Licensing Act 2003: Post-Legislative Scrutiny (Licensing Act 2003 Report)

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I too congratulate my noble friend Lady McIntosh of Pickering on securing this debate and I thank her and her committee for using their inquiry as an opportunity to look at an issue of huge importance to the UK’s more than 11 million disabled people—disability access, in this case to pubs and other licensed premises. Equal access is a fundamental tenet of disability equality, so I welcome the committee’s pragmatic consideration of how we can make practical progress on the issue, almost a quarter of a century after the then Conservative Government introduced their landmark disability rights legislation, the Disability Discrimination Act, or DDA, and the duty to make reasonable adjustments.

Twenty-two years is an awfully long time to wait for a pint. Sadly, it is no laughing matter because, if the Government’s response to the committee’s recommendation is anything to go by, disabled people could still be waiting in another three years’ time, when the DDA turns 25. To put that in the context of yesterday’s debate, had the Burns report’s recommendations been implemented in 1995—the same year as the DDA became an Act—a person could have been ennobled, served in your Lordships’ House for 15 years, retired seven years ago and yet still be waiting to be able to get into their local pub! So to say that the Government’s response to Recommendation 25 of this report is inadequate, particularly their intention to hold yet another consultation with disabled people, is, I am afraid, to be charitably polite.

Of course, I welcome the manifesto commitment, which the response highlights, to review and amend regulations relating to disabled people’s access. I helped write it. I most definitely did not help write the response to this recommendation, which I fear is a carefully worded, sensitively put, insult. In contrast to the manifesto, it is a feeble fig leaf for yet more of the same— more inaction. What worries me most is that we seem rapidly to be getting to the point where my party is in danger of effectively disowning its own DDA. How can I say that? Sadly, all too easily, because, had we pursued such a passive approach to tackling disability discrimination 20 or so years ago, there would never have been a DDA. It simply would not have reached the statute book, and the Conservatives would not have been able to claim the credit for having accepted that, in the case of disability rights, change does not just happen by accident. It requires government action. In its absence, we are instead going backwards.

Why am I banging on about disability equality for the fourth time in as many weeks? The reason is simple: this matters, and more than some would care to imagine. Our commitment to equality says so much about us, about the kind of society we want to be and about the kind of party which my party, the Conservative Party, wants people to see us as.

Disability is the last preserve of prejudice. No longer, thank God, do we believe that we can treat people less equally because they are women, of BAME heritage or members of the LGBT community, or perhaps all three. But we still treat disabled people less equally, and as a matter of policy and of attitude. How else could the Equalities Minister—the Minister charged with promoting equality—have believed that she could somehow get away with compromising the Government and my party by colluding in getting rid of the disability commissioner? How else could the Equalities Minister have believed that she could do this without consulting No. 10, which oversees public appointments, or the then Minister for Disabled People, or disabled people themselves or—heaven forbid—the disabled person who only accepted her offer to join the board of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission because he thought he was being appointed to the position for which he had applied and been interviewed: that of disability commissioner?

As noble Lords will know, I have withdrawn my acceptance of that offer, which was made under false pretences. The irony is that I was misled only because I am disabled. I am not important but the position is, because it gave disabled people the last powerful voice, in the form of a designated champion, that we had. Justine Greening, the Equalities Minister, would never have presumed she could act in such an underhand, disdainful way were I black or gay. Had she done so, her career would already be in the past tense. Her involvement in getting rid of the position of disability commissioner has brought discredit upon the Government. It has also, undeservedly, brought dishonour upon my party. I fear her actions and the Government’s inadequate response to this committee’s particular recommendation on disabled access are regrettably all part of a narrative which, bizarrely, we are helping our opponents to construct. The message to disabled people might as well be “What do they know? What do we care?” That is not a message any party can afford to give, and especially not my party, if the Prime Minister’s pledge to build a country that works for everyone is to command credibility.

In conclusion, to restore their honour and to reclaim their credibility on disability rights the Government need urgently to rethink their attitude to disability equality. That is why I reiterate my request that the Prime Minister start that process by dissociating the Government from the decision to abolish the position of disability commissioner and by ensuring the release of all the relevant communications without delay.

Equality Act 2010 (Amendment) (Disabled Access) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 24th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is an honour to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Deech. I commend her and her committee for their excellent report on the Equality Act 2010 and disability. I declare an interest as a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. As we are discussing the duty to make reasonable adjustments, I should also tell the House that 20 or so years ago I had life-saving neurosurgery. I took three years to learn to talk again. I am still trying to teach my body to co-operate and speak more quickly, but I beg the indulgence of the House during the debate if I do not speak as quickly as I would like.

I thank my noble friend Lord Blencathra for the service he has done your Lordships’ House, disabled people and society at large in introducing the Bill, as my noble friends Lord Borwick and Lord Wasserman made clear in their contributions, thereby giving the Government the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to disability equality and to keeping the flame of our party’s landmark disability rights legislation, the DDA, alive. As we have already heard, the Bill is pragmatic, principled and practical. As a wheelchair user, I agree with everything that has been said. Having served on the National Disability Council, set up to advise the Government on the implementation of the DDA more than 20 years ago, I am more sorry than I can say that your Lordships’ House is still debating such a modest Bill.

I will address my remarks to a matter to which my noble friend Lord Blencathra and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred—the Equality and Human Rights Commission. It was the profound sense of frustration with the lack of access highlighted by my noble friend’s Bill that drove me to respond to an advert for the specific post of disability commissioner on the commission. I applied and I was interviewed for that post because I wanted to lead in making tangible progress, such as the very measures highlighted in the Bill, as well as to contribute to securing positive change on equality generally.

On 21 April this year I received a letter from Justine Greening, in her capacity as Equalities Minister, inviting me to join the commission. Within 24 hours the chair of the commission had rung to congratulate me. At no point did either of them mention the intention to abolish the position of disability commissioner, for which I had applied and been interviewed.

This leads me to feel I need to clarify what I told the House, in good faith, on 29 June at Hansard cols. 624-25. First, Written Answers to a number of Parliamentary Questions asked in the other place have since established that, contrary to what I had been led to believe by the chair and deputy chair of the commission when they met me on 9 May, the board of the commission had not already decided to abolish the position of disability commissioner. The board decided to do so only on 11 May, two days after I had been told that the board’s decision had already been taken and two days after I had pleaded with the chair and deputy chair of the commission to urge the board to reconsider.

I now have evidence—I thank a Member of your Lordships’ House for procuring this information—of deliberate concealment that the matter was even discussed in the board’s unminuted pre-meeting of 11 May. Whereas the first draft of the main board minutes refer to the fact that the unminuted pre-meeting discussed the role of the disability commissioner, the eventual, sanitised version of the draft board minutes instead state:

“In the informal pre-meeting session, the Board had discussed the Disability Advisory Committee and the role of its chair”.


I mention this example because it is symptomatic of the commission’s tendency to conceal and to misrepresent. Consistent with this approach, on 25 October the chair of the commission told the Women and Equalities Select Committee in another place that he was sorry that I had decided not to engage with the commission. As I have since made clear to him in a six-page letter, which I would be very happy to place in the Library of the House should any Member ask me to do so, nothing could be further from the truth.

I have touched on the commission’s shocking behaviour. However, what has shocked and, indeed, saddened me perhaps even more is the evidence that has come into my possession about the Government’s involvement in this sorry situation. On 29 June on the Floor of the House I asked the Government not to get involved. I gave them the benefit of the doubt that they were not already involved. Today, I have to clarify my remarks of 29 June because evidence I have been given and which I have shared with the Prime Minister shows that the Equalities Minister was involved in the process that led to the abolition of the disability commissioner.

I am referring to an email of 28 March from the director of the body my noble friend Lord Blencathra mentioned, the Government Equalities Office, updating colleagues on a meeting between Justine Greening, in her capacity as Equalities Minister, and the chair of the commission. The email states that the chair of the commission told her that he had attended a meeting of the commission’s disability committee the previous day, and,

“they were anxious about there being no one in the Disability Commissioner role currently”.

The email does not record the chair of the commission as saying that the commission’s disability committee was urging him to press for the abolition of the disability commissioner role—quite the opposite. The email records that the Equalities Minister confirmed, and again I quote,

“the decision to appoint Lord Shinkwin”.

Barely a fortnight later, after the chair of the commission had pressed the Equalities Minister for an announcement on a new disability commissioner and learned that I was to be appointed—a decision I stress I was not aware of—a memo sent to Justine Greening from the Government Equalities Office, dated 13 April 2017, states,

“it is now intended that Lord Shinkwin will be appointed as a general Commissioner”.

In other words, the countdown to the abolition of the position of disability commissioner had begun, and the Equalities Minister had effectively helped start the stopwatch towards its abolition.

Sadly, the cynicism of the whole situation is underlined by the fact that another Written Answer, WA 4778, in the other place, has since revealed that the very disability committee whose desire for an announcement of a new disability commissioner the chair of the commission had cited in his meeting with Justine Greening on 28 March was not even consulted about the abolition of the role of disability commissioner. Why? The reason given was that the interim disability advisory committee was not constituted at the time the chair and commissioners were considering this issue. So much for taking heed of what disabled people—indeed, of what the commission’s own disability committee—thought. Why not wait until the committee had been reconstituted? How else could the commission present me and everyone else with a fait accompli on the abolition of the post of disability commissioner as quickly as possible?

I should make it clear at this point that none of this should come as a surprise to the Government or, indeed, to the Prime Minister, with whom I have exchanged letters on the matter and shared all the evidence. Moreover, I completely understand why the Prime Minister said in her letter to me:

“I do hope … that you are clear that the Government had no involvement in the EHRC’s decision to abolish the disability commissioner role”.


Of course the Prime Minister hopes that but, as I told her in my reply, the evidence points in the other direction. I am not going to dance on the head of a pin here: the Equalities Minister did not take the actual decision to abolish the role—it was not in her power to do so—but all the evidence I have seen points to the fact that the Equalities Minister, Justine Greening, was involved in the process that led to the abolition of the position of disability commissioner.

I do not intend to detain the House for much longer, but I think noble Lords will want to know that in my reply to the Prime Minister of 21 November, I also told her that I would like to be able to say in this debate today that I have received a written assurance from her that she was not made aware of the last-minute decision to seek the abolition of the crucial role of disability commissioner, made after my appointment to the commission, as I have explained; that she totally dissociates herself and the Government from the position’s abolition; and that she will write to the chair of the commission to urge him to reinstate the position of disability commissioner, to appoint me, in that capacity, chair of the commission’s disability advisory committee and to allow me to lead in the recruitment of new members to that committee. I also told her with great sadness that if I had not received such assurances, and a copy of her letter to the chair of the commission, before today’s debate, which I have not received, I would have to fight for disability equality and for the reinstatement of the position of disability commissioner from the Cross Benches.

Today, I am deferring my decision to give the Prime Minister, whom I want to believe was not personally involved or even informed by her Equalities Minister of the process she herself had helped set in train, the opportunity to stop this grubby cover-up. My message to the Prime Minister today, with all due and sincere respect, as one Conservative parliamentarian to another, is this: please give me and Parliament the assurances I seek and show us the evidence that the Equalities Minister did not go behind my back, the backs of the UK’s 11 million disabled people, the 800,000 wheelchair users that my noble friend mentioned, and, Prime Minister, behind your back. Please release all communications between the Government Equalities Office and/or the Equalities Minister and/or the commission concerning the disability commissioner position and prove to me and to Parliament that the Equalities Minister did not collude in weakening the voice of disabled people—and making the measures that my noble friend has set out in his Bill so much harder to achieve—by helping to set in train the process to remove the position of disability commissioner.

In conclusion, I say to the Prime Minister, I have shown you the evidence of the Equalities Minister’s involvement. Please show me and Parliament evidence that the Equalities Minister, as her role obliges her to do, did absolutely everything in her power to stand up for disabled people and to dissuade the chair of the commission from pushing for the abolition of the disability commissioner role after he had been told that I was to be appointed. The burden of proof is now on the Prime Minister, because if she cannot counter the evidence I have shared with her and now with your Lordships’ House and provide the assurances I seek, then I fear that I can reach only one conclusion: the very fact that the Equalities Minister has allowed the position of disability commissioner to be abolished on this Government’s watch means that the Equalities Minister has acted in flagrant dereliction of her duty to me as a disabled person and to all disabled people. The Equalities Minister’s position will therefore be untenable, and she will have to resign.

I finish with this question: what message does it send to the UK’s 11 million disabled people, to the 800,000 wheelchair users who would benefit and to the parents of young children who would also benefit from my noble friend’s Bill, if a Conservative Equalities Minister colludes in the abolition of the UK’s disability champion, the disability commissioner? I await the Prime Minister’s considered response to my remarks in this debate. I will then decide whether I can continue to serve with integrity the party I love.

Modern Slavery (Victim Support) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 8th September 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Bew. I, too, congratulate my noble friend Lord McColl on introducing this important Bill.

I want to make four points. First, I agree with other noble Lords that David Cameron and Theresa May in particular are surely to be commended for once again putting Great Britain at the forefront of the fight against slavery. In her then capacity as Home Secretary, the Prime Minister said at Second Reading of the Modern Slavery Act 2015:

“Let us act now—together—and send a powerful message to all traffickers and slave drivers that they will not get away with their crimes: we will track them down, prosecute, and lock them up, and ensure that the victims of their appalling crimes are returned to freedom”.—[Official Report, Commons, 08/07/14; cols. 178-79.]


It is the last part of that essential equation—freedom from fear of becoming homeless, destitute and vulnerable to further exploitation from traffickers—which I, like other noble Lords, believe my noble friend’s Bill would help to address. The Bill builds on the excellent lead already provided by the Prime Minister because it recognises the importance of another message: the one that we send to victims of trafficking, as well as the one that we send to traffickers themselves.

Secondly, as we have been told, the need for action is urgent. I have heard from one of the many supporters of victims in the UK, the Medaille Trust, about the difficulties that it faces in providing support beyond the current reflection and recovery period of 45 days, particularly, as has been mentioned, in relation to obtaining benefits and accommodation. In short, I am told that the current situation is unintentionally leaving victims potentially more vulnerable. The Bill enables us to address the unfinished business of the landmark 2015 Act.

That brings me to my third point: Brexit. I understand from front-line organisations that our exit from the EU may increase the difficulty of accessing support if the rights of victims are not clarified, which is exactly what the Bill would do. Brexit provides the impetus to strengthen the existing legislation. The Bill provides the means to do so.

For me, the Bill is about affirming British values. I have just read my noble friend Lord Hague of Richmond’s excellent biography of William Wilberforce, whom other noble Lords have mentioned. Barely a fortnight ago, 24 August, marked the anniversary of William Wilberforce’s birth. As he said in the other place on 12 May 1789: “The nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us; we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it”. In 2017, 210 years after the passage of his historic Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, his call to action applies today as much as then. It can be neither ignored nor evaded. I agree with other noble Lords that, in supporting the Bill, the Government would be continuing his wonderful work. May William Wilberforce’s spirit guide our deliberations until the Bill has become law, as it surely deserves to.