Disability Rights Commission: Response to human rights and independent living measures in Queen's speech

Wednesday, 15, Nov 2006 12:00

Queen’s Speech 06

Parliamentary Briefing

The Future of Equality and

Human Rights

Contact for further information:

Caroline Ellis, Head of Parliamentary Affairs. Tel: 020 7543 7038;

Mob: 07812 673547. Caroline.Ellis@drc-gb.org

Graham Nickson, Senior Parliamentary Officer. Tel: 020 7543 7019;

Mob: 07791 115 479. Graham.Nickson@drc-gb.org

Sinead Gordon, Parliamentary Officer. Tel: 020 7543 7036.

Sinead.Gordon@drc-gb.org

There are four key challenges/priorities in the new session

- Maintain the momentum towards a Single Equality Act that delivers a fairer and more effective legal framework for promoting equality and countering discrimination

- Ensure Government and public authorities carry out disability equality impact assessments on and involve disabled people in developing key new policies (under the Disability Equality Duty)

- Laying foundations for a strong and credible Commission for Equality and Human Rights

- Positive promotion of human rights by Government with implementation of the new UN Disability Convention and action to embed a human rights culture across public services and ensure disabled people can exercise their human rights in practice.

Single Equality Act

The Disability Rights Commission has warmly welcomed the Government’s commitment to pass a Single Equality Act within the lifetime of this Parliament. This is a historic opportunity to produce a legal framework that is fairer, more effective in promoting equality and countering discrimination and easier to understand and use.

By fairer we mean a law that closes current gaps in protection. Despite recent positive changes to the Disability Discrimination Act (comprehensive coverage of people with cancer, HIV and MS from the point of diagnosis plus new transport and housing rights and the forthcoming public sector disability equality duty from this December) and legislation outlawing discrimination on grounds of age, religion/belief and sexual orientation in the work place and a new gender equality duty major gaps remain. Examples include:

• The lack of protection against age discrimination in access to goods and services,

• The absence of anti-discrimination provisions to protect volunteers or disabled people using ships or planes

• The fact that there is no protection against unreasonable discrimination against members of the armed services with an impairment or health condition.

• The definition of disability under the DDA needs replacing so that anyone who has - or is perceived to have - an impairment (of whatever type or degree) is protected against discrimination.

• Under EU law people should also be protected against discrimination on grounds of an association with a disabled person.

• Disabled people in rental or leasehold property should be allowed, where reasonable, to require landlords to make an adjustment to physical features of the common parts of residential let premises to improve access, at their own expense (unless the landlord chooses to pay).

Extending protection against discrimination is however of little effect if these laws are not effectively enforced. We have real concerns that the present enforcement regime fails either to allow individuals access to justice or to provide a sufficient momentum for achieving progress on equality. We have real fears for example that progress on removing physical barriers to services has stalled after encouraging progress after the introduction of new duties in October 2004. For example, the Publican magazine survey of pubs reported that only 23% reported making any alteration to their buildings to assist disabled people .

We need to create a new enforcement regime that does not just rely on CEHR casework support, or even use of its strategic powers, but which mobilises inspection agencies and consumer protection regimes to insist on compliance with basic equality standards. In some respects we have gone backwards. For example, businesses need to know that if they discriminate against disabled people they could lose their license to operate. The regime introduced by the Licensing Act 2005 precludes this – and is in that way less helpful than the previous regime.

Individuals bringing discrimination cases in relation to goods, services and premises should not face an inaccessible, costly court system – many experts have long advocated building on the employment tribunal system which has far more experience of discrimination issues than the courts (for goods and services cases the idea is they would be designated as ‘equality tribunals).

When individual cases are resolved we need to maximise their ability to bring change to an organisation. Most applicants are as concerned to achieve this broader justice as well as securing resolution of their particular problem. For example, employment tribunals should have stronger powers to recommend changes to employer practices.

The introduction of a Disability Equality Duty on public authorities from this December onwards is a major achievement by the Government and one on which we congratulate them. However, in the Single Equality Act it will be important to maximise the beneficial impact on the private sector, particularly in an era where many services are contracted out, by clarifying in law the extent to which public procurement needs to be a tool for delivering better equality outcomes.

We need to hear about the Government’s vision for single equality legislation and we need to know that the delay in producing a green paper is not evidence of this slipping down their agenda. The absence of a Single Equality Act affects our economic competitiveness and social well-being – it is not one for the backburner.

Human Rights

Human rights are about dignity and fairness for all. They safeguard fundamental freedoms, provide an invaluable tool for combating inequality and exclusion and provide a framework of ethical values relevant to all which encourage mutual respect.

• When two young disabled women wanted to challenge the decision of East Sussex County Council to take them into residential care because its health and safety practice entailed a ‘no-lifting’ policy in the home, it was human rights principles and not the Disability Discrimination Act that came to the rescue.

• When Leslie Burke wanted to challenge the General Medical Council’s guidance to doctors on the withdrawal of artificial nutrition and hydration, it was to human rights principles that he turned for ammunition

• When a disabled child developed asthma and was refused the necessary ventilation on ‘quality of life’ grounds, it was human rights principles which informed her parents’ determination to demand what was needed from another hospital and which enabled them to reach agreement with the first hospital about what had gone wrong.

• When Naomi Bryant’s mother sought redress for her daughter’s killing at the hands of a man wrongly released from prison, and as a way of ensuring that this wouldn’t happen to anyone, else it was to the Human Rights Act and Liberty she turned to for support.

Yet many are denied the benefits of the Human Rights Act because no one has bothered to tell them what their rights are and how they can use them to get a better deal. A YouGov Poll we commissioned in the summer found that, while 62 per cent of the public think it is a good thing that we have an Act to protect everyone’s human rights in this country –

• Over one third (36%) of people felt they had no information about how the Human Rights Act effected their privacy and family life

• Only 8% felt fully informed about how the Act offered protection against crime and community safety

• Only 10% felt sufficiently informed about how the Act provides access to health and social care

• More than a quarter of people (28%) said they had no information about how education was connected to human rights.

By its own admission the G