Equality Bill [HL]

My Lords, I hope to be reasonably brief, having drawn the short straw of coming at the end of the Back Bench speakers’ list and many of the points that I intended to make having already been spoken to so eloquently. Like nearly all noble Lords, I warmly welcome the Bill as a key step towards the vision of equal citizenship and a more prosperous, inclusive society for us all. I am delighted to say that the Bill has received a warm welcome from the Disability Rights Commission, the Disability Charities Consortium and British Council of Organisations of Disabled People among others. However, I would like to endorse the comments made so strongly by the noble Lord, Lord   Rix, concerning the fact that the Bill has not yet been made available in alternative formats such as easy-read—a lesson that I had hoped the Government had learnt following the report of the Joint Committee on the draft Disability Discrimination Bill. As the Disability Charities Consortium points out, for the CEHR to achieve credibility with disabled people it must be fully accessible in order to ensure their full inclusion. I would welcome a commitment from the Minister that the Government will ensure that the CEHR’s work, even when it does not have a ““disability heading””, will be fully accessible for disabled people, whether they be commissioners, employees, advisers or users. When the creation of a single commission was first mooted, disabled people, while being enthusiastic in principle, had concerns. They were afraid that the disability rights agenda would be marginalised, that implementation of new disability rights legislation would be compromised and that disabled people would lose control of the disability rights agenda. I am delighted that disabled people have been involved in shaping the new body and that the Bill meets those concerns. I particularly welcome the requirement for at least one of the CEHR commissioners to be a disabled person and the provision for a properly resourced disability committee for at least the first five years. A majority of the committee will be disabled people, reflecting the composition of the DRC currently where well over half—10 out of 15—commissioners are disabled people. The future of the disability committee will be crucially important to disabled people, which is why I join others who have spoken before me in strongly advocating that the provisions relating to the five-year review of the committee explicitly require consultation with disabled people, as well as organisations of disabled people. I also urge the Government to ensure that the proposed review is indeed open-ended. The current wording of the Bill allows only one possible outcome—abolition—and the only question will be how soon. I would welcome my noble friend’s assurance that the review could recommend the continuation of the committee for the duration of the   CEHR, and that that recommendation would then be acted on. In relation to the CEHR’s work in promoting good community relations, disabled people are actually seeking a more integrated approach. There is a strong case for removing separate provision on disability in Clause 10 and integrating disabled people within the   mainstream community relations provisions in Clause 11. The existence of separate disability duties in Clause 10 stems from the Government’s concern to protect the fundamental principle that equality of opportunity for disabled people involves taking steps to take account of people’s impairments, through making reasonable adjustments—a concept unique to the DDA—even if that means treating disabled people more favourably than others. However, the DRC, for example, argues that that could—and should—be accommodated within Clause 11. Unless disability is fully included in the CEHR’s work on social inclusion at the local level, groups such as black and minority-ethnic disabled people will particularly lose out. I hope that debate on the Bill will draw out, too, how the CEHR will contribute to the all-important task of making independent living a reality for disabled people, through its work on equality and in promoting human rights and community relations. My noble friend Lord   Ashley eloquently spoke on that. For disabled people effective protection of human rights is often a matter of life or death, enforced institutionalisation or a home of one’s own, so I strongly support his call for the CEHR to have enforcement powers with regard to human rights cases. I also strongly support the concerns that have been raised about the definition of public authorities. The Bill places a duty on the CEHR to encourage public authorities to comply with Section 6 of the Human Rights Act—that is, compliance with convention rights. Recent case law has been ambiguous about defining care providers as public authorities, such as in the case concerning Leonard Cheshire. Given the integral role that care providers can play in the lives of disabled people as well as those of children and older people, care providers should adhere to a strong human rights culture. Can the Minister clarify whether that duty will extend to care providers, and whether the Government will include a review of the definition of public authorities in the discrimination law review? Finally, I very much welcome the new provisions in   the Bill on religion and belief, and the proposed gender equality duty. But with that, we still lack comprehensive protection against discrimination in this country. I was delighted with the commitment in the Government’s manifesto to legislate for a single equality Act before the end of this Parliament. I hope that firm progress will have been made on that front by the time that the CEHR is vested, and that the opportunity will be seized to strengthen disability rights at the same time.