Disabled People (Discrimination) (Hansard, 8 March 1988)

§ 59. Mr. Ingram
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if he has any plans to introduce further legislation further on discrimination against disabled people.

§ Mr. Scott
No.

§ 77. Mr. Norman Hogg
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services how many cases of discrimination against disabled people have been investigated by his Department; and what the results have been.

§ 102. Mr. Callaghan
To ask the Secretary of State for Social Services if his Department is currently investigating any cases of discrimination against disabled people.

§ Mr. Scott
Since February 1983, when an invitation was extended by my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Sir H. Rossi) for details of alleged discrimination to be submitted, 33 such cases have been referred to the Department.
In those cases where investigations have been completed:

in six cases, no evidence of discrimination was found;

in six cases, insufficient information was available to enable inquiries to be completed;

there were genuine problems of access in four cases;

three cases involved judgments by a potential employer that the individual's disability adversely affected their ability to perform the job effectively or safely;

in three cases the problem was resolved in favour of the complainant during the course of our inquiries;

two cases involved commercial judgments, the basis of which could not effectively be checked;

one case concerned maritime regulations laid before Parliament;

one case was a complaint by a disabled person against an employee who was subsequently disciplined by the employer;
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one case involved a conflict of opinion over the application of right-to-buy housing legislation;

in one case the Department requested further information from the complainant but received no response;

five cases are under consideration.