indeed, the demonstrations that are part and parcel of that work.
I have spoken a great deal in the House about the world of work, which is important if disabled people are to be truly included. Disabled people, and particularly those who are under retirement age, need access to employment. The Government have done sterling work in trying to ensure that those on incapacity benefit are given the chance to get into work. The new deal for disabled people has been implemented in some areas and the new pilots and the pathways to work have certainly turned around disabled people's attitudes on whether the opportunities are out there.
Younger disabled people expect to work. The difficult group is those who have been in work, and who have fallen out of it, perhaps through unemployment. On that issue, I blame the previous Government, under whom individuals were switched on to incapacity benefit after a couple of years or even a year of unemployment, not because they were any more disabled than they were when they left work, but because it was convenient and got them off the unemployment statistics. After 10 years of unemployment, people often suffer from mental illnesses such as stress or depression. It is harder to be without work when everyone else is in work. When employment is high and unemployment is low, those without work are subject to a personal and social cost. Those who were encouraged to go on to incapacity benefit in the years of high unemployment are not fiddling the system, because they are ill and genuinely believe that they cannot work.
It is hard to persuade the stock of people on incapacity benefit that opportunities and chances exist. Government initiatives such as the new deal for disabled people and the alterations to the rules on therapeutic earnings and permitted work have given people who believed that they would never work again the chance to try it out, which builds confidence in getting back into
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the work force. Mental health problems are the main reason for increased numbers on incapacity benefit, and I shall return to that challenge in a moment.
The Government have risen to the challenge. Allowing disabled people the chance to work gives people dignity and involves them in society, which is difficult to achieve by other means. People often base their social lives and develop their social awareness in the world of work. If the Government are serious when they discuss social inclusion, they must consider work.
In conclusion, I shall look to the future. The Minister described where we are today and how we got here, but the Government face future challenges on disability. We may need to legislate to end genetic discrimination, which will increase. Genetic discrimination is beginning to happen, and it is a difficult area but if we seek full civil rights for disabled people, that gap must be plugged. The Government must also examine unfair insurance premiums, because some insurance companies still feel it perfectly legitimate to bump up premiums for disabled people.
Mental health problems are a big challenge and a growth area for the future. We have been successful at getting people with physical disabilities into work. Young people with physical disabilities or even learning disabilities who leave school and go to college expect to work in supported or open employment.
I am not convinced that we have the answer on the increasing numbers who will drop out of work because of mental health problems. A great deal remains to be done on occupational health and rehabilitation to ensure that people do not drop out of the workplace when they are first diagnosed with stress or mental health problems, and more should be done either to redeploy those people within their companies or to find them other work. As the hon. Member for Wycombe says, when someone is on incapacity benefit for more than a year, it is much harder to get them back into work.
In the Joint Committee considering the draft Disability Discrimination Bill, we had quite a discussion about whether we should push the Government further on the social model. We agreed with what the Minister has said today—that the definition of discrimination in the model is not as robust or well defined as it needs to be if the rest of our legislation is to hook on to it. There is much more to be done, but I think the definition would be easier if we had a single equality Act. I hope that that will be on the Government's agenda in the next Parliament. I also hope that one of the first jobs for the human rights and equal opportunities commission will be considering how such an Act might be drafted. Under a single equality Act it would not matter whether people were discriminated against because they were black, because they were gay, because they were old, because they were disabled or because they were women; all that would need to be proved would be the fact of discrimination, and it would become much easier to prove that in court.
The Government have already done a great deal. The Minister listed the things that they have done. Nevertheless, there will always be more to do, and expectations will always rise. I am sorry to say—I say it to the Minister, but I would say it to any Government of any colour—that no matter how much is done in the

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context of disability, we shall always be coming back for more. The more civil rights we secure, the more we realise that further rights could be obtained.
Disability will not come to an end. If anything, many more disabled people will become much more active because of advances in medical science. More people will survive with more profound disabilities and more chronic conditions than has ever been the case in the past. I think Beveridge believed that with a national health service disability and ill health would disappear, but in fact those medical advances mean that people can operate despite being seriously ill. We have seen that in the House. Members suffering from cancer have managed to retain ministerial positions throughout their treatment, holding down demanding jobs that impose a good deal of pressure. More people can now be kept alive, doing more jobs more vigorously, than ever before. We are a growing part of society, and that will not go away. We will not go away either and we will go on reminding the Government of their obligations to us.
The Government have given us a voice. They have given us civil rights, and a mechanism through which we can express our dissatisfaction and challenge what we believe to be wrong. Now that we have that voice, unfortunately—or perhaps fortunately—we are going to use it.
3.13 pm
Paul Holmes: As others have said, this is an important debate on an important subject. The criteria introduced by the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 are used by 9.8 million disabled people, and one family in four has a member with a disability. Moreover, in an ageing population, disability visits more and more of us: it is not just something that happens to other people.
I do not say this often, but I agree with the opening remarks of the Conservative spokesman, the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman). It is a shame that the debate is taking place on the day of the largest electoral event since the last general election and before the next. Inevitably, many Members, including some who are assiduous in campaigning and attending debates on disability issues, cannot therefore be here today. I remember speaking in a debate on valuing people, which also took place at the end of the week, to an almost empty Chamber. It is unfortunate that such important debates are sometimes sidelined.
The attitude to disability has changed considerably in the past 30, 40 or 50 years. It used to be thought that disabled people should stay at home, out of sight out of mind, or—even worse—that they should be confined to institutions where they could not get in other people's way. The attitude has changed for the better because of the improving legal framework. All credit for that should go to this Government in particular. The framework has improved as a result of education and training, cash investment and the adoption of more open social attitudes in general. I am very glad that I was born and grew up in the second half of the 20th century, and that my children were born, grew up and will live as citizens in the 21st century.
The myriad disability groups deserve huge praise for the advances of the last 30 or 40 years. Before I became the Liberal Democrat spokesman on disability in 2001,
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I thought I knew quite a lot about disability. For some years, as a teacher in a very good comprehensive school in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt), I taught a range of disabled children in a mainstream 11-to-18 setting. I taught children with Down's syndrome, fragile X syndrome, hearing and sight impairment, cerebral palsy and spina bifida.
Having been a political campaigner in Chesterfield for many years and having lived in the town for a quarter of a century, I have encountered many examples of disability arising from industrial histories and legacies—in particular, those of a coalfield community. Much of my case load, since I have been an MP and when I was a councillor, has related to people suffering from vibration white finger, pneumoconiosis, asbestosis and numerous other industrial diseases. I have worked with quite a few disability groups in Chesterfield that deal with such conditions. For some years my mother-in-law, who lives two streets away from me in Chesterfield, has been a regular user of the excellent services provided by another voluntary group, Shopmobility, which enable her to visit the town centre.
I thought, therefore, that I was fairly knowledgeable about such groups, but since 2001 I have discovered a vast array of others—far more than I knew existed. They provide two superb services. They give support, care and help to specific groups of disabled people; but more important in the long run, I think, are their expert campaigning and lobbying of Ministers, Members of both Houses and the press on the changes that are needed in society to improve the overall lot of people with disabilities, and social and legal provision for them. They certainly deserve a great deal of credit, and I shall mention a number of them in due course.
The Government also deserve credit. I do not want to intrude on the private historical squabbling—we have heard quite a bit of that today—between the Labour and Conservative parties about the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which has been covered in some detail. To be charitable, the DDA was an important step forward, as were the subsequent extensions of it. The establishment of the Disability Rights Commission was very important, and the draft Disability Discrimination Bill—when it eventually becomes law—will be a significant step in filling the gaps in the DDA. The recognition of British sign language, the "Valuing People: Moving Forward Together" report and its initial implementation, the mental capacity Bill and even this week's announcement on the framework for partnership action by the Secretary of State for Health and the DRC are examples of major improvements for which the Government should be praised.
I very much support what the Government are doing in this regard, but we would not be doing our job today if we simply indulged in mutual praise and back-slapping—not that the previous speakers have done so—and talked about the good progress that is being made. In the light of previous debates, I am sure that the Minister would be very disappointed if I did not say that although much has been achieved, a great deal more remains to be done.
As I have said, attitudes and awareness have improved enormously compared with just 20 years ago, and certainly compared with 30 or 40 years ago.

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However, there are still huge black holes in terms of training and of the approach of various people. Reference was made earlier to small and medium-sized enterprises' lack of awareness of what will be required of them this autumn, when the next extension of the DDA takes place. There was some argument about whether the Government should be blamed for not publicising these imminent changes sufficiently. According to a UnumProvident survey, 90,000 SMEs—69 per cent. of the total—are more or less totally unaware of what will be expected of them in a relatively few weeks' time. As some Members have pointed out, there has been a great deal of publicity in the past year or so, but perhaps it should have begun considerably earlier. Many of the changes that small businesses will have to make to meet the DDA's requirements would be quite simple to incorporate if made over a number of years. I am thinking, for example, of the routine refitting of a shop or office, which happens every so often anyway. Had the changes not appeared to be last-minute changes, they would not seem such an obstacle to small businesses once they finally do learn what is expected of them; most still do not really know what is expected of them.
Tom Levitt: Is it not true that regardless of such legislation being due to take effect in October, some £50 billion of disabled people's spending power is not being tapped into? It would be very wise for shops and other small businesses to take such measures anyway; indeed, they should have taken them a long time ago in their own interests.
Paul Holmes: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right, and that point applies to what I shall say later about what the Government need to do in certain areas. It is not "just" a question of the equal rights of disabled people; it is also a question of the self-interest of many shopkeepers, restaurant owners and other businesses. If they are not accessible, friendly and welcoming to disabled people, they are excluding themselves from a huge potential income. I imagine that Ryanair, for example, will not get too much custom from disabled people, following the recent case that showed it in quite a bad light.
There are lots of other examples that show that awareness and education are still lacking. A recent DRC report on website access showed that the vast majority of business and service industry websites are not accessible. There are historical problems in the railway industry, such as those associated with London's Victorian underground system. The industry has argued that making its rolling stock accessible to disabled people by 2035 is acceptable, but the Government have said that doing so by 2025 would be better. However, Leonard Cheshire, which is campaigning hard on this issue, has said that 2017 would be a far more reasonable date. Of course, even that is 13 years away.
We have heard about the progress that has been made with the introduction of accessible buses, but simply introducing them is not the end of the story. A constituent of mine—from his wheelchair, he is a very active campaigner—has contacted me several times about the problems that he has encountered. Stagecoach, which provides most of the local services, is
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rightly very proud of the "kneeling" buses that they have introduced on a number of routes. However, the buses often will not kneel to let my constituent on. On one occasion, the excuse was given that because the bus was running late, the driver had to make up time and did not want to spend time operating the hydraulics to let on someone in a wheelchair. On another occasion, the excuse offered was that the driver in question had not been trained in how to use a kneeling bus. On a further occasion, the excuse was that the optics were grimy and would not operate the equipment. On three separate occasions, this one constituent was unable to access these wonderful kneeling buses, for reasons connected with training, operational practice and awareness among staff of the company.
I recently spoke at the Royal College of Nursing conference at Harrogate and talked to a group of nurses who worked on improving the access of the learning disabled to the health service. One of the nurses from Scotland provided an example of what happened two or three years ago in the NHS in Scotland. His brother-in-law, who had learning disabilities, was rushed into hospital. The nurse drove some miles to get to the hospital, and when he went in he saw his brother-in-law sat there white faced, with clenched teeth, sweating and obviously in pain, but unable to express what was wrong with him on account of his learning disabilities. The brother-in-law took the nurse to one side and told her that he was really in pain. Apparently, the nurse patted him on the shoulder and said, "Don't worry, they do not feel pain like we do." That took place in the health service only two or three years ago.
I also spoke recently at a care conference in Leicester, where one of the delegates talked about his experience within the last year of working in a residential care home in the south-west. He got into trouble because, while he was working there he took people with learning disabilities and people in wheelchairs down to the local pub in the evening for a couple of pints. That was viewed as unacceptable. We can congratulate ourselves on how much progress has been made, but there is an awful lot more to be done in respect of people's attitudes and awareness.
To conclude that subject, I should like to make a few comments about Ofcom. In respect of how access to telecommunications should be interpreted, Ofcom started out by saying that it would not insist on television companies subtitling live programmes because it could not technically be done. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People took me and other Members from here and the other place to visit a company in London that subtitles programmes. There we saw people sat at their computer screens subtitling live sports and news programmes and live debates with no problem at all. It is perfectly possible to do so, yet Ofcom had said that it was not prepared to press that requirement because it could not be done. Subsequently, Ofcom admitted that it could be done and that it had been wrong.
In that light, I would like the Minister to tell us whether she is aware of the basic technical errors that Ofcom made in its consultation on access to telecom services. Does she share the view of Lord McIntosh, who expressed his hope in the other place that Ofcom would accept the recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Older and Disabled People? Does she

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accept that access to television is a basic right and that the growing choice of channels and programmes offered by digital television should be equally available to all? Answers will be needed quickly, because Ofcom will soon report its requirements for the telecommunications industry on subtitling, access and so on.
Then there is the question of Government delay. I have already said that I support and praise the vast majority of what they have done, but in certain respects they are delaying and not moving fast enough. We have already mentioned the draft Disability Discrimination Bill. It was promised in the 2001 manifesto and disability groups were very disappointed that it did not appear in the Queen's Speech that year, or the subsequent year. It finally appeared in the Queen's Speech in 2003. Responses from the draft scrutiny are now being considered. Will it be timetabled to get through Parliament before the next general election destroys it? Had the Government given more priority to this issue and introduced the draft Bill last year or the year before, as they promised in the manifesto, the Bill would already be on the statute book. Clearly, the Government could have moved faster in some areas.
In her closing comments, my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) referred to the need for a single equality Bill and asked the Government to look into how it could be drafted. The experiment has already been done. In the other place, Lord Lester, a leading civil rights lawyer, and others, produced a draft single equality Bill in order to clarify the complex mess of equality legislation across six different strands. At the moment, disabled people do not have the same equality rights as people in other discriminatory strands. That was taken through the other place and 247 Members of this House supported an early-day motion stating that a similar measure should be introduced here—but the Government ignored it completely. A draft Bill has been produced, debated and thoroughly gone through. About 40 per cent. of hon. Members supported it straight away, but there has been no sign of any action from the Government. Sarah Spencer, the chair of the equality and diversity forum, told the inaugural meeting of the all-party group on equalities on 20 April that there was a clear and urgent need for such a Bill.
I turn now to the possible establishment of a single commission. The DRC was originally critical of the proposal, although it has accepted some of the Government's reassurances. However, despite the Government's concessions, it remains concerned that a single commission could mean that disabled people will have no organisation to speak for them. It has said that, without a single equality Act, it will be difficult for disabled people to argue for the equal rights that they lack in the law as it stands.
A recent Age Concern campaign estimated that about 2 million people do not claim attendance allowance, even though they are entitled to it and need it. In answer to parliamentary questions, most recently last autumn, the Government said that the size of the problem was not known, and that it would be too difficult and expensive to determine it. They said that they would not mount a mass publicity campaign to encourage people
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to take up the allowance because it was better to work through local authorities and welfare rights organisations.
Maria Eagle: Does the hon. Gentleman accept that it is not at all obvious who is eligible for extra-cost benefits such as attendance allowance, for which certain criteria must be met? The only way to find out is if people claim. It is much more difficult to estimate what take-up of attendance allowance ought to be than is the case with other benefits.
Paul Holmes: I accept that it can be difficult to produce reliable estimates of take-up. Attempts were made in 1996–97, but such estimates can be open to all sorts of interpretations.
The Government have said that they do not want to mount a mass awareness campaign but prefer to go through specialist groups. I spent a day with a Chesterfield borough council staff member whose job is to respond to information from bodies such as neighbourhood watch that an elderly person needs a door chain or window locks, for example. He is trained to ask that elderly person whether he or she has claimed pension credit, attendance allowance or some other benefit. He secures benefits worth hundreds of pounds in allowances for those elderly people, or even gets central heating installed for them. That is all well and good, yet cash resources are needed to pay the staff required even though local authorities are told that they must keep council tax down. I hope that the Government will make available resources to make that option work.
A campaign to secure a winter fuel allowance for disabled people was running for a long time before I entered Parliament. The Government refuse even to consider making that allowance available for disabled people, saying that people who are not of retirement age do not need it. However, I received an e-mail this week from a person aged 41 who is suffering from cancer and is confined to the house. That person suffered enormously from the cold as a result, a fact that many disability groups have been aware of for a long time. I cannot understand why the winter fuel allowance is not extended to people with medium and higher levels of disability.
The Government deserve praise for recognising British Sign Language, but what happens next? Finland's population is one-tenth the size of ours, but the country has 600 sign language interpreters. The UK has 400. There are not enough such interpreters available to profit from the recognition of BSL. With the roll-out of the new disability discrimination legislation, employers should make available access to such interpreters, when that is appropriate or necessary. What do the Government plan to do to ensure that more interpreters are trained and made available? They displayed good intentions when they recognised BSL, but they must put those good intentions into practice over the next two or three years.
In business questions earlier, my hon. Friend the Member for Gordon ( Malcolm Bruce) said that he had heard that the Government are to host an EU conference on how to support and introduce the use of sign language. Will the Minister give the House some details about that to clarify what is happening?

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There are contradictions in Government policy. A Department may make a statement on a matter that is undermined by another Department. I used to be a teacher, and one example that comes to mind has to do with education. The Department for Education and Skills has said, on the one hand, that it is in favour of social inclusion, and that disabled children should have access to mainstream schools, and all types of school; but on the other hand there is the policy of testing. Our children are the most tested in the western world, from when they enter infant school to when they leave secondary school. League tables reflect their results, and schools live or die by the tables when it comes to the children they attract, the money they get and the performance-related pay of teachers, which depends on how successful teachers are in getting children through exams. I know all about that because in the first year of performance-related pay I filled in my own application to cross the professional threshold, and one of the main criteria is how the teacher's classes are doing in terms of academic performance.
All the statistics, including the Government figures every February and annual Ofsted reports, show that the schools that do best in the league tables of which the Government are so fond as they try to drive up standards are generally those with the lowest number of children with special educational needs. I could provide many anecdotal examples of schools in Derbyshire that are high in the league table but where the head will tell people their child would be better off at the school up the road because it is better suited to their needs.
On the one hand, then, the Government say they want social inclusion; on the other, they follow educational policies that work absolutely against it.
The Select Committee on Education and Skills, on which I serve, is nearing the end of its scrutiny of the draft School Transport Bill. Almost every witness before the Committee has said that most of it is pointless. Almost all the experiments in it to get children to walk to school or use buses and so on are already being done by various local authorities around the country, so there is no need for a Bill to set them out. The only thing that the Bill does that cannot be done now is that it would let local authorities ignore the ruling in the Education Act 1944 about free school transport, which is that children attending junior schools more than two miles from their home and children going to secondary schools more than three miles from home can get free transport. The largest part of local education authorities' transport budgets is that for SEN children.
I visited an excellent deaf unit at New Whittington primary school in my constituency three or four weeks ago, and one of the children comes from 15 to 20 miles away from somewhere in Derbyshire and gets in a taxi each morning to be taken there. A lot of people who have children with SEN who have to travel some distance to an appropriate setting are afraid that they will be charged under the experiments contained in the draft Bill. Again, on the one hand the Government have excellent policies on SEN children's inclusion in schools and the provision of specialist units like the deaf unit in Chesterfield, while on the other they are considering an
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experiment that people fear will lead to children and parents being charged for access to the special provision that they need.
Then there is overall Government policy and its intentions. I am thinking of the new deal for the disabled and associated programmes. One problem of the new deal, often aired in the Chamber, is its emphasis on the quick fix, partly so that targets are hit as people are got into work and off long-term unemployment by recycling them through the new deal, but partly because of the philosophy, which has some degree of truth to it, that the longer someone is unemployed, the less likely they are to get back to work. In terms of people with disabilities, many of whom have never worked but want to get into work, and many of whom have not worked for many years, none of that is as applicable. Is it best to deal with such people by calling them for compulsory interviews with the threat of sanctions if they do not do as they are told? Or will that frighten people with learning disabilities? I attended a recent meeting in Chesterfield involving Phoenix, a good not-for-profit company that delivers part of the Government's programme in this area, and community psychiatric nurses who were there to learn about the condition management programme being piloted in Derbyshire. The nurses were worried that the people they work with would receive demands out of the blue, telling them that they had to attend interviews and would lose their benefits if they did not. Is that really the best way to deal with people with mental health problems and learning disabilities?
There are many good examples of how those people should be dealt with, but they are being handicapped, to some degree, by the strictures of the new deal approach. For example, the empower project being run by Chesterfield chamber of commerce works with disabled people, though not exclusively, and has found that even to get some people to a level at which they could think about applying for a job might take some weeks or months of basic life skills training before they could consider being placed in a job or a workplace. It is difficult but not impossible to match up such projects to the demands of the new deal. Phoenix, a not-for-profit company, has done innovative work in this area in order to deliver some Government programmes. The Government must respect the Shaw Trust because it is now the largest job broker for disabled people for the Government across the United Kingdom. In the next year it will work with 30,000 of the 1 million disabled adults who say that they would love to get back to work if they could be helped to overcome the obstacles in their way.
All those bodies and Unum, a private insurance company that works in this area, say that whatever the disability, more resources, more quality input and more time is needed to achieve a positive outcome than the new deal, in its initial stages, allows. The Government need to rethink their approach there.
Let me give one specific example. Recently I was talking to some advisers at the Chesterfield Jobcentre Plus who find that the return-to-work benefit is useful in some cases. They cited the example of a lady who had had a pressurised job as a personnel manager and had a nervous breakdown, but who wanted to get back to work. She could return partially without worrying too much about the loss of money because for one year she

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got the return-to-work benefit. At the end of the year she would probably regain enough confidence to return full-time—she had gained some confidence in two or three month—and would not need further benefits. That would be a win-win situation for everyone; no problem.
Many disabled people would not be in that category. Some will never be able to work full time. Some will have disabilities that come and go, such as multiple sclerosis and ME, and may be able to work all this week but not next week. They express the fear that having struggled hard to gain access to disability benefits, if they return to work they will lose the benefits and face the problem of getting back on them. Would it not be a good idea to introduce a partial disability benefit, whereby some disabled people can sign up to work, say, 20 hours a week, but will get the relevant percentage of benefit for the rest of the week because they will never be able to work full time? That would offer such reassurance to people in those categories that it would be worth the risk, as they see it at the moment, of trying to get back into work.
Finally, there is the question of financial resources. There are resource issues in everything that we have talked about this afternoon. There are many examples and there is much research evidence from the various disability groups to back this up. The John Grooms report said that 300,000 wheelchair-accessible homes are needed now. Who is building them? Where is the money? What is happening? The Joseph Rowntree report recently said that care homes are short of £1 billion. The Shaw Trust points out that if we spend five times more on employment programmes for disabled people, we will reach the European average for the first time. That is a 500 per cent. increase.
The National Autistic Society says that 90 per cent. of short-break schemes for carers have waiting lists. Carers cannot get the breaks they need. Yet, if they reach breaking point, as outlined in the earlier Mencap report on the same theme last June, the state, taxpayers and everyone lose out. If the disabled person who is being cared for has to go into residential care, it is far more expensive and far less satisfactory for everyone. Last year's Mencap report pointed out that six out of the 10 families that the authors talked to had never had a carer's assessment, let alone got on a waiting list for a weekend break or a weekday break for carers.
This May, the Down's Syndrome Association pointed out that the Government's stated policy for more inclusion in education is failing in practice because of local education authority reluctance to provide sufficient resources. That brings us to arguments about whether the Government are giving LEAs enough money but they are spending it elsewhere, or whether the Government are not giving them enough in the first place. Those arguments were raised last year in the education funding debate, for example.
Money can be spent more efficiently. A couple of years ago I went to Leicester and looked at the organisation run by the Red Cross there. On behalf of Leicester city, Leicester county council and Rutland council, it operates the distribution, collection, cleaning and redistribution of the whole range of mobility aids. Because it operates on that scale with computerised inventories and so on, it has saved a lot of money. It gets the equipment back because it knows where the equipment has gone. Often hospitals and social services
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do not know that. Because of the scale on which it works, it can also return equipment to a state in which it is fit to issue to someone else, rather than having to buy brand new equipment and losing it to somebody's outhouse. Money can be handled in better ways and some efficiency savings can be made, but I am dubious about the idea that all the funding can be provided from such savings.
As the population ages, we will have more disability. The older people are, the more they suffer from disabilities of various kinds. The more that we talk, legislate and create a framework of equal rights for disabled people, the more money will be required to make the rhetoric a reality. I hope that the Minister will accept my more critical comments in the helpful spirit in which I intend them. I support much of what the Government have done in the past few years, but much more remains to be done.
Several hon. Members rose —
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Alan Haselhurst): Order. It might be helpful if I point out to the House that no speech has yet been made in less than 32 minutes. Six hon. Members seek to catch my eye and I hope that everyone will bear that in mind, given the time available.
3.46 pm
Liz Blackman: I feel sure that I will be able to comply with your request, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I am pleased to speak in this afternoon's debate on disability. It is such a broad subject that I have decided to focus my remarks on the disability of autism. I am chair of the all-party group on the issue.
Autism is a communication disability. It affects not only communication, but social interaction and the ability to imagine. People who have autism often find it difficult to pick up social cues. They can also behave in extremely rigid and obsessive ways. It is a spectrum disorder, which means that any of those characteristics can be displayed to a greater or lesser extent. At the high functioning end, including Asperger's syndrome, it is often, rightly, called the hidden disability. Therein lie many of the problems. It is estimated to affect some 500,000 people in the UK, and there is disagreement on whether the number is increasing or we have become better at diagnosis. The cause of autism is unknown, but it is a lifelong disability.
It is fair to say that in the past few years our understanding and awareness of autism has increased significantly. Policymakers in government and parliamentarians certainly have a greater understanding, and that is the result of much work by the National Autistic Society and many other groups that campaign to raise awareness and improve services for people with autism. The media have also played their role in highlighting the disability.
Recently, and laudably, Vodafone has put £6 million into a partnership with the NAS to raise awareness. Hon. Members may have seen some of the advertisements in the press over the past few weeks, which cleverly portray—in a visual and striking way—what autism means to the individuals who have it, their families and the wider community.

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The all-party group was formed in 2000 by my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), who is now the Under-Secretary of State for Health. My hon. Friend knows much about autism, and I praise the Government for putting him in the Department of Health and giving him responsibility for autism, among his many other responsibilities. Under my hon. Friend's chairmanship of the group, a manifesto was launched last year. It has a 10-year time scale, although we will probably be able to move much more quickly than we had expected. This year, during autism awareness week, we celebrated the first anniversary of the manifesto. The week had a theme of planning for life. That was deliberate because, although it is fair to say that services and policy have moved forward, especially children's services, a whole raft of policy initiatives needs to be taken on adult services.
We still have a long way to go on children's services. As my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) said, the job is never finished, as our expectations become higher and higher. However, many recent policy initiatives have been taken. They are encouraging, and they will make a difference. Services for children with autism are being used as an example in the disabled children's module of the children's national service framework, which aims to set national standards for what children and their families can expect. Early support pilot programmes funded by the DFES aim to improve the delivery of services to disabled children under three and their families, including children with autism. The special educational needs strategy that has recently been announced singles out autism as an exemplar, and there will be pilot work.
Children's trusts will be enormously important when they come on stream. They will create a statutory framework whereby different agencies can pool their budgets. We will then get a real improvement in multi-agency work not just for children with autism but children with other disabilities and all children. Those are extremely positive steps forward. We will reap the rewards of laying those foundations as they come to fruition. There is no doubt about that.
The picture is not quite so rosy when it comes to the point of transition for children with autistic spectrum disorders. There is a lot of confusion not only around the law but in practice. The transition planning framework for England and Wales is set out in the Education Act 1996, as amended by the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001. The SENDA code of practice makes it clear that there is a statutory obligation to prepare a multi-agency transition plan for year 9 pupils with a statement, but evidence collected from the National Autistic Society support programme for parents suggests that more than half of parents were not aware of the 14-plus transition review and what it should mean for their child. Too often, professionals have not turned up when the review has taken place.
Many children are not entitled to such a review because they do not have a statement, but there is a parallel transition process under the Disabled Persons (Services, Consultation and Representation) Act 1986. Education departments are required to notify social services of all 13 to 14-year-olds whom they consider
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disabled. Social services are then required to co-ordinate multi-agency assessments to be linked to the transition and care planning for adults under the National Health Service and Community Care Act 1990. Understandably, the experience is poor for many families who find, first, that the processes are not integrated and, secondly, that the organisational structures prevent transfer of information.
Certainly, the Children Act 1989 will help. However, there has been some progress. Connexions has accepted responsibility for preparing a needs and provision assessment under section 40 of the Learning and Skills Act 2000 for all children with special educational needs. That puts more pressure on training, and there is no legislative framework to insist that the different agencies—especially adult social services—co-operate.
The need for mult -agency co-ordination in transition planning is recognised in the Green Paper "Every Child Matters", the SEN strategy "Removing barriers to achievement" and the forthcoming NSF. They all have transition themes. The Department for Education and Skills is committed to producing national transition standards and to working more closely with Connexions and learning and skills councils.
I want to focus on services for adults, where there is such a long way to go. Fifty per cent. of people with ASD live at home and only 12 per cent. are in some kind of paid employment, so the picture is much bleaker. The statutory framework falls away. Many young people and older adults fall between mental health teams and social services learning disability teams, coming into contact with one or the other only when they are in crisis. Despite the fact that the valuing people strategy signals access to those services, that does not yet happen as it should.
The Department of Health has published guidance on eligibility criteria for social care services that instructs local authorities to base such criteria on individuals presenting needs rather than on diagnosis. The guidance states that some councils declare that
"they do not help particular groups of individuals, such as those with higher functioning autism/Asperger syndrome, and make no attempt to assess needs as they should. This is unacceptable."
At the reception we held for autism awareness week, the Under-Secretary of State for Health, my hon. Friend the Member for South Thanet announced a new vision for adult social care. That is an opportunity to improve not only the statutory framework but the operation of the various services involved. The integration of health and social care records under the national care records service is not due to occur until 2010, but I hope that it can be speeded up with the onset of children's trusts.
Points have already been made about access to benefits, which is problematic for people with autism and their families. However, I praise the DWP for widely publicising information about benefits in different ways, including the free-phone benefit inquiry line. However, although it is easy to provide information, people with a communication or understanding disorder find it hard to process the information, so access is a real issue. Can the Minister tell us whether operators on the free phone benefit inquiry line can pick up a communication disorder? Do they have relevant training?

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Disability living allowance is a key benefit for access to other benefits, yet it is hard to describe autism within the bounds of the current application form. I know that pilot work is under way on the redesign of the form, so can the Minister tell us how that is progressing? There is also a commitment to update the disability handbook. Can she tell us how that exercise is getting on?
As I said earlier, 12 per cent. of people with autism are in paid employment, but only 6 per cent. work full time. There are 332,000 people with ASD, of working age and 260,000 of them have an average or above-average IQ. The Government have a phenomenal record on employment, and my constituency bears testimony to that. However, there are specific groups of disabled people that are difficult to support and get into work. I am sure that the Minister will agree that more needs to be done to ensure that more than 6 per cent. of people with ASD are in full-time employment.
The National Autistic Society survey of adults with ASD found that the biggest barriers to work were worries about the social aspects of an employment environment and lack of support, and employers' negative perceptions, lack of understanding and unwillingness to make reasonable adjustments. However, there are brilliant examples of supported employment projects in the UK, not least of which is run by the NAS's employment service, Prospects, which the Department for Work and Pensions supported between 2000 and 2003 as an initial step toward gathering qualitative evidence on how best to support people with autism into employment. Several key features of the Prospects-supported employment programme are not surprising. Young people need help with job searching, interview preparation, finding out how to stay in a job and getting support in the job as and when that is necessary. The other key feature of a successful placement for people with ASD is the education and support of their employers. If we can get the two parts of the equation right, it will make a big difference.
I recently visited a fantastic scheme in Sheffield in which a charity has an arrangement with Meadowhall, which is a huge shopping outlet—anyone who lives anywhere near it will have visited or at least have driven past it. The same ingredients are present in the scheme. Some of the young people involved in the project gave a presentation because it was a year old, and both they and their employers spoke positively about their work experience. The employers made the point of saying how much progress they had made on understanding autism and the way in which they managed and got the best out of all their employees.
Where do we go from here to improve the figures and make the prospect of work for autistic people a reality? As I said, there are two sides to the equation. We must get both the support and supply sides right. I draw hon. Members' attention to a couple of innovative projects on which the NAS is currently embarking. In July, it will set up the Prospects provider training programme, which will be piloted in Glasgow. The service is aimed at disability employment services. Participants will make a payment for which they will gain Prospects' expertise. In time, the specialist service will become self-funding, so it will be possible to deliver it in more regions. When sufficient income has been generated, a co-ordinator for England and Wales will be recruited to roll out the scheme throughout the country.
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On the employers' side, the employers with Prospects initiative will be set up. It will partner companies, with the aim of widening access. Companies that join the scheme will pay a contribution, actively try to find opportunities for paid employment and work experience, and encourage and support staff who wish to train as ASD supporters. However, the companies will get something back in return. They will benefit from access to an eager, reliable and accurate work force with a high level of availability., and many members of the work force will possess exceptional skills and abilities. The companies will receive good PR as socially responsible corporate organisations, and they will support a substantial yet ignored group, the needs of which are rapidly reaching public notice. Employees will have the opportunity to align with a cause of which many may have personal experience from their family and close friends. I hope that not only the DWP but the Department of Trade and Industry and other Departments will take a close interest as those two projects unfold and do what they can to support them. That is a way forward.
Finally, the 1995 definition does not adequately cover the difficulties faced by people with ASD. The draft Disability Discrimination Bill will not remedy that, but it is encouraging that the Joint Committee recommends that the definition in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 should be updated to address the social and communication impairments experienced by those with ASD. That is absolutely crucial to ensure that people with a communication and social interaction disorder are not discriminated against, whether in work or elsewhere. With that, as other hon. Members wish to speak, I will complete my speech.
4.6 pm
Mr. Tim Boswell: To put it neutrally, it may be a consequence of the timing of this debate on the day of major elections, but the Minister started with a rebarbative speech. I do not intend to follow her in that. Perhaps I can give an alternative take from my own experience as a Minister, although not in the Minister's Department, at the time of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and, subsequently, as someone who has had—I choose these words advisedly—the pleasure of shadowing her in her current responsibilities for a number of years.
My take on the House's attitude to disability is that is it not one of Ministers against the rest. I understand that the Minister is subject to constraints: first, the parliamentary timetable and the business managers, a point to which allusion has been made already; and, secondly, the wider issues of resources and the impact of costs falling on the economy, which are entirely proper for Ministers to consider.
My concern is not that there is a lack of will among individual Ministers or the Government, let alone my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who spoke with such eloquence from the Conservative Front Bench. We all understand that there is a job to be done and hon. Members on both sides of the Chamber have made fascinating contributions about how that should be discharged. No doubt, there will be further such contributions.
My biggest worry is that, even when it is not election day, the hon. Members who engage in disability issues are relatively small in number. Of course, every hon.

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Member has them in his or her constituency postbag, but it is difficult to achieve the national profile, and that, in turn, reflects itself in the way in which the Government treat the issue.
Over the years, we could make a perfectly plausible case for saying that, as in many areas of social advance, different Governments have made their own contributions at the appropriate time. In addition to those that have been mentioned, I am very pleased and, to some extent, proud to have been associated with the disability manifesto—the first of its kind—that the Conservative party produced for the last election, although we did not do as well as other parties in that election.
So the business moves on, and rightly so because, as has been said, if we round up the figures—certainly if we allow for more than one disability per person in many cases—more than 10 million of our citizens are directly involved as disabled people. We cannot touch on every issue of concern to them, so I shall endeavour to be selective.
I shall deal with the rights issue first. Although I did not agree with everything said by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), I did agree with her that rights are important because they help not only to make safeguards for the individual, but to change attitudes and culture. I hope that, in turn, she acknowledges that those changes in attitude and culture now have to drive the agenda forward for very good reasons, as the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) said.
I shall comment on the specific issues in an area in which initial concerns about a single commission for equality and human rights have been dispelled. We are getting there, but I wish to touch on one or two outstanding issues. The first is that I hope that the disability strand will continue to be adequately resourced. It is very complex—discrimination and remediation for discrimination are difficult issues. Expertise must not be lost.
Secondly, there are important interactions with the wider human rights agenda. For example, I understand that there is no proposal at the moment to enable the Disability Rights Commission or its successor to assist individuals in taking suits on human rights grounds. There is also a degree of uncertainty, and indeed anomaly, between the entitlements to avoid discrimination between the different strands, as the Minister will know.
One issue that I have mentioned in debates in the past has not been touched upon, but I feel strongly about it. It is what might be termed the functional unevenness in the enforcement of the agenda already mentioned. In the exchange in which I implied criticism of the Minister, I made the point that there was already a substantial employment tribunal load in relation to article 2 duties. That arose straight from the Conservative legislation. As matter of fact, that has not happened to anything like the same extent in relation to access to goods and services, because such cases would have to go through the courts rather than the tribunal system. There is also an anomaly in education. Tribunals cover the period up to the end of compulsory education, but access is through the courts in relation to discrimination post-16. Ministers must keep that issue under active review.
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I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe that there is still a problem with the implications of the enforcement in October 2004 of provisions of the DDA. Equally, there was a dilemma for the Disability Rights Commission, with which, as I shall say now but have not said in the past, I have had very constructive relations. I regard it is as doing a balanced job. As I understand it, up until last year, it very much put forward the new education agenda to which I did not object. However, that meant that it had comparatively little time to go into what will happen in October. We all know that, in the real world, we probably need legislation in place before people focus on it. It is a question of how sensibly it is handled in the initial stage. Above all, small and medium-sized enterprises should not be put off from trying to do anything when the reasonable adjustments that they may be required to make are entirely modest and appropriate to the turnover of their business.
Miss Begg: I think that the hon. Gentleman will accept that it will not be until October 2004 that some companies and businesses will take the legislation seriously. Once there is one prosecution under the new legislation, minds will be focused and we shall see quite a lot of action. Things will improve at that stage.
Mr. Boswell: I understand that point. Any regulatory body that has any sense is well advised to look to draw attention to one or. two notorious cases "pour encourager les autres" At the same time, such a body will not want, in practice, to seek to intervene in every single case of technical. infringement or a reputation for doing so. We have to lift the game of the whole sector and, as already has been made clear in the debate, many employers and service providers are involved.
I hope that I am being constructive when I say that the DRC, the Department and others working in conjunction with the Employers Forum on Disability should work closely with specialist trade associations to make sure that they push the new agenda forward.
Because of my new Front-Bench duties, I have been working with the Cinema Exhibitors Association recently. I have seen the third edition of the guidance on access to cinemas that it has circulated over a number of years to its members. Incidentally, the cinema is the No. 1 leisure activity of people with learning disabilities and a detailed, precise and thoroughly constructed code has been made available. It even prescribes things such as the optimal height of coat hooks for disabled people. Such practice is exemplary. I hope that other trade associations will follow suit.
I shall briefly consider the educational issues. I begin with the hon. Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman), with her interest in autism. She made her points clearly and revealed one of the areas that concerns me most—the transitional phases between the different sectors. It is one thing for us to legislate, as we have done through the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, the Disability Rights Commission and the law that will take effect in October, but things must happen in practice. There lies a real weakness.
We should start early in the process with diagnosis. We have the opportunity of doing that, with, for example, neonatal hearing impairments, but there are other conditions, such as the autistic spectrum, which has become much more apparent as an issue.

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Apart from those specific areas of concern, we need to move the debate on from what, as a parent, one can understand is important for the family which is the enshrinement of legal rights in a statement. That is important and the issue will not go away. We should begin to move more towards considering active and holistic ways of implementing the programme that is appropriate for the individual chitd.
Liz Blackman: We had an intresting presentation from a local education authority whose name is Welsh and which I find difficult to pronounce—Rhondda Cynon Taff. It has co-located services round autism to the degree that, as I think the presenter said, there was practically no child within the authority who had a statement. That was not necessary because the provision was there.
Mr. Boswell: I am saying that we need an integrated approach for the child. The deficiencies are not always necessarily educational ones. It can be some other component that is missing. For example, I have encouraged or supported the obtaining of a statement for a visually impaired child. Suddenly it has been found that the school to which the child has been referred is out of the immediate area and that transport is not available, or there is a practical problem with transport. Every Member will be familiar with the endemic national shortage of speech therapists, for example. We need to try to bring things together and we may need one financing package to do it. However, it is certain that we need a common approach between the different agencies as they work together.
I move on to mental capacity, We clearly need to draw a distinction between mental health problems and learning difficulties. Much of what I have said in relation to special educational needs is applicable in that context. It is fair to say that many people with learning difficulties and disabilities subsequently get into difficulties with mental health problems because of the frustration and the other difficulties that they experience, but the two are entirely distinct.
My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe was right to point out the many cases of stress and breakdown that feed into the incapacity benefit figures. With both learning disabilities and mental health problems, there is a need for adequate support services. I strongly endorse the remark of the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) about the importance of housing. The people concerned need a safe environment in which to live and recover, but they also need advocacy. It is important that people should make their own choices if they are in a position to do so. Certainly their opinions should be canvassed, but at the same time it is important that they are not left friendless and exposed to an unfriendly bureaucracy, particularly when the implicit agenda of the various parts of that bureaucracy is to try to shift the budgetary burdens, with the result that nothing is done.
I want to make two points on mental health. First, a characteristic of mental health is that it is intermittent. Somebody can try and fail to return to work, with all the concerns that have been expressed about possible disqualification from the benefits system. Secondly, it is obviously a sensitive and susceptible matter—for example, in relation to any harsh treatment in a personal
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capacity assessment, or even being called up for one. I am currently dealing with a constituency case in which that is under discussion.
Turning to the benefits system, the single biggest problem, to which the Prime Minister and others have referred, is the sheer number of people—2.7 million—on incapacity benefit. That is a high figure, but it is not unparalleled in other western countries. In the Netherlands, it is estimated that 10 per cent. of the adult population are on disability benefit. The benefits system still suffers from the remnants of the belief that someone is either on benefit or in work, making the position difficult for people who are recovering from an accident, mental illness or other condition. The Minister will tell me that the linking rules are much more relaxed, which I welcome, so I need only flag up the need to keep looking at other options, including the part-benefit, part-work solution mentioned by the hon. Member for Chesterfield, a tapered arrangement and an agreed contract on return to work including supporting benefit while it is being worked out.
In that area, even more than in special educational needs, the need to produce a single pot of money may be driven by the choice of the individual or their advocate. That should not be distorted by the need for insurance, and the mutual system should allow for a single budgetary pot, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe said, we examined at the last election and would draw on the direct payment of social benefits that has been successful for many people. At the moment, there is no congruence between benefit and the objective of return to work. They are more linked than they were, but they are still not perfectly aligned. The option of preferring to stay off work and on benefit is still a moral hazard, although I agree with Members who say that that is not how most people treat the system.
Turning briefly to active case management, agencies want to know who is not paying for such a service. The collective test should be what they should be doing for individuals to secure their position. I have an interest in the various concepts of case management that have been developed. First, case management should be professional and comprehensive; otherwise it would offer a wonderful opportunity for charlatans and well-intentioned people without the necessary portfolio of skills to manage cases and a pot of money for individuals. Secondly, case management does not necessarily mean advocacy or job brokerage, although they are related functions. We need a collective and flexible approach to achieve suitable solutions for individuals. Inevitably, the Government's notorious obsession with targets has encouraged disability employment advisers, for whom I have a considerable regard, to concentrate on shifting their case load to meet those targets. Challenging work tends to be left with the private sector and not-for-profit providers such as the Shaw Trust, which do a tremendous job. I agree with the Work and Pensions Committee, which recommended that the private sector should increasingly discharge those delicate, difficult and complex tasks.
Finally, I am pleased that a number of Members have mentioned employment, but little has been said about assistive technology. To some extent, technology has created problems for employment and continuing employability. People who might have been able to

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continue successfully in employment now find themselves challenged by new technology. At the same time, technology has created huge opportunities for people to continue and sustain their employment, which they might not have been able to do without, for example, the use of information technology solutions.
There are two challenges. The first is getting people into employment in the first place, particularly when that has not been on the cards and they may even have been advised at school or elsewhere to anticipate that. The second is to defend the position of people in employment as their faculties decline with age or new technical challenges arise. For example, they may find it less easy to see or to operate in a noisy environment, and we must find ways of tackling that. Many employers, including typically the larger employers, are good at that. If anyone has not had a chance to visit Ford's MAGIC—mobility and general information centre—I recommend that they do. The centre advises on disability issues and is located in an exemplary building with a huge amount of investment in it.
Let us make no bones about it. Across employment generally, whatever rights we have passed in this place and whatever we may claim to have done, functional discrimination by outcome continues. It is not unique to this area. It is true of a number of other equality issues about which I also feel strongly. We may have talked the talk, we may have passed the law, but we have not achieved the outcomes that we sought to achieve. In some cases in the context of disability, as has been said, that relates to non-employment outcomes such as health.
There is still a strong loading against the survival of children with learning disabilities. Their mortality rates are much higher and their chances of surviving into a full adult life are lower than they would otherwise be. It is interesting that the greater survival rate that is coming through, which is thoroughly welcome, feeds into some of the problems that they have as adults, which would not have arisen had their survival rates been lower, as they were in the past.
Returning to employment, of the 2.7 million people with disabilities who are on benefit, a million or more want to work. The presumption is that we should be helping them into work. That is not just a matter of economics. It is a matter of human dignity, their position in society, their health because of motivation, their inclinations and their choice. There are enlightened employers who are prepared to contribute and there is good practice in the field. On the other hand, the public provision, including access to work, which incidentally was introduced by a Conservative Government, is still too bureaucratic and the whole system is not seen as friendly towards small and medium-sized enterprises, which are the most likely to create employment.
We need to tell employers, large or small, organised, aware or not aware of the issue, that it is good business for them to employ people with disabilities, who are an extremely reliable part of the labour force. It is sensible and will not cause large or unreasonable expense to make reasonable adjustments for them. The adjustments made to enhance access to work usually cost hundreds rather than thousands of pounds. It is also extremely good business, particularly for firms
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whose work is customer-facing—retailers or providers of services—to be sensitive to the needs of disabled customers and their families, who might represent up to 40 per cent. of the adult population. They have real spending power, as has been mentioned. It is not good business for a supermarket chain to say that it does not want to do business with 10 million citizens because it cannot make the necessary adjustments. The track record suggests that, where businesses are sensitive to disabled employees and customers who may have a disability, the necessary adjustments usually benefit all employees and customers. Such changes are not a simple matter of cost or loss.
I have appeared on various platforms with organisations such as the Institute of Directors to make the excellent business case for employers to take disability issues seriously and sensitively. That business case happens to lie alongside an extremely strong social case, which has been eloquently expressed this afternoon. We should all do our utmost in this place to see that the whole world knows about the happy coincidence between the business case and the social case and is not put off by scare stories or exaggerated claims about expense. If we can encourage that view with incentives and inducements within the framework of rights and law, let us hope that something positive will be done, which is the outcome that we all want. The 10 million disabled people, and all those connected with them, will not ask us to do any less than that.
Mr. Goodman: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Earlier in the debate, the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) claimed that I had one of the worst attendance records among the members of the Joint Committee on the draft Disability Discrimination Bill. I have checked the facts: I attended 10 out of 14 sittings, whereas, for example, the hon. Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) attended nine out of 14 sittings. Is it in order for the hon. Member for High Peak to concede that neither nine sittings out of 14 nor 10 sittings out of 14 is not a shameful record, and that he was mistaken to introduce a personal observation for party political gain?
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The hon. Gentleman knows that that is not a point on which the Chair can rule. The matter is for debate and, perhaps, for courtesies between the two hon. Members concerned.
4.32 pm
Tom Levitt: I have also checked the record, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I examined only the public sittings contained in volume two of the Joint Committee's report, and the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) attended six of the nine sittings. It is true that some members of the Committee attended only five of the nine sittings, and I did not say that he had the worst attendance record. However, if one counts the contributions made by members of the Committee, it tells a story.
I have never known what it is like to be disabled. At one point in my life,I had my leg in plaster for a few months, but as a child I had no disabled friends or relatives, so, in a sense, disability never crossed my path. As I grew up, my sister and I used to play with a brother and sister from the family across the road. We were

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good friends with the family, but it was only after I had left home that I realised that that family contained a third child. That child was from the same generation as the four of us who had played happily together, but the child was autistic, which relates to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman). In all the years in which I lived across the road from that family, I never met that child. I hope that such shame about disability—the desire to hide away one's own child and not to make them count as a member of society—is long past, but unfortunately I am pretty sure that similar examples still occur, despite those events taking place some 30 or 40 years ago.
Many years later, I woke up to disability politics. At the Labour party conference in 1986 I was sitting at a table in a coffee bar when a young man came and sat opposite me with his sign language interpreter. In the course of the next hour and a half, he told me through his interpreter what his life was like.
He told me about the school where his hands were taped to the desk to stop him signing. He said his parents were told that signing was just a phase that he was going through, and that he would grow out of it.
That young man was fluent in sign language. Indeed, today he is one of its top exponents in the country. In those days, however, he was deprived of a common language even with his parents, who had sent him away to school to be looked after and educated believing, no doubt, that there were doing the right thing, although in fact they were adding to the apartheid that disabled people faced at the time.
The other startling thing about that young man is that there are 50,000 people like him in the country—50,000 people for whom British sign language is the first or only functioning language. That is one in every 1,000 people, yet it took me 32 years to meet one of them. That does not reveal how sheltered my life was; it reveals how sheltered theirs were.
I remember, many years later, having a conversation with a deaf friend on a train, partly in sign language. A number of people, including the guard, joined in, because they were deaf—in two cases—or because they had friends or family who were deaf. That was quite an eye-opener, which would not be noticed except by someone confronted with it. It taught me that describing someone as deaf tells people nothing about him or her. Does "deaf" mean "slightly hard of hearing"? Does it mean "hearing all right because of a hearing aid"? Or does it mean "having a completely different first language, living in a different culture"—and all that goes with being part of the sign language community?
We could go further, and ask what "disabled" means. Many places are "disabled accessible": we know that they are, because there is a little badge showing a wheelchair. As many speakers have pointed out today, however, use of a wheelchair does not denote a typical disability. Only a small proportion of those who are physically disabled employ wheelchairs. If we add the numbers with communication disabilities, sensory disabilities, mental impairment and learning disabilities, it becomes clear that the word "disabled" actually means nothing. What we are talking about are people—people with individual needs. They cannot even be thought of as being members of a few groups of disabled people, for there are many different groups. It is very
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difficult for any Government to legislate for all their needs in one go, with the single exception of their right not to suffer discrimination at work, in terms of access to goods and services or in any other context.
My experiences prompted me to learn sign language, and to work for a while advising local authorities on how their services could be made more accessible to people with hearing impairments. I want to describe an incident involving a council, but I will not name it. In any case, the evidence is 10 years old and things may have changed. A deaf person showed me round the council offices. He took me into the council chamber, switched on his hearing aid and said "The loop system is working perfectly: I can hear exactly what is going on." I said, "But the room is empty." He said, "Yes. What I am listening to is the housing department reception desk 100 metres away." The loop system was so powerful at the housing benefit desk that it blotted out whatever was happening in the rest of the building.
We then went into a committee room, a rather grand room in which a whole wall consisted of windows facing the afternoon sun. The chairman's seat had its back to the windows, which meant that when the sun was shining in the afternoon no one in the room could lip-read what the chairman was saying. Many people who perhaps did not realise that they were lip-reading, although they knew that they were a little hard of hearing, were deprived of that extra tool to help them understand what was being said. So through thoughtlessness—through not asking hearing-impaired people how they should arrange the furniture in the room—they were being deprived of communication.
In the same committee room, the same man said, "And listen to this." He switched on the council chamber loop system, and when he then switched on the chamber lights both his hearing aids screamed. I could hear them screaming. The reason was that on the ceiling, right next to the microphones serving the loop system, were low-energy light bulbs. He said, "We're a green council, so we have low-energy light bulbs in this room. We have asked if they can be moved, but we have been told that doing so would be too expensive. Obviously, we have to have the lights on, so while they are on the loop system cannot operate in the council chamber."
That council had spent thousands of pounds thinking that it was doing the right thing: that it was enabling deaf people of various sorts to access its services, and enabling the functioning of the council. It was wrong. It wasted money, and through what can only be seen in retrospect as tokenism, it did what it thought was right without thinking it through or asking the right people. As a result, it got it horribly wrong. We have all seen such examples—the ramp that leads to the door that is too narrow—and these things have to be thought through and got right.
Such incidents have taught me that most of the barriers that disabled people face are created by people such as me: people who are temporarily non-disabled. The physical barriers that disabled people face are much less potent than the barriers of attitude and ignorance that they face every day of every week. That is why the concept of reasonable adjustment, which I acknowledge was introduced in the 1995 Act, is so important. It allows disabled people to access employment and it will

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allow access to goods and services of all kinds. But what reasonable adjustment often requires is imagination rather than cash.
I acknowledge that the 1995 Act was a milestone—the first milestone on a very long journey. The hon. Member for Wycombe took great credit on behalf of the 1995 Act, but it took the then Conservative Government 16 years to get round to introducing it. Previous Labour Governments had already put into effect civil rights and anti-discrimination legislation in respect of gender and race, which we have built on since. We should not compare what we have done in seven years in government with the first 16 years of the previous Conservative Government. Rather, let us wait until we have been in power for 16 years—it is only nine years away—and then compare the Conservative and Labour records on access and rights for disabled people.
However, as others have pointed out, the 1995 Act had some huge gaps. There was no Disability Rights Commission, its time scales were too long and there were huge holes in terms of education and transport in particular. Through the disability rights task force and the other measures that were taken as soon as we entered office, we set about a legislative programme that in my view has been second to none. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), I served on the Committees that considered the Disability Rights Commission Bill and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill. Indeed, I also worked on the 1998 Bill on welfare reform, which was very important in terms of opening the door to many of the measures that we are now talking about, such as helping people on incapacity benefit to get back into work.
In 2001, the "Towards Inclusion" report was published, and in January of that year we published our election manifesto. Now, we have the draft Disability Discrimination Bill and the Joint Committee's report on it. I had the great pleasure of serving on that Committee as well, and I attended all but one of its meetings. The Bill is very good, has various functions and plugs many holes. It is very popular among disabled people and their organisations. In particular, it addresses the huge hole of transport. While it cites the Leonard Cheshire recommendation of 2017 as the end date for the accessibility of trains, I hope that disabled carriages will be available on every train long before that. There is no reason why everything has to be end-loaded; every carriage of every train has to be accessible. I also welcome the Government's intention to speed up the reviews relating to disabled access to aviation and shipping.
As someone who has served in local government, I greatly welcome and endorse the recommendations to bring councillors within the remit of anti-discrimination legislation in respect of disability. Until now, a councillor who is not appointed to a committee because of perceived problems connected with disability has had no redress. When the Bill becomes law—I am sure that it will be before the next general election—that will no longer apply.
Mr. Goodman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the full Bill should be introduced in this Session to ensure that it does become law before the next general election?
Tom Levitt: I can say that it was part of the manifesto for this Session. Unless the business managers of the Opposition are going to seek huge periods of time in Committee, which they have been known to do, I see absolutely no reason why the Bill should not be passed before the next general election.
I was saying that the extension of the provisions to councillors—as it is to other office holders and public appointees—is welcome. It is also important that landlords—private, public and social—will be deprived of the right unreasonably to refuse the request of a tenant to have a property adapted for purposes of making it more accessible for their disability.
I hope that the Minister will also adopt the recommendations on volunteers. I acknowledge that it probably would not be practicable to have a blanket rule saying that every volunteer for every voluntary organisation should be covered by the legislation that applies to employees. Equally, however, there are circumstances in which a voluntary organisation may not use voluntary employees because of fears about liability if anything were to happen to them. Those are unreasonable fears, which should be addressed by a code of practice for the use of volunteers, who should be allowed in comparable employment circumstances to take their cases to some form of tribunal if they are discriminated against.
An issue that has not been mentioned is access to examinations. If schools and education more widely should be accessible, there is absolutely no reason why examination boards should be able to put a barrier at the end of people's educational careers. Change in that respect is welcome, and so are the measures on mental health. The Committee suggested that the time for mental health conditions to be assessed as qualifying under the 1995 Act be reduced from 12 to six months.
The Government were right to say that people suffering from MS, cancer and HIV should be protected against discrimination even before the symptoms are shown—namely, from the point of diagnosis. I hope that they will go one stage further and say that protection against discrimination should apply from the point of diagnosis to any condition covered by the 1995 Act. The reason for that is clear. Someone with MS, for example, could be deprived of promotion or employment because of the fact that certain symptoms might develop in the future, which is not a reasonable purpose for discriminating against a person. I hope that the Committee's report will be taken into account.
I turn now to the social model, which gave rise to many hours of enjoyable debate in Committee. The 1995 Act's concept of a reasonable adjustment was a move towards the social model. It acknowledges that often it is the environment that has to be adjusted so that disabled people can have access to employment or services.
The problem with the medical model is that it casts the disabled person as the problem. It regards disabled people as disabled first and people second. The solution to the problem of how people relate to their social, physical and attitudinal environments is often achieved by addressing the relevant environment, regardless of whether the diagnosis is a social or medical one.
I gave an example of that to the Committee, which I want to put on record now. The social model of disability holds that impairment becomes a disability

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only when the environment makes it so. My example in support of that involves a one-legged person in the environment of an automatic car. If the person lacks a left leg, he or she is not considered disabled, as one needs only a right leg to drive an automatic car. However, if the person lacks a right leg, he or she is disabled, as the pedals of an automatic car are designed for right-foot use. Therefore, an equivalent impairment can be a disability, depending on the environment.
I hope that the Bill goes forward speedily. I see no reason why it should not.
Progress has been made in other areas, as other speakers have described, but one or two other matters remain to be addressed. At present, legislation only touches on the question of mental health. In constituencies such as my own, where unemployment levels are very low, the proportion of unemployed people who are unemployed because of—or for reasons associated with—a mental health problem is accordingly that much higher.
Another problem, to which the Minister referred earlier, has to do with building design. The part M regulations of 2003 are a help, as are the lifetime home regulations. In addition, local authorities administer the disability facilities grants. I hope that the Minister will assure me that all the different definitions involved will be governed by common criteria in the future. There must be no conflict in the intended purpose of the various regulatory schemes.
There is a problem with the toilet doors in Portcullis House to which I want to draw attention. Any hon. Member with arthritis will know that they are dreadfully difficult to open. I hope that, by 1 October, disabled-accessible doors will be attached to all the toilets in that building. Such doors will not need a person to be able to apply a strong grip to a handle that resembles a drinks can, but will be much more easy to use.
As other hon. Members have said, many disabled people would like to work but still lack the opportunity to do so. One way to address that is to tackle the problem of people who are forced to leave work through disability at a later stage in life. Cleary, more money is going into ensuring access to work, but such people must also be able to step down—that is, to move out of the work force gradually at the end of a career. Problems to do with pension and benefit rights would have to be worked out, but people who face early retirement through disability would be able to leave work with more dignity if they were able to phase their withdrawal.
The hon. Member for Wycombe mentioned the recent Scope "Absolutely Equal" campaign and the reception held last week. He expressed some concerns about the social model, but the Scope report said:
"The attitudes of non-disabled people to disabled people are often irrational. Attitudes can be based on feelings of embarrassment, pity, guilt, being patronising, and even revulsion that are difficult to get to the bottom of.
Such attitudes are inherently irrational; legislation must be inherently rational. There cannot be a one-to-one fit between those things, so I hope that the Government will consider the Joint Committee's recommendation to give public bodies an obligation to promote the rights of disabled people and awareness of disabled issues in exactly the way that they have acted on racial issues.
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One last issue falls more within the field of the Department for International Development than that of the Department for Work and Pensions. Twice recently I have met disabled people in Africa—a group of children in Zambia and a group of families of disabled children in Tanzania. It is bad enough seeing what extreme and absolute poverty does to people, but disability further excludes people in those societies completely from any form of support—there are no benefits or social care and no support mechanisms whatever—and isolates them, condemning them to live in the worst of absolute poverty in an environment of absolute poverty. That really tears one's heart-strings.
Some good things are going on, however. I give a quick plug to the Leonard Cheshire organisation, which, in Tanzania, has set up a micro-finance bureau that gives grants of about £50 a time to families of disabled children so that they can set up in business. Such a business might sell eggs or firewood. People repay over a period, but those small amounts of money are sufficient to break down the barriers. If the business is eggs, the disabled child can sit in the compound with the chickens and alert someone if an animal comes along for the chickens or someone tries to steal them. That can produce systems that involve the families, getting them back into the economy. That gives them dignity, allowing them to have some pride in societies in which there is no support for them.
Let us not forget the plight of disabled people in developing countries. As a civilised society, we acknowledge the needs of others. Today's debate and the Bill to come relate to the needs of disabled people in this country, but we will be judged as a nation and community in the wider world by what we do for those least able to help themselves. We are giving people opportunities to help themselves, and they deserve that as a right.
4.58 pm
Mr. John Randall: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt). Perhaps I should apologise in advance of my remarks because I am sure, having heard the earlier exchanges about language and vocabulary, that I am bound to put my foot in it somewhere or other. I would not do so out of any desire to, but just out of sheer inadequacy.
As I listened to the Minister, I realised that, as someone sitting on the Conservative Benches, I am the spawn of Beelzebub. I thought that she was about to mention the "Slaughter of the First Born" Bill that some previous Conservative Government had brought in. But disability is far too important for party politics. We have had a good debate full of good speeches, and I always find when I attend these debates that I learn from them. As others wish to speak, I shall try to make my comments as brief as possible.
We have seen from the different speeches from different angles that the subject encompasses a broad area. First, I want to talk about people with disabilities taking part in sport. The Olympic bid by London is already having a good effect because part of that bid is to hold the Paralympics here. Anything that can raise the profile of the good that sport brings to people with disabilities is to be welcomed. The hon. Member for High Peak reminisced and I should like briefly to

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remember a time when I was a rather slim, fresh-faced young boy. I remember at school listening to a former rugby international who had been involved in a crunching tackle, I think with an All Black, and had broken his neck. Suddenly from being at the height of his sporting prowess, he had ended up in a wheelchair. He told us boys about a charity called Physically Handicapped and Able Bodied. It made me realise how suddenly something could happen and that from being at the height of one's physical ability, one could be cut down. From then on my school had summer courses and I am pleased to say that many years later they still do.
As I was sitting here listening, another memory came to me. At school there was an option to join the cadet force, namely community service. To show the House how things have moved on—I recognise that this language is inappropriate—it was called the pansy brigade. In the course of that I visited an old mental asylum called Leavesden, which thankfully is gone. One of the saddest things that stays with me to this day was visiting the cemetery there and asking whose graves they were. I was told by the matron, as I think she was designated, that they were the graves of children with Down's syndrome who had been abandoned there, without family visiting. I thought that that was no way for any civilised country to exist and I sincerely hope that those days have long gone.
On the subject of sport, I should like to put in a plug for two organisations of which I have become aware. I do not play much part in them, but I pay my subs. One is the Wooden Spoon, a rugby charity that helps disabled and disadvantaged children. It tries to have a positive effect on disability in all its forms, whether caused by cancer, cystic fibrosis or autism. We are in the cricket season and a test match started today. Anybody who has the opportunity in the next few days to listen to that quintessential part of the English summer—"Test Match Special"—will undoubtedly hear talk of the Primary Club. It is a fundraising organisation that is open to all who have been out first ball in any form of cricket, ranging from in the garden and on the beach through to a test match. It is a particularly odd, rather English institution that happened by accident. In 1955 four slightly inebriated young bachelors, depressed by their performance with a bat, vowed to support a fund for blind cricketers. That same "Test Match Special", and particularly the late lamented Brian Johnston, gave it wide publicity, so that now it is a well-known, well-supported charity raising a great deal of money, particularly for blind sports children and young people. Those are just a few examples of the many charities that do so much good work in all our constituencies, and it is appropriate to pay tribute to them for that.
Hobbies are important to people, and my own passion has always been bird-watching. It is remarkable how many opportunities are now open to people with disabilities of all kinds to indulge in that hobby.
Members of Parliament are fortunate in having opportunities to find out about disability. We are lobbied by many different organisations and we also have the chance to hear good speakers in this place. In Uxbridge tomorrow, the three Hillingdon MPs will have one of our regular meetings with Hillingdon DASH, an organisation that promotes disability issues in the area.
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As usual, Simon Harris and Angela Wegener will forcefully ensure that all three of us are aware of the exact concerns of people with disabilities in the area.
Sometimes such meetings reveal problems. I remember attending a meeting of wheelchair users in the Hillingdon civic centre when the fire alarm went. It was discovered that the only way out for wheelchair users was the lift, and of course the lifts are not supposed to be used if there is a fire. Fortunately, it was a false alarm on that occasion. As the hon. Gentleman said, we often do not realise the implications of certain situations for people with disabilities.
I can give another example. One of my constituents, Katrina Bijowski, has been very forceful in pointing out that the local authority does not seem to make much provision for children a with disabilities—not only those in wheelchairs, but those with a range of disabilities—when providing new, play areas. A few months ago, I attended the opening, of a new play area for which the local residents had raised the funding. They suddenly realised that they had not considered it properly, through a lack of awareness, and we must all work to make people more aware. To the credit of the Violet avenue residents association, it went back to the council to ensure that the appropriate facilities would be provided.
I have also discovered problems that people with disabilities can have with banking. Older people with disabilities cannot get out much and, because of the new legislation to combat money laundering, they find it more and more difficult to get a cheque cashed. That causes many problems. Barclays bank, to its credit, has looked into the problem and come up with a remedy. I am sure that all the other banks will want to look at that because—as has already been mentioned—it is not only ethically right but good business sense to cater for people with all sorts of disabilities. On Saturday, I was talking to someone from Barclays and was impressed by the efforts that it is putting into the issue—I am sure that it is the same with other banks. The bigger companies have taken those issues on board. It is more difficult for small and medium enterprises, but that does not mean that they should not take those issues just as seriously.
I had intended to talk about transport, as a member of the Transport Committee, and about our report, which has been tagged on to this debate. However, I am keen to listen to the other hon. Members who wish to contribute, if they catch your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker. We have already heard mention of Ryanair, so that is one company we have upset. Another is Brittany Ferries, which will not allow guide dogs on its boats. We raised that in the meeting with the Minister, but I have not heard what happened. If those issues have not been dealt with and those companies are listening, let me say to them, "For goodness sake, get your act together or the Government will have to take action."
When a member of one's family or oneself has a disability, one becomes aware of the problems. In my case, I have faced difficulties in taking my mother around. Actually, we have done very well. Two years ago I managed to take her around Istanbul in a wheelchair. I have to confess that I was not expecting great facilities for the disabled in Turkey, but it had got its act together in lots of ways, and the amount of help that we received was phenomenal.

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One of the problems is that the airlines cannot tell disabled passengers what the facilities will be like at the other end of the flight. It is fine at Heathrow, where there tend to be walkways for passengers to get on the aeroplane, but one has no idea what will be at the other end. The idea of possibly having to wait for a fork-lift truck at the other end begins to take the edge off the journey.
Again from personal experience, I know that disabled parking can be a problem. There is a lot of provision, and that is wonderful, but how can we get it through to people that they should not abuse it? There is nothing more annoying than to see an able-bodied person coming out of a supermarket, admittedly heavily laden, and going to a car in a disabled person's spot. However, I sound a cautionary note from my days in retail. A sales representative called on us and parked his car outside on a single yellow line. I saw a traffic warden so I said, "You had better watch out, there's a traffic warden coming." He said, "It's all right, I have got a disabled badge." I looked at him and said, "Are you sure? You do not look disabled." I was showing my ignorance. He lifted up his trouser leg and showed me where he had had half his leg shot away during the war. That is where I learned that disability is not always visible and we should not jump to conclusions.
When I first came into the House I promised myself that I would try to keep to the diktat that it is much better to listen than lecture, so I will conclude my remarks.
5.12 pm
Vera Baird: I hope that the hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) will forgive me if I lecture him for a minute. I did not regard it as appropriate for him to criticise my hon. Friend the Minister for her right and proper criticism of the Tories' lamentable failure to look after disability by ridiculing it and pretending it was funny. Truly, it was a fully deserved criticism.
If the hon. Gentleman dropped a clanger, as he feared he might in using the right language about disability, it was not, as he modestly suggested, due to his inadequacy because he is not inadequate. It was because he had insufficient respect for the disabled to be bothered to find out what language ought to be used to avoid causing offence.
I congratulate, au contraire, my hon. Friend the Minister on her role as an able prosecutor of the Conservatives for their lamentable failure to support the disabled. She has another career elsewhere, if she wants, at the Old Bailey. She prepared the indictment of their neglect perfectly. She marshalled the evidence with such skill and in such detail that it defied dispute when it was all set out. She argued her case perfectly and no jury would have had the slightest doubt that the Tories were guilty of an abysmal record on disability.
I listened to the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), whose party's Work and Pensions spokesperson regards some of the unemployed—many of whom are disabled—as empty vessels into which it is a waste of time to pour training money. The only time that the hon. Member for Wycombe came near to setting out a Tory policy approach on disability was when he counselled caution that too assertive an
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approach to disability rights would provoke a backlash. I begin to understand how the Tories justified to themselves the iniquitous failure to act on the disabled for 18 long years.
I think that, secretly, the hon. Gentleman, for whom I have some respect from my, albeit brief, knowledge of him on the Work and Pensions Committee, is truly ashamed of that record. The way in which he complained about anyone on the Labour Benches who chose to look back—as well we might—led me to that conclusion. He should understand that people look at a party's history in office in order to foresee what it would do if it ever got into office again. His approach today, when he said that an assertive approach to disability rights was bound to provoke a backlash, will do nothing to dispel the concerns of disabled people that, if the Tory party ever came into office again, the past would simply repeat itself; unless they provoke a backlash a new Tory Government will do nothing for them.
I praised my hon. Friend the Minister for her forensic skills. I also join in the DRC's praise of her. It has issued a briefing that is almost embarrassing in its praise of the Government for the many things that they have done for disability, including the draft Disability Discrimination Bill, published at the end of last year, which will in due course fulfil the manifesto commitment to deliver basic rights for disabled people. The DRC speaks of an "exciting" Bill and congratulates my hon. Friend who has, as we all know, worked very hard to ensure that the Bill emerged. I echo that personal praise and I acknowledge, as I know she will, that she has experienced a supportive atmosphere in government within which to produce that excellent Bill.
The multitude of steps that the Government have taken to promote disability rights is good civil liberties policy for sure, and it is also good legal progress and excellent ideology. It is part of our inclusiveness approach. It is enabling disabled people to have a fuller life, with the civil liberties that we all enjoy and which, in the past, they have in truth been denied. Disabled people have been denied rights that we have enjoyed for many, many years without even considering them.
Supporting disabled people has another purpose. It is not about charity or benevolence at all but about bringing out of the shadows to which they have been confined many hugely talented people for whose active input society will be the better. Let us take a quick look around. My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) is not in the Chamber, but she makes the point, does she not? Look at my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and the leadership of the DRC. Look at Tanni Grey-Thompson, who is one of my Redcar constituents. Look on a more local scale, as I do, at the fine woman who has led the campaign to set up shopmobility in Redcar. Those are disabled people with multiple talents. They have often suffered hardship, so they are very determined.
Additionally, the experience of disability is itself a component of personality that the able bodied among us lack, but it needs to be present in society's thinking. Such people are exactly those who need to be brought out to become leaders in society. I very much regret the fact that they did not come forward because of the Tories' lack of interest in anyone who is not white, male, able bodied and already in business. It is clear that they still do not understand that principle at all.

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My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South pointed out that the Disability Rights Commission has facilitated access to tribunals in a way that was not possible before so that civil rights for the disabled can be furthered. Of course it has also had another purpose, which is to drive forward the culture to change public attitudes to disability and to speak with a very loud voice on behalf of complexly disabled people.
I welcome hugely the commission for equality and human rights, which will also have as one of its primary functions driving a culture of rights, with responsibilities, across all strands of equality. Once the legislation is passed, the commission will have the advantage of placing a positive duty on public authorities to promote the equality of disabled people, by tackling systemic barriers, rather than relying just on the post hoc system of redress.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South is right: tribunals and rights are important, but they are a phenomenally clumsy way to go about establishing a change in culture. Taking a case to a court or tribunal in the hope that an individual victory will receive sufficient publicity to make a difference is a slow and very expensive way to make progress. It will be a major shift of emphasis to give a duty to public authorities to promote disability rights. I am pleased that the commission will also place a duty on them to promote gender equality.
It is clear that an individual who may be a woman and disabled or perhaps black and disabled, or who may come from any of the strands of disability, often cannot truly point to exactly what is the root of the discrimination. The responsibility ought not to lie on that person to say, "I think it is because I am disabled", or "I think it is because I am a woman." Truly, the public responsibility is to ensure equal rights across all strands of equalities.
Such a public duty will be a major tool for the new commission to use. I look forward to the public sector, with the encouragement of the commission, using the duty to promote equality in all its arrangements, not only internal but external ones. I look forward to its vigorous use in the commissioning role, so that the public sector can use contractual liability to impose on the private sector, where appropriate, a duty in contract after contract for public commission work also to guarantee disability equality as well as the other equalities.
There have been concerns that the DRC, as the newest of the three commissions, is likely to be the weakest and might be disadvantaged by the new unified commission. There seems to have been movement on those original concerns and the DRC has been reassured by the provisions that disability has been given in the new commission.
There will be a guaranteed place on the new commission board for a disabled person. There will be a dedicated disability committee, with decision-making powers in the key areas of work for disability rights covered by the DDA. Some 50 per cent. of the committee must be disabled and they will have a secure lifetime of five years on the committee. There will be transition commissioners to nurse the changeover and
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oversee the transition. There is also a commitment to maintain the legal powers and functions of the existing commissions and a recognition that cases should be supported on a strategic basis, prioritising in favour of cases that raise big points of principle.
The commission also has a commitment to promote a human rights culture as well as an equality culture in Britain, and that was mentioned tangentially by the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell). That promotional remit, which is explicitly configured to include the conduct of inquiries and third-party interventions into human rights cases, is very important. General inquiries into cases in which there is evidence before the commission of systemic abuse of disabled people's rights, women's rights or black people's rights are key to rooting out such abuse,finding its causes and promoting its unacceptability. Third-party interventions can also be key.
The DRC has proposed since its early days in 2000 that its case funding go beyond disability issues to include stand-alone human rights issues, so it is regrettable that there is no commitment on that. The new commission will also be able to pursue human rights cases in its own right, as opposed to those that are linked to a strand of inequality. It will add, in a number of ways, to the help that the DRC gives to disabled people and the moves that it has made to change the culture.
I had intended to talk briefly about direct payments, but I shall not do so because I know that others still wish to speak. I therefore conclude by reflecting that, after 18 years in the cold desert of Toryism, as it has already been described, disabled people have seen in the past seven years an absolute transformation of their rights. They have seen the deliberate and Government-driven opening of doors hitherto closed to them. They have sensed what I hope must continue—a warming of our culture towards them. When I look at the record over the past seven years and look one final time at the record of the Tories on disabled people, I know plainly why the Opposition are so upset that this debate about disability is being broadcast on the Parliament Channel on election day.
5.27 pm
Mr. Harry Barnes: I follow my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird) in being worried about that element of the speech of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) in which he talked about the fear of a backlash. The problem with the backlash argument is that it indicates that someone is saying that they are not biased, but that other people are biased and that we must therefore be careful about acting. I know that the views of others are important and that pressures need to be responded to, but the argument is sometimes used to do nothing.
The other thing I realise about the Conservatives is that if they ever get back into government, they are likely to revert type. In their reverting to type, we would face all the problems that my hon. and learned Friend described. However, I accept that the Conservatives have moved somewhat since those bitter days in the early and mid-1990s. They were driven to change by the time we considered the Bill that

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established the Disability Rights Commission. They changed partly because half of them had gone from this place, but politics also changes responses and attitudes. The fact that society was moving meant that there was change. The other sign of change is the fact that the hon. Member for Wycombe gave general support to the report published by the Joint Committee on the draft Disability Discrimination Bill. He suggested that the Bill would not be blocked at a later stage.
Things may alter and circumstances may change, but I want to say something about the period in which there was serious dispute.
The role of Lord Morris of Manchester was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. He introduced the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. He pushed for civil rights for disabled people in the form of a Bill that came before us as a private Member's Bill in 1991–92. He was leading the way, but he was not alone. There were others such as Lord Ashley of Stoke and my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Mr. Wareing), who, in a ten-minute Bill and various amendments, developed the notion of civil rights for disabled people. The Bill was talked out, but a couple of years later my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) reintroduced it. It went through the House, initially without any great opposition from the Government. It was fine-tuned in Committee. It was not until it returned to the House for its remaining stages that there was what might be described as blood on the Floor of the House, when there were incidents involving Lady Olga Maitland and Nicholas Scott. It was that experience, and support outside the House for civil rights for disabled persons, that led the Government in the following year to introduce the Disability Discrimination Bill, as it was at that stage.
I picked up the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill at the same time and ran it in conflict with the Disability Discrimination Bill. I took it over in the form that it had reached with my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood, and added to it access to polling stations for disabled people. I included that in an earlier Bill on electoral registration, which did not get beyond Second Reading. I realised that it was not enough to have electoral registration rights for disabled people—they had to get into polling stations to exercise their right.
An illustration that there was some support from Conservative Members for the principle of civil rights for disabled persons—it came in little bits and pieces—was when the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill went into Committee. It was my moment of glory because it was my Bill. I could sit in the seat that a Minister usually occupies. The Opposition were, as it were, over the road. The Opposition were led by the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). There was support from the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), who then represented High Peak. There was also Tim Smith, whom we should not say much more about. Another Opposition Member attended one sitting of the Committee. When he failed to vote with the Conservatives and had trouble with, the Whips, he said, "I'm not coming again." I said that that was all right. All the other Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats sat with me and prominent Labour Members such as Lord Morris.
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The Bill was blocked in Committee. When it returned to the Floor of the House, we had 32 minutes for its remaining stages and Third Reading. The Government had tabled 180 amendments. At that stage the hon. Member for North-East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who was then representing a Bury constituency, led for the Government. All we could do was to have an argument about the situation during consideration of the first batch of amendments. I made sure that I resumed my place so that the hon. Gentleman was the one who talked out the Bill. I was not going to talk out my own Bill.
That process helped to shift and improve the Disability Discrimination Bill. Sponsors of my Bill included the hon. Member for Belfast, South (Rev. Martin Smyth), the late James Kilfedder from Northern Ireland, and the hon. Members for Newry and Armagh (Mr. Mallon) and for North Antrim (Rev. Ian Paisley). I could claim that I had wider support for my Bill than the Belfast agreement was eventually to have.
The principles in my Bill are dear to me and to others who fought for them, and centre on the distinction between the social model and the medical model, which was espoused by Lord Morris in the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. However, that measure was passed a long time ago, and Lord Morris was moving the game on by anticipating a social definition dealing with the discriminator and the prevention of discrimination. I was taken with the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) that a single but wide-ranging equality measure was needed to prevent discrimination and tackle the refusal to make available to some people facilities and opportunities that were available to others.
Mr. Goodman: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that, despite some of the more extravagant claims of a great gulf between the parties, the 1995 Act was based partly on the medical model and partly on the social model, as are the draft Disability Discrimination Bill and the Committee's recommendations?
Mr. Barnes: I accept that the more progress we make using the medical model, the better and more reasonable the legislation will be. However, there is still a gap, so I look forward to legislation that allows us to close it. The Joint Committee shares that view, and in conclusion I wish to refer to its overview of the current agenda on pages 16 to 18 of its report. It discusses the potential of pre-legislative scrutiny, as the draft Bill is one of the first measures to undergo such a procedure. It is to the Committee's credit that it has produced a report, in which it says that there are still things that need to be done. For example, a clause outlawing discrimination against local councillors was not published in time, and the full text of various measures was not available. There was also a problem with delegated powers. There are therefore lessons to be learned, but the Committee has done some valuable work.
The Committee suggested that publications that particularly affect disabled people should be made available in appropriate alternative formats. When I introduced the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill in 1994, People First, a body of people with learning difficulties who run things for themselves, produced it in

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an accessible form for its members. I was proud that it was the first parliamentary measure to be produced in such a format. In its overview, the Committee also made a point that has been pressed home repeatedly by the hon. Member for Wycombe—the draft Disability Discrimination Bill should be introduced in the current Session. As a Back Bencher, I always want things to be done immediately. It is easy for Back Benchers to demand that the Government do things immediately, and it can make us popular with people outside. The Government, however, have a timetable and face the problem of adding things to it. Even if the Bill's introduction is knocked back to the next parliamentary Session, the fact that it has received pre-legislative scrutiny and has general support in the House should mean that it should not be difficult to enact. Heaven knows what today's election results will be and whether we will have a general election next year or whether that will take longer. I have a personal interest in that, as I am packing up at the next election, and do not know whether I have one year or two to go. Also, there are arguments for co-ordinating various measures, such as the draft Mental Incapacity Bill, to draw together all the details of the disability measures. That would provide the opportunity to return to the question of definition, so that by definition we get things right beyond peradventure.
5.40 pm
Maria Eagle: May I say what a fantastically varied, robust but—
Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Michael Lord): Order. The hon. Lady needs the leave of the House.
Maria Eagle: I apologise, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Given that I moved the motion, I did not think I needed the leave of the House, but if I do, I shall seek it. [Interruption.] We will all check that later—not that I doubt your ruling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, in any way, shape or form.
With the leave of the House, may I say what a varied, at times robust but always fascinating debate we have had today? Putting aside issues of timing, which we discussed earlier, there is no doubt that today's debate has been valuable. The hon. Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) said that he always learns something from such debates. They inform and educate Members and anyone outside who bothers to read our proceedings when they are published in the Official Report.
I congratulate all the hon. Members who spoke in the debate on their contributions. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), who speaks for the Opposition, suggested that letters of complaint about the timing of the debate may be coming my way. I assure him that the only letter so far received in my office was from him, but I shall watch out for any other complaints in the pipeline.
The hon. Gentleman raised three points, which I shall try to deal with. The first was the awareness of organisations such as service providers and smaller employers, upon which the October duties are placed. He quoted from research by my Department about the
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general awareness of the obligations that are coming into force in October. He has written to me in that regard and I replied to him, but I shall give the House a little more information about the efforts of the Department and the DRC to raise awareness.
Since 1999 my Department, and its predecessors before the changes to the machinery of government, spent almost £13 million on awareness-raising measures, which included national advertising campaigns, some aimed specifically at small and medium-sized enterprises, and the "What have you got to offer?" and "Open to Change" campaigns aimed at those on whom the obligations are to be placed. The DRC has spent a further £3 million on awareness-raising leaflets and publications, in addition to its general work through its helpline and other advice-giving services to provide guidance when questions are asked.
We are doing a great deal. I appreciate that those who have not had any connection with similar legislation before—small employers and small businesses—have the lowest levels of awareness. My Department recently sent out a mailshot with further help and advice to 1 million small businesses and small service providers on whom the obligations will fall. Experience has shown that it is not until the law is about to change that hard-pressed small business people get round to thinking about what it means I hope that they will do so as soon as possible, and that advice will be readily available to them from the Government and the DRC, to help them avoid making some of the mistakes related to the House today by my hon. Friends the Members for High Peak (Tom Levitt) and for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) and others in all parts of the House, who reported from their own experience how easy it is to get things wrong if brains are not engaged and if advice is not taken first. When I talk to organisations representing the businesses on which those obligations will be placed, I always advise them to put on their thinking-cap before they get their cheque book out, which is the best way to ensure that money is properly spent on adjustments that assist not only disabled people to access services, but businesses to secure part of the £50 billion that disabled people currently carry in their back pockets—inaccessible services often prevent disabled people from spending their money as they might wish. I hope that I have given the House more detail on increasing awareness, which the hon. Member for Wycombe and others advocated.
The hon. Member for Wycombe also discussed the specific recommendations on mental health and transport end dates made by the Joint Committee on the draft Disability Discrimination Bill; unsurprisingly, other hon. Members also expressed an interest in particular provisions. I am sure that hon. Members will not be particularly surprised that I shall limit my response to saying that the Government are currently considering all the Joint Committee's 75 recommendations.
My Department and I are considering some of those recommendations, while others are being considered across Government because they go wider than DWP responsibilities. All I can say is that we intend to reply within the time scale indicated by the Joint Committee. My personal view is that the Joint Committee produced

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an excellent report that contains some interesting recommendations, and the House must hang on a little bit longer to see the Government response.
My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar (Vera Baird)—whose contribution was even more robust than mine—is particularly concerned about, where the DRC fits into the commission for equality and human rights. The hon. Member for Wycombe said that he viewed the "abolition of the DRC" with concern, which is an interesting, but none the less welcome, advance on thinking that the DRC should not exist. Other hon. Members also mentioned the proposed commission.
I remind the House that the DRC' itself has something to say:
"The DRC welcomes the White Paper on a commission for equality and human rights and the broad aspiration to promote equality and human rights in Britain. The proposals on disability are an encouraging step in the right direction … The DRC very much welcomes the specific proposals on disability, which recognise through a number of concrete proposals on governance the distinctive arrangements that will be necessary on disability to secure the future legislative and policy agenda".
I hope that that reassures those who are concerned about the DRC.
Mr. Boswell: In the same breath, will the Minister acknowledge that the DRC has expressed some continuing concerns? Although I do not expect her to respond to them tonight, will she at least undertake to take them seriously?
Maria Eagle: I always take the DRC's concerns seriously and, as its sponsor Minister, I would be remiss in my duties if I did not. Although the DRC's welcome is not unequivocal, we would all have been suspicious if it had been.
Tom Levitt: My hon. Friend will remember that I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Minister who previously held the brief on the single equality body. Is she aware that comments and criticisms were taken on board as the idea was floated and matured? The final outcome is perhaps different from that anticipated at the beginning, and it is considerably better because of the relevant bodies' acclaim.
Maria Eagle: I certainly think it is important for a body that combines three existing commissions, while also dealing with strands not currently dealt with by commissions, to note the experience of those who are out there doing the job now. I believe that that has been done. As my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Redcar has already listed the arrangements that have reassured the DRC, I shall not say more about them now.
The hon. Member for Wycombe mentioned the increasing number of people suffering from what he described as stress who are receiving incapacity benefit. There has undoubtedly been an increase in the number of claimants whose primary condition is a mental or behavioural disorder, which is a broader category than what we commonly think of as stress. The increase is attributable to a number of factors, including a wider acceptance in society of the impact of mental health conditions and a greater willingness on the part of clinicians and doctors to certify a mental incapacity.
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The hon. Gentleman referred to an increase in the number of women claiming incapacity benefit. One reason for that is the fact that it is a contributory benefit, and for many years women did not have the work records that would enable them to claim it. It is not easy to work out what precisely is going on, but what is certain is that the Government are committed, through the new deal for disabled people and pathways into work—I was pleased to hear the hon. Gentleman say that he liked the idea of those—to tailoring assistance to people whom all Governments have, in the past, left on benefit until they retired or died.
Mr. Goodman: I think that when the Minister reads the record she will find that I referred to stress, anxiety, depression and—I think this is what I said—similar conditions. I know that the information that she gave me, which is in the Library, lists the categories differently, but they overlap to a degree.
Maria Eagle: I am not suggesting that the hon. Gentleman distorted information that he was given in parliamentary answers.
It should be noted that 90 per cent. of the increase in the number of incapacity benefit claimants took place before the mid-1990s. We currently have the highest ever percentage of working-age people in jobs. The flow on to incapacity benefit has fallen by a third. There are 2 million more jobs in the economy, unemployment is at its lowest for 30 years and the number of claims for jobseeker's allowance has fallen by 700,000. The overall increase in incapacity benefit claims is 150,000. We are not, as is sometimes suggested by Opposition Members—I am not looking at the hon. Gentleman now, because I have not heard him say it in quite this way—trying to shift unemployed people on to incapacity benefit in order to hide the level of unemployment.
My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South told us of her personal experience of discrimination in education. That happened over some years; it was not an isolated example. I was struck by my hon. Friend's point that legislation sets the framework—that it sets boundaries beyond which behaviour is not considered acceptable in society, and is therefore an important driver for change. I strongly agree with that.
The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) delivered what was, for him, fairly full-blown praise of the Government. I welcomed it, because we do not always hear it; he is obviously in a good mood today. I was particularly pleased to hear him give credit to the Government for changed attitudes, which he rightly ascribed partly to the change in the legal framework. He also said that much remains to be done; I agree entirely. That observation chimed in a small way with what my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South said about disabled people coming back with more demands. The day that any politician or Minister expects the demands to stop is the day that they have completely lost sight of the reality of what goes on in the world. So I was neither surprised nor upset to hear what they had to say about more needing to be done, because that is undoubtedly the case.
The hon. Gentleman made some very specific points, including some about British sign language, in which I have a particular interest. He asked what happens next

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after recognition, and rightly pointed out that not enough interpreters are available. The Government recently announced £1.5 million of new money to support our statement recognising British sign language, and the intention is to increase the number of interpreters available. We consulted the deaf community, and their strongly held view was that more needs to be done to train tutors. With more tutors and greater support for tutors in reaching higher qualification levels, there will be many more opportunities down the line for interpreters to learn the craft and the language.
The deaf community also identified the importance of increasing awareness of the use of British sign language, and the £1.5 million to which I referred has been split about evenly in an effort to achieve the two objectives. The precise way in which that will be done was announced during deaf awareness week, and if the hon. Gentleman has not seen the details I can send them to him.
I was particularly interested in the example that the hon. Gentleman gave of the Red Cross. He rightly talked about the importance of spending money more effectively, rather than simply throwing ever-increasing sums at particular problems when organisational issues arise. He is absolutely right to say that we need to find better ways of getting results for disabled people. Experience in my current post has made it obvious that various Government Departments, local government authorities and other public authorities operate far too much in silos. They do not join up what they do nearly enough, and we must look to providing services for disabled people that are based much more on their particular needs, rather than on whether they fit into a particular local authority budget or Government scheme. Anybody who can come up with a good way of doing that is welcome to come to my office at any time to tell me about it, because it is the holy grail as far as providing better services is concerned.
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My hon. Friend the Member for Erewash (Liz Blackman), who chairs the all-party group on autism, made an excellent speech on the particular issues that impinge on those who have conditions on the autistic spectrum. She talked about the fact that communication impairment and social interaction impairment do not fit very well with some of our benefit systems, and about the disability living allowance and forms. In fact, the form is not the only problem with DLA. The care components and the way in which care and mobility are used as a proxy for disability do not necessarily work tremendously well for people with autistic spectrum disorder. Indeed, it is not just disabilities such as those that do not quite fit with DLA. At the moment, however, we have no plans to change the way in which DLA is assessed, and it would be wrong of me to say that we do, so such problems are not easily solved.
My hon. Friend also mentioned the disability handbook, and I can confirm that after consultation with the disability organisations that deal with autism, including the National Autistic Society, we are about to change the handbock's wording. I hope that that will assist my departmental officials in assessing benefit claims from people on the autistic spectrum.
The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) made his usual thoughtful contribution, but unfortunately I do not have time to say much about it; and my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak told the House about his own experience, particularly that relating to deafness.
We have had an excellent debate, which is worthy of re-reading some time tomorrow—perhaps next week is more likely—and I congratulate all who have taken part in it. There is no doubt about the fact that the Government are committed to improving, strengthening and deepening the rights of disabled people. It is only right that we do so, because 10 million of our fellow citizens rely on our doing so in order to take a proper part in life.
It being Six o'clock, the motion for the Adjournment of the House lapsed, without Question put.

Lewes-Uckfield Rail Link
Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Vernon Cooker.]
6 pm
Norman Baker: I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise yet again in the House the issue of the missing rail link between Lewes and Uckfield. I am pleased to see the Minister in his place and I am sorry that the Minister of State, Department for Transport is not here, but I know that he wanted to get back to his constituency to vote in the European elections. I wish that all members of the public took as much interest in the voting as he clearly does.
This debate has run for some considerable time. The Minister will know that, ironically, the Lewes-Uckfield line survived the Beeching cuts and was closed only to facilitate a road scheme in 1969. It was closed, I want to put on record, against the wishes of British Rail, which had been busy shutting railway lines up and down the country throughout that decade. Almost immediately after it closed, there was a vociferous campaign to reopen it, which has been going ever since. That is witnessed by the fact that the track bed between Lewes and Uckfield has significantly been protected in the structure plan and the local plans of the Lewes and Wealden district councils, and it is evinced by the fact that the campaign to re-open the line is not solely the responsibility of a small number of train enthusiasts, but is supported widely throughout the community.
The campaign is, for example, supported by Liberal Democrat-controlled Lewes district council and Conservative-controlled Wealden district council and East Sussex county council. Members of this House of all three parties support it—for example, myself as a Lib Dem, the Conservative hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry), whom I see in his place tonight, and the Minister's colleague, the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Mr. Lepper), among others. Indeed, it is difficult to find anyone at an elected level anywhere in East Sussex who opposes the re-opening of the line. Town councils, district councils and the county council, which has made it a priority in its transport works, support it. I know that the Government want to give due weight to local communities, so I ask the Minister to reflect on the strong feeling expressed in all quarters in favour of re-opening the line.
The line has come close to being re-opened on a couple of occasions since its demise There was a time in the 1980s when Chris Green, then working for the nationalised British Rail, pledged money to re-opening. Sadly, on that occasion, the county council was not interested, so the proposal fell. Even the much maligned Connex company, coming towards the end of its franchise, recognised the value of the line as a diversionary route to London and indicated as part of its proposals for franchise renewal that it would endorse its re-opening. For reasons that we all understand, Connex then lost its franchise.
It is deeply frustrating for Members who consistently supported the re-opening to encounter a situation that is like one of those Christmas cracker games in which a plastic container has four or five aluminium balls that have to be lined up and placed into all the holes at the same time. As soon as we get all the balls in bar one, one
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pops out—a different one every time. All the balls are now in place at local level, with everyone supporting the proposal locally, but we now face something that the Minister will understand because of what he has inherited with Railtrack—a rail industry that is incapable of delivering such schemes. That is the problem that I want the Minister to try to help to overcome, or at least to move along in that direction.
There is no doubt that the campaign to re-open is strong, because it makes so much sense. I stress to the Minister that it is not based on sentimentality or some vision of steam trains winding their way between Lewes and Uckfield. It is based on solid, common-sense arguments that the Government support as part of their policy.
There is a very good environmental case for reopening the line. The A26 between Lewes and Uckfield is becoming more and more heavily trafficked. More people want to travel from Uckfield and Crowborough, in the constituency of the hon. Member for Wealden, to work in Lewes and on the south coast, where there is a high level of employment for white-collar workers. Also, people want to go to Brighton and Hove. The Minister's colleagues in that area are keen to stress the importance of regeneration, and reinstating the link between Lewes and Uckfield would contribute to that.
The link is also important in terms of social inclusion, which is another matter that is high on the Government's agenda. Many people in the so-called rich south-east lack access to private transport, and the bus and rail networks are lifelines for them. The short gap—of only seven miles—between Lewes and Uckfield is like a key tooth missing from a mouth. Its absence stands out. It makes no sense, economically or otherwise, for the line from London Victoria to wind all the way down through Oxted to Uckfield, and stop just seven miles short of the Lewes junction. At Lewes, there are a great many more interchanges, and extending the line that far would make a great deal of sense in rail terms.
The proposal makes sense in other ways, too. The Minister will know from his Labour colleagues in Brighton and Hove that there is a severe problem with the train path capacity between Brighton and London. No more train paths are available because of the bottleneck at Haywards Heath and Balcombe. There is no way to get around the problem. It is inconceivable that a new viaduct and tunnel could be built at Balcombe, because of the cost involved. The alternative would be to improve the Arundel line, but that is a long diversion—the distance between Brighton and London is 80 miles.
From the strategic point of view, the simplest and cheapest way to provide extra capacity between the south coast and London would be to reopen the Lewes-Uckfield line and use that link as an alternative route. For my constituents, that would provide a daily, direct service from the major port of Newhaven and the major town of Seaford to London, without the need to change at Lewes. There are therefore a great many reasons why this proposal makes sense.

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The Minister will understand my concern that the Government office for the south-east has suggested that the proposal should not be brought forward as a priority, nor implemented as soon as possible. I think that both things should happen. In addition, GOSE has suggested that it should be deleted, on affordability grounds, from the draft regional transport strategy. No doubt GOSE officials will have told the Minister that they have been bombarded with objections to an idea that is ill-timed and ludicrous. I hope that further thought will be given to the matter.
I wrote to GOSE, and I am sure that other hon. Members have done the same. Unusually, the letter was passed by an official for reply by a Minister. Things are usually done the other way around. The Minister for Housing and Planning wrote to me on 13 May, and his comments concerned me. I was grateful that he should have written to me, and a ministerial reply to a letter to an official is always helpful, but he said that the benefits accruing from re-opening the Lewes-Uckfield line would be
"largely confined to the improvement of travel opportunities between the specific urban centres involved."
That is not true, for the reasons that I have given. Everyone who has looked at the matter in depth—including consultants used by the county council, and others—recognise the strategic value of the route.
The Minister added that the link
"would not achieve the objective of providing and alternative and competitive main railway corridor to London because of the topography of the route."
It is unclear why the Minister made that statement, which is not true either. The proposal involves the most easily adaptable alternative route. If, by the use of the word "topography", the Minister means that part of the line adjacent to Lewes had been built on, everyone knows that that is the case. It has been factored in for decades, ever since the line closed. There is an alternative: the existing Hamsey loop could be linked up very quickly, by means of a short stretch of new rail, to the existing Lewes-London line. It is not true, therefore, that the alteration could not be made, which is what I think the Minister intended that sentence to mean. I think that he has been badly briefed.
Charles Hendry: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way, and congratulate him on securing this debate. Will he join me in congratulating the people involved in the Wealden line campaign for their work in keeping this matter under consideration? Does he understand why so many of my constituents are frustrated? They have to travel from Uckfield and Crowborough to Haywards Heath or Tonbridge Wells to use a train service, and are not able to use a line that runs through their home towns. Does he agree that the Strategic Rail Authority's priorities are misguided? It wants to build high-speed links between London and Edinburgh, when the real crisis in our rail system is in the overcrowded south-east? It takes an hour and a half to get from Uckfield to London by train—longer than it takes to go from London to Doncaster.
Norman Baker: The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. He has campaigned strongly for the reopening of the line, and he, I and others all say the same thing about that in the same terms. I agree about the SRA's priorities: it has inherited a bad situation from Railtrack, but if I were the Government, I should be looking for 100 or so quick, cheap schemes that would bring real improvements to the railways. They have been diverted on to the west coast main line, and I can understand why, but they are putting all their eggs in one basket. A lot of improvements could come very quickly to the railways.
The hon. Gentleman leads me on to a press release from the Association of Community Rail Partnerships, published on 8 June. It said:
"Kim Howells applauded ACoRP's success in supporting small-scale projects which can bring real benefits to local communities".
The Minister of State was absolutely right there. That is where we can get good, quick hits, and I encourage the Government to do that. Indeed, I think they want to: their instincts on rail are right, but they have trouble with a rail system that will not lend itself to delivering objectives that they want to achieve. The press release added that the Minister of State
"hinted that supporters of community railways 'will be pleasantly surprised' by the outcome of the current Government Rail Review."
I hope that that is true. If so, it will give good heart to those who want schemes such as the Lewes-Uckfield reopening.
We have heard about costs, but the costs given by the SRA are outrageous and way out of line with estimates produced by consultants for the county council and others for a diesel connection—the line from Uckfield north is diesel—betweenUckfield and Lewes. The county's estimate is between £25 million and £40 million, not the £100 million plus that the SRA has offered. By the way, the SRA has never justified that figure. We have asked it time and again for evidence for it, but it has not been able to do so. It is a figure plucked out of the air. Yet the Minister for Housing and Planning is apparently relying on that figure and says that the scheme cannot be ruled in on grounds of affordability. We really must have some reason why £100 million has been suggested because I think that the figure is substantially less, and the county council is rightly working on lower figures.
The hon. Member for Wealden and I have discussed with the county council its innovative identification of how the extra housing that the Government require for the south-east, in so far as it relates to East Sussex, can be placed adjacent to the rail line between Uckfield and Oxted and Crowborough. I pay tribute to the former lead member, Tony Reid, for his work on that. By doing that, the Government could generate planning gain that would lead to a significant funding stream that would help reopen the line. The county council is doing its best to secure external funding, and that funding is needed only for the reopening. All the evidence shows that the line would be operationally profitable; there is no question about that. The question is simply whether the capital costs can be achieved.
I suggest that the Government's own policy should be to want the line reopened. That is consistent with their objectives. I understand why it is difficult because of the

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mess the railway system is in, but I ask the Minister to help me find a way through that and to recognise the work that the county council is doing in finding private sector funding to help in an innovative way forward. The county council's brief to me says that in-depth studies carried out by Mott MacDonald, the consultants it employed, concluded that while the basic regional train service on the route would make a small annual operating profit, it would not cover the capital cost of reinstatement. The key area of work, therefore, is to investigate how the significant funding gap in the project can be bridged. It may be possible to use enhanced land values as a result of reinstatement of the railway to pay, in part, for the capital costs of construction.
That is an innovative way forward that the Minister ought to support. It is bang in line with the Government's philosophy. The rail industry itself is also supportive, and the SRA, which I have been castigating, has in fact offered staff resources to the county council to review the work carried out by an outside body. I have met SRA representatives, and the SRA is not antipathetic to the scheme. SouthCentral Trains—Southern, as we now must call it—has also indicated that it is in favour in principle and would operate the route gladly if it were reinstated. Most of the balls in my Christmas cracker game are in place, but what we do not have is co-ordination of the rail industry, which I hope the Minister can help to deliver.
The reinstatement of the Lewes-Uckfield line would be good for the environment, good for social mobility and social inclusion and good for the economy. It makes absolute sense. It is overwhelmingly supported by the communities in my patch and that of the hon. Member for Wealden, and elsewhere. It is supported by all the local councils and all the local Members. It is something that the Government, in their wish to get real services back on track, should support.
It is my ambition to be at the reopening of the Lewes-Uckfield railway line. It was the ambition of the hon. Gentleman's predecessor and I hope that he will still make it. I intend to continue to raise the matter until such time as I am there, hopefully to cut the ribbon, but at least to be there when the ribbon is cut. It would give me no greater pleasure than to be there when the Minister is there to cut the ribbon. I will be the first to congratulate him.
6.15 pm
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport (Mr. Tony McNulty): I congratulate the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker) on securing this debate and providing an opportunity for further discussion on the Lewes to Uckfield rail link. I must disappoint him instantly by saying that whether there is good news or otherwise for those interested in community rail partnerships in the rail review, we must wait and see. I do not anticipate commenting further on the comments of my hon. Friend the Minister of State at an Association of Community Rail Partnerships function the other day.
The hon. Gentleman and others have been pressing for the reinstatement of the link over a long period. He secured an Adjournment debate as long ago as 29 July 1998 and it was discussed further as part of another
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Adjournment debate on 31 October 2001. Indeed, as I think he said, he and colleagues from Tonbridge and Malling, Wealden and Brighton, Kemptown along with representatives of East Sussex county council met Richard Bowker, the chairman of the Strategic Rail Authority, on 5 June. So the Government and the SRA are well aware of the aspirations of hon. Members, local authorities and others.
Before responding to the points made by the hon. Gentleman, I wish to touch on recent changes in the area and on performance. As he said, on 30 May the South Central train operator rebranded to the name Southern. That is a return to a respected and valued name—nothing new there necessarily—and underscores its commitment to improving services to East Sussex as a key element of its work. Southern is introducing modern and more reliable trains, improved station environments and better service. Over 700 new carriages will enter passenger service in the coming months up to 2005.
The hon. Gentleman will be well aware of the other improvements as a consequence of the introduction of Electrostars, Turbostars and other similar developments. On the Uckfield to London service, new Turbostars are entering service. They have air suspension, air conditioning, a state-of-the-art public information system and are fully accessible for disabled passengers. They have low emissions, are quiet and have fast acceleration. They are unrecognisable from the old "Thumper" trains that they are replacing. Other improvements include the upgrading of the power supply, which is long overdue, and the train protection and warning system.
Southern has shown an increase in performance in the last year with 80 per cent. of trains arriving within five minutes, compared with 77 per cent. for the previous year.
The Lewes to Uckfield proposals cannot be considered in isolation, but must be viewed in the wider context of the transport network in the region. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the SRA's current focus is to make the most efficient use of the existing network, making sure that capacity is used as effectively as possible. The route utilisation strategies being developed aim to improve capacity and performance, and reduce overcrowding by improvements to operating practices, better deployment of rolling stock and alterations to timetables.
The Brighton main line route utilisation strategy will go out to consultation in the summer and it will include proposals for improved services for Uckfield: a fast, all-day service between Uckfield and London Bridge. It will also consider improvements in services from Lewes to London using the Brighton main line.
The South East England regional assembly's draft regional transport strategy of January 2003 originally included the Lewes to Uckfield scheme as "proposed for investigation." Following an examination in public into the assembly's draft strategy, an independent panel recommended that the proposal be deleted on affordability grounds. However, the panel considered the scheme to be a longer-term possibility that could be revisited in preparing the regional spatial strategy, also referred to as the south-east plan.

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The Secretary of State's first draft regional transport strategy deleted the scheme, as recommended by the panel. The consultation on the draft regional transport strategy ended on 21 May 2004 and I understand that many representations have been received for the reinstatement of the scheme. The final regional transport strategy will be published in the next few months.
In the longer term, the SRA will produce a series of regional planning assessments—RPAs—to identify possible network enhancements for detailed analysis and appraisal. Work on the southern RPA will begin this winter and the SRA will ensure that the emerging south-east plan is captured in this work. It is within that wider planning framework that proposals for a rail link between Lewes and Uckfield would be reviewed.
I would do nothing other than exhort the county council to carry on doing what it is doing. The current structures of the rail network and the rail system are cumbersome, hence the rail review. There are other substantial and appropriate dimensions to the spatial strategy, the transport strategy and other examinations of such issues on a regional basis, but it would be a sorry state of affairs if what we did after the rail review precluded some attempt at innovation at local level to fill the gaps in the network, above and beyond the regional, national and other strategies.
Any consideration would also need to address a number of complex operational issues, including the impact that services over the line would have on other parts of the network. For example, if trains between Uckfield and Brighton were introduced, there would be implications for capacity at Brighton, a station where competing demands on capacity are already heavy, as the hon. Gentleman reminded us.
Supporters of the Lewes to Uckfield link argue that it could be used as an alternative, diversionary route to London when there are engineering works or disruption on the Brighton main line. Laudable as that objective might be, it would be relevant only if the whole of the route from Hurst Green via Uckfield to Lewes were to be electrified, which would further increase the costs.
Norman Baker: I disagree with the Minister's last point. We now have new services direct from Uckfield to London that run with diesel engines. Southern has made a virtue of the fact that it can now run more services into Victoria from Uckfield, so there is nothing to stop such services continuing to Lewes.
Mr. McNulty: I do not dispute that, but electrification would be necessary to optimise the use of the route as a diversionary line if there were problems on the Brighton main line. I know that the SRA tends to opt for the all-singing, all-dancing, bells and whistles version and that is why the county council should continue to consider the proposal, but a diesel-only service would weaken the case for the route to play a diversionary role. The strategic benefits advanced by the line's proponents seem to ignore the single-track nature of large sections of the line and the need for that to be addressed if the line were to play a full diversionary role in all circumstances.
I am also aware of the historic issues of flooding along the River Ouse and the impact that that had on the line prior to its closure in the 1970s. The costs and potential
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environmental impacts of satisfying track doubling, electrification and drainage should not be underestimated. I remind the House of the duty to avoid unnecessary blight and concern about how those potential issues would be delivered. I do not preclude examining the proposal further, but I offer those issues for consideration. Even if all those problems were solved, the line would be limited by the proposal by the Wealden line group that trains should run into Lewes via the Hamsey loop—that is, heading east at Lewes. The station layout there would constrain through running to Brighton and involve a shunt move to gain the Brighton line.
Another argument, which was put forward eloquently by the hon. Gentleman, is the potential to develop the port of Newhaven, so that the Lewes to Uckfield line would be part of a route to and from the port. That proposal can be considered as part of the SRA's regional study, which will look at all ports along the south coast.
The SRA's view is that the new rolling stock and other improvements that it will propose in the route utilisation strategy will provide a much enhanced service from both Lewes and Uckfield without the significant costs of providing infrastructure. For that reason, the SRA has not included the Lewes to Uckfield line in its strategic plan nor has it been part of the SRA's current thinking.
The SRA has said that it needs to be convinced of the operational viability, and the overall justification for the scheme and would expect the scheme's proponents to engage with the key rail industry players—the SRA, the train operating companies and Network Rail—to make the case for further work to develop a feasibility study. A lot of work needs to be done to establish the costs, potential usage and value for money of reinstating the link.
As the hon. Gentleman said, such studies, or tentative studies, have been done in the past and there has been a body of support for restoring the line since 1969. As ever—I am sure that if he intervened he would make the same point—if nothing has been done, studies need to be looked at again in the context of the circumstances that prevail five or 10 years after the last study. The matter perhaps needs to be looked at in more detail.
Given the issues relating to the likely capital costs of the scheme and the likely ongoing subsidy requirement—although I take the point about what the county council is trying to do—the SRA has concluded that further investigation of the reopening of this route is not a priority for it at the present time. However, I accept what the hon. Gentleman says about finding other innovative ways to fill some of the smaller gaps.
Another scheme that has had its backers over the years is the restoration of the Bridge (Birchden Junction) to Tunbridge Wells (Grove Junction) link. It would provide another link in the network, but the SRA and others suggest that it would be of limited value on its own. I shall not rehearse the limited local value that the SRA currently puts on the scheme in terms of its being local rather than strategic. That is its view.
To sum up, the SRA is continuing to develop its plan to improve the existing network and services through its route development strategies and the consultation on the Brighton main line RUS will begin soon. In the longer term, there will be an opportunity for input into

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the SRA's regional planning assessment, which will begin this winter, and I am sure that the hon. Member for Lewes and perhaps the hon. Member for Wealden (Charles Hendry) will make a full contribution to that process and the various transport strategies and other documents that are being published.
I recognise that I have not offered the hon. Gentleman much succour, but I exhort him, the hon. Member for Wealden and others to keep working with the county council—certainly on the ongoing subsidy and revenue cost side and perhaps also on the capital side. I am keenly aware that over the past 30 or 40 years our mindset and vision on rail has been on the multi-billion all-singing, all-dancing high-speed links that are going to change the world rather than more local innovative ways in which gaps in our network can be filled. Such schemes, whether for reasons of social exclusion, economic reasons or simply reasons of accessibility or interconnectivity, can solve problems far more readily than some of the big schemes.
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While I exhort all south coast colleagues to keep on the case, I can offer no substantive sunny uplands in the next weeks and months, but I will watch the "Fill the gap" or "Close the link" campaign or whatever else it is called with real interest. I exhort the hon. Gentleman to carry on with colleagues, the SRA, the TOCs and the county council. I congratulate him again on the way in which he presented the case for what is clearly a significant local issue.
I congratulate the Lewes to Uckfield link on surviving Beeching, but clearly, given the substantial support for it now, perhaps this is one thing from the 1960s that will return. There is not much that I would say should return from the 1960s, having lived through it as a child rather than a teenager, but perhaps the Lewes to Uckfield link will. If it does, I will happily be there to help cut the ribbon, as the hon. Gentleman offered, but until then he should keep up the pressure to secure the link.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at twenty-nine minutes past Six o'clock.