Orders of the Day — Disability Discrimination Bill [Lords]

House of Commons, 23 March 2005.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker.. Members who examine today's Order Paper will see the following sentence under the programme motion:

"Proceedings in the Standing Committee shall (so far as not previously concluded) be brought to a conclusion on Thursday 14th April 2005."

The whole House will have heard the Deputy Prime Minister confirm today, at Prime Minister's Question Time, that the general election would take place on 5 May. As the Prime Minister has confirmed that, it would surely be impossible for the Standing Committee proceedings to finish on that date, because the House would have dissolved by then. Given your experience, Mr. Deputy Speaker, can you offer us guidance on what to do next?

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

As far as I am aware, the date of the general election has not yet been officially announced. The motion is in order, and must be dealt with in the normal way.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The Bill completes the most far-reaching programme of disability rights legislation that any European country has ever seen. It fulfils our manifesto commitment to deliver enforceable and comprehensive civil rights for disabled people and represents a major landmark on the road to a world in which disabled people can be empowered to live independently, fully recognised and, indeed, respected as equal members of society.

The Bill extends the definition of disability to provide protection against discrimination for at least another 175,000 people. It covers more people diagnosed with the progressive conditions HIV, multiple sclerosis and cancer and removes the requirement that mental illnesses be "clinically well recognised." It closes gaps in the pre-existing legislation relating to, for example, the inclusion of local councillors, private clubs and transport services, and it extends the coverage of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 to almost all activities of the public sector, placing a duty on public authorities to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people, mainstreaming disability equality into the core business of the public sector as a whole and helping to eliminate the institutional disadvantage that many disabled people still face. Well over 40,000 public bodies will be covered by those duties in some way.

For the first time, disabled people can be confident that their needs will be to the fore rather than being considered as an afterthought. For example, if a health trust is reorganising its services or a local authority is thinking of pedestrianising a town centre, it will need to think first about the way in which disabled people are likely to be affected.

I want to do two things. First, I want to set this Bill and some of its specific measures in the wider context of our previous legislation and the delivery of our longer-term goal of equality and independence for disabled people, as set out in the Prime Minister's recent strategy unit report.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

In the light of the speculation about the general election date, can the Secretary of State guarantee that the Bill will receive full Committee and Report stages?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I cannot guarantee anything that goes through the usual channels, but I am confident that it will. Given good will in all parts of the House, I see no reason for it not to be on the statute book by the time a general election is called, even if that happens earlier than some people expected.

The second thing that I want to do is explain the Government's position on a number of specific issues in the Bill, which I hope will inform the debate and ensure the Bill's quick passage through the House.

We have come a long way since the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. That is when Alf Morris, the first ever Minister for Disabled People, laid the foundations for disability rights legislation in the UK. When we came to office in 1997, despite 14 previous attempts to produce legislation, only the most blatant forms of direct discrimination against disabled people had been outlawed and there was no protection at all for disabled employees of small firms or for disabled pupils and students. The 1995 Act lounged on the statute book, falling far short of its potential and with no champion to help people enforce their rights or give employers advice and guidance on how to meet their obligations.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

The Secretary of State is normally a most reasonable person. To set the record straight, will he acknowledge that the 1995 Act was described by the Equal Opportunities Review as

"the most important . . . legislation in a generation"?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I will acknowledge that. It was. The trouble was that there was no effective system to ensure its enforcement. Moreover—I think the hon. Gentleman will accept this, because he too is a fair and reasonable person—it did not go as far as the disability lobby wanted it to, or as far as Members throughout the House pursuing private Members' Bills wanted to take disability discrimination legislation. We have now created the champion that the 1995 Act needed, first through the work of the Disability Rights Task Force and then with the hugely successful Disability Rights Commission.

Angela Eagle (Labour, Wallasey)

I wholeheartedly welcome the Bill, and wish it to be sped on its way whenever the general election may occur. Did my right hon. Friend notice an under-reported part of the Budget, which gives 2 million disabled people free travel? Can he say how that welcome development might work in practice?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I agree that it was under-reported. Most of the focus was on free off-peak bus travel for people over 60 from April 2006. The statement, of course, included all disabled people. It is indeed a welcome development and another development that improves the whole position by empowering disabled people.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

My right hon. Friend mentioned the 1995 Act. One of the disappointing features of that Act was the length of the lead-in times. Had it not been for this Government's actions, part III—passed 10 years ago—would still not be operation. We introduced "Access to Goods and Services" last year.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I think that it was on 1 October 2004 that that final part of the Act was passed. It was a red-letter day for all those interested in disability issues.

We are working to ensure that the DRC's championing of disability remains at the core of the new commission for equality and human rights. We have also set about implementing the most profound extension of disability civil rights that the country has ever seen. In transport, buildings, education and access to goods and services, our legislative programme has strengthened, widened and deepened the original Disability Discrimination Act.

In 1997, there were no rights of access for disabled people to public transport. We introduced accessibility regulations for rail vehicles in 1998, and for buses and coaches in 2000. From 1 March 2001, licensed taxi drivers have had a duty to carry guide dogs free of charge, and that duty was extended to all licensed private hire vehicle operators and drivers from 1 March last year. Accessibility regulations for taxis are also on the way.

The Bill protects disabled passengers against discrimination for the first time, ending the anomaly of transport not counting as a service under the DDA. It also allows us to set an end date of 2020 for all rail vehicles to be subject to the accessibility regulations providing access for all disabled people. Replacing the vehicle stock to meet the legislation places a cost burden on the rail industry and it is important to strike the right balance between those costs and the need for accessibility.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

Quite long lead-in times are given to rail companies. Are not most rail franchises let on a 10 or 15-year basis? The Secretary of State is allowing more than enough time for a replacement company to bid for a franchise, which should put it in a much better position to ensure that all its rolling stock is disability-compliant from day one.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

The hon. Gentleman's point has been raised in debate and by the Scrutiny Committee, but I was just coming to the way in which we see the balance working. It is not so much an issue of the franchises, but of the costs of replacing trains that have not yet reached the end of their proper working lives.

We moved from our original proposal to introduce the deadline of 2025 to place 2020 in the Bill, and combined with moves to strengthen the monitoring and scrutiny of exemptions, we believe that we have got the balance right; and we welcome the recent endorsement of the approach by the DRC. This does not mean that everything stands still until 2020; indeed, by the end of 2017 and the beginning of 2018, around 1,500 trains will have been made fully accessible.

As with transport, we cannot tackle the legacy of buildings overnight, but we are making good progress. Improved building regulations have already made provision for more buildings to be accessible and usable by disabled people. The Bill goes further, in imposing a duty on landlords to make reasonable adjustments for disabled tenants and prospective tenants, short of physical changes to premises. Where the lease gives tenants a right to carry out alterations to residential premises with a landlord's consent, the landlord will not be able to withhold such consent unreasonably for alterations needed by a disabled person living in the premises.We have also agreed to review the position on changes to common parts of residential premises. Work on the review is already under way and we expect recommendations by the end of the year.

In education, the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 is leading to innovative solutions. For example, at a school in Birmingham, a pupil who is registered blind accesses the whole curriculum with the help of a specially adapted keyboard. The world of learning has been opened for him. What is more, there is no extra work involved for the teacher apart from keeping the service provider abreast of teaching plans.

With access to goods and services covered since October last year, as my hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) mentioned, service providers such as shops, restaurants and leisure centres have had to take reasonable steps to tackle physical features that make access impossible or unreasonably difficult for disabled people.

Last October also saw protection against discrimination extended to an additional 600,000 disabled workers, and 7 million jobs and 1 million employers were brought within the scope of the employment provisions of the DDA for the first time.

Creating employment opportunity is a crucial part of supporting disabled people to fulfil their potential in society as a whole. But in addition to opening up job opportunities for disabled people, we believe that they need to have the skills and personal tailored support to fulfil their employment aspirations. Since 1997, through our investment in Jobcentre Plus and the new deal, we have begun to transform the welfare state from the passive one-size-fits-all inheritance to an active service that tailors help to the individual and enables people to acquire the skills and confidence to move from welfare to work.

The new deal for disabled people has seen nearly 55,000 job entries since its launch in 2001, but our other new deal initiatives—for lone parents and young people for instance—have also been effective. Altogether, nearly 200,000 disabled people have been helped into work through our total package of new deal programmes, while the numbers claiming incapacity benefit fell by 22,000 in the year to November 2004.

We are seeing remarkably encouraging early results from our pathways to work pilots, with the latest statistics showing that the number of recorded job entries for people with a health condition or disability has almost doubled compared with the same period last year.

Our proposed reform of incapacity benefit builds on our investment in pathways to work, the new deal and Jobcentre Plus, seeking to enable the 1 million disabled people on benefits who want to work to fulfil their aspirations.

David Drew (Labour/Co-operative, Stroud)

I agree with what my right hon. Friend says, and he is very positive. But does he agree that there are particular problems for those who have mental health difficulties, inasmuch as we need to provide additional support? There is always a fear that things will go wrong for them and that they will be thrown back on to incapacity benefit. If we are to get people with mental health problems back into work, we will need to provide additional support.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I agree completely. I said last week that we will be publishing a Green Paper in the summer and I set out the four basic issues we would be looking at in terms of the input from everyone involved; the fourth was how we dealt with mental health problems. We have great experience already, from the 10 per cent. of the country that is covered by pathways to work, as to how we can deal with such fluctuating conditions, but I agree with my hon. Friend that it is one of the crucial issues that we need to solve in talking the project forward.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

My right hon. Friend is aware that I represent one of the pathways to work pilot areas where the Jobcentre Plus team has been very successful in getting people off incapacity benefit and back into work. I was at one of my local hospitals last week to talk to members of staff involved in the partnership work with Jobcentre Plus. It is clear that, across the board, there is a high level of job satisfaction and fulfilment for members of staff working with people on incapacity benefit through pathways to work. That is what they came into the job for, and I pass their thanks to him for the opportunity to do what they are there to do.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I thank my hon. Friend, whose constituency I visited to see for myself the success of pathways to work. He referred earlier to a hidden part of the Budget. Another part of the Budget was the extension of the linking rules to 104 weeks, which will be crucial in helping people—particularly those with fluctuating mental health conditions—to take that all-important first step into work.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

Further to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) on mental ill health, will the Secretary of State confirm the Government's attitude to Lord Skelmersdale's amendment, which I believe is now clause 18? An earlier amendment tabled by Lord Carter was resisted and failed, whereas Lord Skelmersdale's amendment was pressed to a Division and incorporated in the Bill, apparently against the Government's wishes. Is there any intent to amend that at any stage?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

There will indeed be an attempt to amend it, and I will explain exactly why later.

Improving the support for obtaining and retaining employment was a cornerstone of the Prime Minister's strategy unit report earlier this year. This set out an ambitious 20-year strategy to improve the life chances of disabled people by promoting independent living supported by individualised service delivery. But such a strategy can be successful only if it is built on the foundation of the enforceable and comprehensive civil rights that this Bill makes possible.

I should like to set out the Government's position on three important elements of the Bill which I think will help to inform this afternoon's debate—namely, the definition of depression, the exclusion of some cancers and the effect on schools. A basic principle of the DDA is that it protects people who have, or are likely to have, long-term effects connected with their impairment.

Businesses, especially 1 million small firms, are still getting to grips with last October's duties, so it would be inappropriate to make fundamental changes to this long-term definition of disability. In any event, a special provision for only some people with short-term conditions would be confusing and potentially unfair to people with other impairments. The DDA already enables people with recurring or fluctuating conditions—including depression—to meet the long-term definition of disability if there is a continuing underlying impairment. So we will seek to overturn the amendment made in the other place, but this is not the end of the road. The pre-legislative scrutiny Committee asked the DRC to look at ways of progressing the "social model" of disability discrimination. We believe that this review is the right place to consider whether and how to cover short-term conditions, and we look forward to working with the DRC on this.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. Will he acknowledge that the Joint Committee also wanted the cover for depression to be extended—albeit, it is true, not exactly along the lines of Lord Skelmersdale's amendment?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I accept that. Of course, as the hon. Gentleman knows—he was a member of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee—we have provided such an extension, but we have not gone to the lengths that some in the other place wanted. However, it is reasonable to use this review and the work being undertaken by the DRC to resolve some of the underlying problems raised in the other place.

I turn to the second issue, which is cancers. The DDA already covers many people with cancer, and the Bill, by covering cancers from diagnosis, extends protection to an additional 145,000 people. In line with the original disability rights task force recommendation, it protects people with potentially long-term asymptomatic conditions who are likely to face stigma, not those with readily treatable, short-term conditions who are not to our knowledge experiencing any discrimination.

We have however undertaken not to use regulation-making powers to exclude any readily treatable cancers from automatic coverage until we have reviewed the actual evidence of discrimination with the DRC, Macmillan Cancer Relief and others. We have also ensured that the regulations will receive the highest level of parliamentary scrutiny—affirmative procedure—so that Parliament can hold the Government to account. The DRC has stated that

"this provides a sound way forward and there is no further amendment to the Bill required in this area."

We welcome the DRC's support for our approach.

Finally and crucially, I want to mention these measures' effect on schools. The general duty on the public sector to promote equality for disabled people is laid out clearly in the Bill. But the Bill also gives regulation-making powers to the Secretary of State that allow the placing of specific duties on prescribed bodies, in order to help those bodies to understand how the duty applies to their situation, and in order to require them to demonstrate that they have given strategic thought to the needs of disabled people.

These are crucial provisions for addressing the thoughtlessness and institutional discrimination that have held back disabled people for too long. The general duty will apply across the public sector, and I want to ensure that key public bodies are subject to the specific duties, in order to help them to implement the general duty effectively when regulations are set out in the summer.

Schools have an especially significant bearing on the life chances of disabled people, and they play a crucial role in combating prejudice and equipping disabled children with the qualifications and skills that they need to participate fully in society and to realise their true potential. There is still far too large a gap between the academic results of disabled people and those of their non-disabled peers. In 2003, 24 per cent. of disabled people aged 16 to 24 had no qualifications whatsoever, compared with 13 per cent. of non-disabled people of the same age. But it is important to ensure that any extra requirements that we place on schools are proportionate. We have learned lessons from the experience of the duty to promote race equality, and this Bill will give rise to a far less bureaucratic regime.

So we are clear that any regulations must apply sufficiently flexibly to schools. They must avoid requiring schools to produce unnecessary paperwork, instead allowing them to fulfil any duty by using existing mechanisms—such as their annual report—to demonstrate that they are thinking about how they serve disabled people. We will need to tailor regulations to achieve this, and to listen carefully to the schools themselves. But I am also clear that schools cannot simply be exempt from these duties. Failing to find a way to include schools would not just mean that we had failed to deliver full civil rights; it would fundamentally weaken our longer-term ability to achieve the step change in public attitudes that is so crucial to delivering our longer-term vision of a society of equal rights and opportunities for all.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for giving way again. He and I share a common interest in schools, as former education Ministers. I am pleased that he has confirmed that this duty will apply, and that he is trying to think of lateral ways to discharge it without excessive cost. Have he or his colleagues in the Department for Education and Skills assessed the likely unit cost to schools of any such regime, in order to ensure that it is bearable?

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

We have not taken our discussions that far, but the "single conversation" taking place in education is the natural place to deal with such matters. However, I can inform the House that schools in England and Wales will be listed as bodies with specific duties to promote disability equality.

I believe that, in years to come, the mistreatment of disabled people that was typical of the last century—and which is still too often the case today—will be seen as the affront to humanity that it is.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

Before my right hon. Friend sits down, I want to put on the record—on behalf, I hope, of several Members currently in the Chamber—that it was a privilege to serve on the scrutiny Committee not just because we produced some 70 very sensible amendments, but because the Government, in the light of events in another place, accepted more than 80 per cent. of them. That illustrates the great common sense shown by the Government—a common sense reflected only in that of the scrutiny Committee.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

I thank my hon. Friend for his involvement in that Committee, which was extremely successful. Just to be absolutely accurate, there were 75 recommendations, 61 of which—81 per cent.—have been accepted.

As my predecessor, my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), said, this is the great emancipation issue of our time. Today in this Chamber, Members have an opportunity to strike a lasting blow against disability discrimination. We are past the point of party politics. We have a Bill that has been heavily scrutinised and amended in the light of helpful and intelligent contributions from all parts of the House. I would like to pay tribute to the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), for all her tremendous work in leading our cause, and to pay tribute to all Members of this House and of the other place who have championed disability rights and helped us to scrutinise the Bill properly.

As I said, we responded positively to 61 recommendations of the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee, making concessions in the other place on issues such as cancers, rail vehicles and improvements to rented property. Today, we have committed ourselves to regulations that will ensure that schools promote disability equality. Disabled people want this Bill and our society needs this Bill, so we have a duty to put it on the statute book. I commend it to the House.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

We welcome this Disability Discrimination Bill, which builds upon the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 that we introduced when in government. The Bill has been widely welcomed by disabled people and disability organisations, and we want to see it on the statute book. The Disability Rights Commission has applauded the work done by Conservatives in the other place in

"getting this key disability rights legislation into such good shape. They have given it thorough scrutiny resulting in many positive gains for disabled people and are joining us in pressing for speedy enactment."

However, although the Bill was quite a good one when it was first considered in another place—and although it is, as the DRC says, a much improved Bill after that consideration—it comes very late in this Parliament. Because it comes so late, the House now looks as though it will have little opportunity, if any, to improve it further, though I note what the Secretary of State said. Many disabled people fear that the Bill may somehow be lost in the wash-up as the coming general election approaches, and not reach the statute book at all.

I want to explain how that regrettable situation has come about. The Bill was first presaged as long ago as March 2001—four years ago—in "Towards Inclusion", the Government's final response to "From Exclusion to Inclusion", a report by the Disability Rights Task Force. In their response, the Government proposed, for example, that

"HIV should count as a disability from diagnosis and that people with cancer should count as disabled from when the cancer is diagnosed as being likely to require substantial treatment."

That proposal is duly encapsulated in clause 18 and it is but one example of the link between the Government's response four years ago and the present Bill. The Government's response then went to consultation.

In its election manifesto some two months later, Labour said:

"We are now committed to extending basic rights and opportunities, as indicated in our response to the Disability Rights Taskforce."

The manifesto confirmed the Government's intention to bring a Bill before Parliament. Two and half years later in October 2003, the Government declared that a Bill on disability discrimination would complete its parliamentary passage before the next election—the coming election—and that a draft Bill would go before a Joint Committee of both Houses.

At that point, many disabled people and disability organisations began to express heightened anxiety because they believed that the Joint Committee report and the Government response to it could push back the introduction of a Bill to the very late stages of this Parliament, and that scrutiny would therefore be telescoped and truncated. Those anxieties have been justified, because it looks as though that is exactly what will happen. We consider the Bill today on Second Reading. In other words, it has taken four years from the Government response to the taskforce report to the introduction of the Bill in the elected Chamber.

Irrespective of what the Deputy Prime Minister said earlier today, a general election is expected on 5 May, so the House expects to be dissolved no later than 11 April. Furthermore, the Easter break lies between now and that date. The House is therefore unlikely—I put it no higher than that—to have a full Committee stage, if any, or a full Report stage, if any, in which further to improve the Bill by taking into account the suggestions for improvement that disability organisations have made.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the Disability Rights Commission also said in its briefing that the Bill requires no further amendment?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I am aware of that. An interesting question to ask, however, is why it said that—though neither the Minister nor I can answer it.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

It is obvious.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

It is important to ask whether the Disability Rights Commission would have said that were we not having a general election on 5 May and if more time were available for further consideration.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

My hon. Friend will know that I have a high regard for the Disability Rights Commission and its work. However great the wisdom of the DRC, would it not be even better to tap the wisdom of hon. Members and ascertain their thoughts on amendments? When we are dealing in particular with uncontentious legislation, is it not a bad way to do business for the Government to hold a pistol to Members' heads and say, "Either give way and concede without further discussion, or the whole measure will be taken away with no prospect of return for many years"?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

It is important that Members here and in the other place and disabled people and their organisations are able to make their views plain. Like other hon. Members, I have had conversations about the Bill with disabled people and disability organisations, but I can recall none saying that the Bill, though good, is incapable of further improvement.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

Given the universal acclaim for the Bill, to whatever degree of perfection, will the hon. Gentleman give the House an assurance that his party will, through the usual channels, move heaven and earth to co-operate if it proves necessary to accelerate the Bill's passage through the House?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I hear that representation and the hon. Gentleman will have heard me say earlier that we want to see the Bill on the statute book. When I asked the Secretary of State earlier whether he could guarantee the Bill a full Committee and Report stage, and guarantee its passage on to the statute book, he said that he was not a business manager, so he could not. Neither am I, so we are in the same position in that regard.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

One of the reasons why the Secretary of State cannot give that guarantee is that we do not know what the usual channels on the Opposition side will do.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I am not sure whether the Secretary of State knows the full views of the usual channels on the Government side, so the argument goes both ways. The key point for the hon. Gentleman to note is that if the Bill had been introduced earlier, we would not need these exchanges across the Floor of the House and we could get on with consideration of the Bill.

Alan Johnson (Labour, Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle)

Is the hon. Gentleman arguing that we should not have subjected the Bill to the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee? I am interested in having that question answered, because that is the main reason why the Bill has come before the House so late. Does he believe that we were wrong?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

There are two answers to that—

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

Yes and no.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

The Secretary of State will recall that when the pre-legislative scrutiny Committee was established, many disability organisations said that they would have preferred the Bill to come before Parliament straight away. Speaking as a member of the Joint Committee, I agree that that Committee did good work. If the Secretary of State looked further into the proceedings of the Bill, he would find that, after the Joint Committee had reported and the Government had responded to it, the Government could have moved faster to introduce the Bill in the House of Lords. The introduction of the Bill was held up, if I recall correctly, by our old friend the Hunting Bill. Many of my hon. Friends do not believe that that Bill was at all necessary. I hope that I have dealt with that procedural point.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

The Government accepted a number of the recommendations in the scrutiny Committee report and incorporated them in the Bill. Furthermore, the Bill was already much improved before coming before this House as a result of the Joint Committee's work. How the hon. Gentleman can argue that all that process adds up simply to delay is completely beyond me.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

As the Minister knows, the Bill before us here today is late. It remains the case that, after receiving the scrutiny Committee report and the Government's response to it, the Government could have introduced the Bill more quickly in the other place. Had they done so, the Bill would have arrived more quickly here. In that case, we could have had full Committee and Report stages, which we are now most unlikely to have. The blame lies fairly and squarely with the Government.

The likely lack of time for improvement and amendment means that many disabled people will greet this all but unamendable Bill—that is what it looks to be, in practice—with mixed feelings: with gladness, naturally, because it is a good Bill, but with a measure of regret for missed opportunities, because it is not as good as it could have been. Throughout this Parliament, we have consistently called for the Bill to be presented and considered as soon as possible. Had it been presented and considered earlier, as I said a few moments ago, it would have been amendable and improvable in this place.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

rose—

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I shall give way in a moment.

The blame for this singular lack of urgency lies fairly and squarely with the Government's business managers. They, lest we forget, timetabled the only debate on disability in Government time in this Parliament on the worst possible day of this Parliament: Euro-election day, the day on which most Members from all parties were most likely to be absent. The business managers plainly had other more pressing priorities, such as finding time for the Hunting Bill.

We must presume that the legislation that reaches the statute book will look almost indistinguishable from the Bill before us today. The Bill is, indeed, as the DRC has indicated, very much improved as a result of cross-party and Back-Bench pressure on the Government in the other place. I want to pay tribute to the peers of whatever political party who, for example, forced no fewer than 13 concessions from the Government on Report and defeated the Government in a crucial vote on depression. That vote extended the Bill's protection to people with depression, and is now enshrined in clause 18. I shall return to that matter later, in light of what the Secretary of State said. In the meantime, I pay tribute to my noble Friend Lord Skelmersdale, who moved that amendment, for his work on the Bill, and to my noble Friend Lord Higgins. As the DRC states in its briefing on the Bill:

"As the result of tough cross-party scrutiny in the Lords, and effective engagement with disabled people and their organisations, the Bill has been strengthened to deliver major gains for disabled people in access to housing, access to rail transport, in relation to public bodies' responsibility to tackle hate crime and promote positive attitudes towards disabled people and in relation to participation in public life."

A moment ago, I said that I would give way to the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg). I do so now.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

For some 12 minutes, I have been listening to the hon. Gentleman complain about the lack of time for scrutiny of the Bill. I have been waiting for him to get on with explaining what the Bill lacks. I hope that he will stop wasting time complaining about the lack of time.

Michael Lord (Deputy Speaker, Central Suffolk and North Ipswich)

Order. It would be a very good idea to get on with the content of the Bill. We have dealt sufficiently with the time element.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I am very grateful, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I was about to say that some of the gains in the Bill—and the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South supported the provision in respect of depression, at least in principle, during the Joint Committee proceedings—were originally suggested in the Joint Committee report. For example, the report proposed that disabled people in rented accommodation should have effective rights not to have requests for access improvements to their homes unreasonably refused by landlords. That proposal was originally suggested in recommendation 56 of the Joint Committee's report and is now enshrined in clause 16.

Another example concerns the imposition of clear duties on the public sector to promote positive attitudes towards disabled people, to tackle all forms of harassment and bullying, and to promote participation in public life. That was originally suggested in recommendation 14, and is now enshrined in clause 3. In the other place, the Government also moved towards the Joint Committee's position on cancer. Originally, the Government directly rejected 17 of the 75 recommendations from the Joint Committee, and eight indirectly. However, I note from the Secretary of State's figures that we got there in the end. All members of the Joint Committee, and others, will therefore welcome those gains.

As I said, the Bill builds on the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, which was introduced by the previous Conservative Government. The Equal Opportunities Commission described that as

"the most important legislation in a generation",

and said that it was

"the most radical of our discrimination laws".

The Secretary of State gave us a tour d'horizon of the Bill. I want to concentrate on five areas—depression, cancer, hate crimes, transport and schools. I shall begin with depression.

I referred earlier to the amendment tabled by my noble Friend Lord Skelmersdale to extend the protection given by the Bill to people with depression. The Government opposed the amendment but, as we have heard, it was nevertheless carried in the other place and is now enshrined in clause 18.

The Joint Committee recommended that people experiencing separate periods of depression totalling six months over a two-year period should be considered to meet the long-term requirement set out in the 1995 Act. Lord Skelmersdale's amendment, which was supported by Mind, was a variant on that theme. According to the National Institute for Clinical Excellence, depression is usually a time-limited disorder lasting up to six months. Clause 18(3) stipulates that people will have protection if they undergo episodes of depression and if one such episode in the previous five years lasted at least six months.

We agree with the Disability Charities Consortium—the coalition consisting of Leonard Cheshire, Mencap, Radar, the Royal National Institute of the Blind, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People, and Scope—that clause 18(3) is modest and reasonable. We want it to stay in the Bill, so we were obviously disappointed by what the Secretary of State said in his opening remarks. Given that there has been no confirmation in this debate yet that the Bill will receive full Committee and Report stages, I am curious to know how the Government propose to remove the provision from the Bill. No doubt, we shall discover that in due course.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I cannot answer the conundrum that my hon. Friend has just put to the House, but does he agree that the amendment was an honest attempt to introduce the concept of linking rules into qualification under the disability discrimination legislation, in the same way that similar rules apply to benefit claims made by people who suffer recurrent periods of illness or disability? Does he also agree that it would be sensible to consider applying those linking rules to the circumstances covered by this Bill?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

My hon. Friend is correct. I believe that Lord Skelmersdale was trying to introduce that linking principle. The other place agreed with him and voted for the amendment in the face of Government opposition.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

I listened carefully to what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said in response to my earlier intervention, but employers frequently discriminate against people diagnosed with depression. In one case study, 200 CVs were sent out to personnel managers. They were identical, apart from the fact that 100 of the people involved had been diagnosed with diabetes, and the other 100 with depression. It was no great surprise to discover that the people with diagnosed diabetes were far more likely to get interviews and make further progress down the chain. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that this is a fine Bill, and that it has been introduced by an excellent Secretary of State? I hope that it will not be weakened. If clause 18 is deleted, I hope that it will be replaced with something equivalent.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I agree with the hon. Gentleman, and I was very interested in the information that he offered the House. It is true that people with depression face such discrimination, and that is why the other place voted as it did. It is also why the Joint Committee wanted to extend cover for people with depression—and other members of the Joint Committee are present in the Chamber today to vouch for that.

The Bill extends protection for people with HIV, multiple sclerosis and cancer to the point of diagnosis, and that is welcome. However, clause 18 also contains regulations that may prescribe circumstances in which that protection will not apply to certain cancers. Late last year, the Government issued a consultation document listing some of the cancers to which protection might not apply. They included in situ skin cancers that do not affect the full skin thickness and can be treated easily and simply. That seemed to the DRC, and to our colleagues in another place, to miss the vital point that stigma and discrimination can follow from the point of diagnosis, regardless of the severity of the cancer and the degree of medical treatment necessary.

The Government have undertaken, as a result of pressure in another place, not to make any regulations until a consultation and review of the proposals has been carried out with the DRC and cancer charities. That is to be welcomed. A Government amendment was also passed ensuring that any such regulations will be made under the affirmative, rather than negative, resolution procedure. I hope that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions will report later, when she replies to this debate, on the timetable for that consultation and review.

I turn next to hate crimes.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

Before the hon. Gentleman moves on to discuss hate crimes, I want to tease out what he is asking the Government for in respect of cancer. Is he talking about a cancer that is not debilitating but affects the sufferer only in the sense that others perceive an ugly mark—a strawberry mark or some other deformity that attracts attention? Is not the effect of the latter condition worse than some of the other cancers to which he has referred? If so, should not it be covered by the Bill too?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I was asking simply for a timetable in relation to a concession that the Government have already made in another place. It is true that disabled people can be discriminated against regardless of the severity of the illness affecting them. As the hon. Lady would concede, they can be discriminated against simply because they have the condition in question, so it is right that such questions be raised.

As I said, I want next to move to hate crimes. Clause 3 extends the duties of public authorities. Amendments made in the Lords strengthened the duties to promote positive attitudes towards disabled people, to tackle all forms of harassment and bullying, and to promote participation in public life. That is welcome. The Disability Rights Commission reports that hate crimes affect one in five disabled people, and Mencap reports that hate crimes affect nine out of 10 people with learning disabilities. When does the Minister anticipate that the Home Office will implement section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which provides for an increase in sentences for crimes aggravated by hostility based on a person's disability or sexual orientation?

On transport, the Joint Committee recommended an end date on rail accessibility of 2017, together with a limited exemption system that would expire in 2005. Amendments accepted by the Government in the Lords, after much debate, set an end date of 2020 in the Bill. I pay tribute to my noble Friend Lord Higgins, who helped get an end date in the Bill by originally pressing the Government for 2017.

An amendment to remove the power to make exemptions after 1 January 2020 was narrowly defeated in the Lords. The Disability Charities Consortium believes that that sends a strong signal that the Government need to state explicitly that any exemptions granted for the period after 1 January 2020 will have to be proportionate, necessary and for a very limited period only. We agree with the DRC that the 2020 end date must be a firm and definite deadline and that the exemptions procedure set out in clause 6(3) must not be allowed to offer a get-out clause to companies that fail to comply.

That would usually be a matter that we would seek to explore with a Minister in Committee. However, since we are sadly not guaranteed a Committee stage—I am happy to give way to the Minister if she wants to confirm that there will be one—will she assure disabled people that the exemptions will be proportionate and necessary and last for a very limited period only? What guidance can she give them about how long that period is likely to be?

The Government agreed during the passage of the Bill in another place to publish draft regulations to make changes to part 5 of the DDA in relation to transport. Will the Minister look again at public service vehicle accessibility regulations with a view to including a requirement for audio-visual provision on buses? At present, there is no provision in the regulations for such a requirement.

The previous enforcement regime on train operating companies that operate inaccessible stock illegally was considered too severe. It has been replaced by a light-touch regulatory framework and a new regime of fines described in clause 8, but as yet the Government have given no indication of the scales that will be used to determine fines. Such information must be forthcoming if disabled people are to have confidence in the new framework. Will the Minister tell us how the fines will be calculated and how the Government will ensure that serious breaches will be more seriously punished? Can repeat fines be applied and, if so, how soon after the initial fine? What systems are in place for when a train company appeals against a fine?

Finally on transport, the aviation and shipping industries will continue to operate under a code of practice on accessibility, unlike the rail and bus industries, which will operate under a legislative framework. The regulation powers set out in clause 5 allow the Government to make both codes statutory, but the draft regulations that were recently considered do not include aviation and shipping. The Government have indicated that they will await the outcome of research into both industries before taking further action. Will the Minister say when the first fruits of that research will be published? The House will aware that that is a sensitive issue, as the DCC has mustered some high-profile examples of discriminatory treatment, such as its claim that Brittany Ferries has a policy of not carrying assistance dogs unless they are confined to the car for the entire journey.

I turn now to disability equality duties for schools. As the Secretary of State said, schools will be subject to the general anti-discrimination and pro-opportunity duties set out in clause 3. The question, which he touched on, is whether specific duties should be laid on schools, which would arguably boost outcomes for disabled children. I have heard it suggested that those duties should be in the Bill, rather than applied by regulation. Some 24 per cent. of disabled young people had no qualifications whatsoever in 2003, compared with an average of 11 per cent. for the same age group in the same year. The DRC argues, inter alia, that the lack of specific duties sends the message to schools that disability equality is not as important as race equality, and that that is inconsistent with and undermines achievement of the recommendations made by the Prime Minister's strategy unit, which are based on effective implementation of disability equality schemes.

The DRC claims that Ministers originally intended schools to have such specific duties. It is certain that Baroness Hollis suggested on Report in another place that the way forward now is to review the existing policy and legislative framework in 18 months. It is suggested that there has been some tension on the issue—heaven forbid—between the Department for Work and Pensions and the Department for Education and Skills, and in particular the implementation review group in the DFES. That group was the only organisation to respond negatively to the consultation by the DWP last year.

None the less, I welcome what the Secretary of State said about the regulations. We would be opposed to imposing unnecessary and unwelcome new duties on heads, teachers and governing bodies, so if any proposed specific duties were opposed by teachers, we would oppose them too. However, as the Secretary of State knows, it is striking that they do not seem to be opposed to such duties. The Special Educational Consortium to the TUC, National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers argues that such duties would actually reduce red tape. In ordinary circumstances—if I may refer to the timetable one more time—we would have hoped to explore the issue by tabling amendments in Committee or on Report, but that course is unlikely to be open to us.

We would also have hoped to table amendments to explore—I put it no more strongly than that—whether the DDA should be amended to enable cases concerning education discrimination in Scotland to be heard by the additional learning support tribunal for Scotland rather than the sheriff court, on the ground that tribunals are the most appropriate place to hear discrimination claims.

The Bill also invites us to look ahead. The Government intend to set up a commission for equality and human rights and to absorb the DRC into that commission by October 2007. By that time, many provisions in the Bill will have been in place, we hope, for nearly a year. The Bill to introduce the commission is apparently due to receive its Second Reading in this House after Easter, so it has not yet passed through one House of Parliament, let alone two, and must consequently be unlikely to reach the statute book. We will want to examine that Bill closely, but we have already made it clear that we are deeply concerned by some of the possibilities opened up by the proposed abolition of the DRC. The commission is the guardian of the present Bill, and people with disabilities have special needs and requirements.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

I am not sure that the DRC regards the present proposals as its abolition. There has been considerable consultation with all the representative bodies—not just with the three existing strands that have commissions, but with the other strands that will be included in the 2006 regulations—which is why the equalities legislation is being introduced now. Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the DRC has welcomed the consultation on the equalities commission and, as it now stands, is happy to go along with it?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

As the hon. Gentleman knows, the DRC expressed anxieties about protecting the role of disability work in the new commission. We wait to see exactly what happens during the passage of the Bill. We want to reserve our position until the issues in that Bill have been fully explored, but we have no opposition to an equalities commission in principle.

The barriers that prevent people with disabilities from participating on equal terms in modern Britain are formidable. There is concern that the distinctive identity mission and work of the DRC could be imperilled, which is why we look forward to discussions on the Bill.

Consideration of Bills is necessarily a dry and dusty business, at least in part; clauses are examined, improvements are suggested and intentions are probed. There is far more to the Bill than the sum of its clauses. It is part of a story of legislation and action to try to ensure equal opportunities and social justice for disabled people. The source of that legislation and action is not Government, but disabled people and the wider community.

Some progress has been made under the Governments of both main parties, although that progress is hard to measure. However, disabled people all too often remain an untapped source of talent and potential and all too frequently find themselves marginalised and excluded. We should remember that a disabled child is still less likely to survive birth than a non-disabled child. As a disabled child grows to be an adult, they are less likely than a non-disabled adult to gain qualifications, go to university, get a job, earn as much money, have easy access to transport or enjoy leisure activities. As a disabled adult ages, they are still less likely to enjoy the same income in retirement, access to the benefits system as quickly or live as long as a non-disabled person of the same age.

Equal opportunities have not yet been realised. Perhaps they will always be work in progress, just as anti-discrimination legislation, like the Bill, is always work in progress and always capable of improvement. Although, sadly, the House may not have further opportunities to improve the Bill, it is part of a process of legislation and action to fight discrimination and to deliver better life chances for disabled people. We are grateful to have had the opportunity to play a part in that.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

I am delighted to be involved in the debate on this Bill. A few weeks ago, I met some disabled people at the Labour party Scottish conference and may have given them the false impression that, if there were an early election, the Bill might fall and not reach the statute book. However, I was delighted when I returned to the House the following week and spoke to the Minister for Disabled People, because he assured me that the Government have every intention of ensuring that, whenever the election is called, the Bill will be on the statute book. I apologise to those whom I spoke to that weekend if I gave them a false impression about the Government's intention; it is clear that they intend to put the Bill firmly on the statute book.

I take issue with the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) about whether our discussion has been truncated. It is worth remembering that, when a Bill is introduced in the House of Commons first, that is generally the first bite of the cherry in amending and scrutinising it. However, this is the third attempt at scrutinising the Bill. The draft Bill was first considered by the scrutiny Committee on which the hon. Gentleman and I served. Many changes were made as a result of that, probably more than would have been achieved during the normal parliamentary procedures in Standing Committees in either place.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

Can the hon. Lady confirm that I did not say that consideration of the Bill had been truncated at this stage? I said that it was likely to be truncated after Second Reading. Does she disagree?

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

That answers the point I am making that, by the time the Bill goes into Committee in this House, most of the serious work will have been done. Not only were serious amendments made to the draft Bill—the hon. Gentleman will agree that those amendments were welcome—but it has been further amended in the other place. As a result of those amendments, the scrutiny remaining for this House to do is perhaps less than would normally follow Second Reading, Standing Committee and remaining stages in this House followed by those stages in another place. The Bill is at the end of that process and has gone through a lot more scrutiny than many other Bills would have had by this stage. The Government cannot be accused of lack of scrutiny of the Bill. I believe that everyone in this House wants the Bill on the statute book and I hope that it will go speedily through Standing Committee in this House.

The Bill is the final missing piece in a jigsaw of equality legislation. It does not hang together easily because it is slightly bitty and covers different aspects, partly because of its purpose, which is to fill the gaps left by other legislation. Starting with the Disability Discrimination Act 1995, we have seen that legislation works.

Long before I was elected to this place, I was involved with a number of organisations for the disabled. I often met people who argued that to bring about the changes in people's attitudes to disabled people that we have seen in recent years required education and persuasion, not legislation. That argument was often used in this House against private Member's Bills. It was argued that the best way of changing attitudes and the way in which disabled people are perceived in society was not by legislation, certainly not heavy-handed legislation, but by education. However, we know that education and persuasion did not work. The 1995 Act proved that, when there is a framework of legislation, attitudes change more rapidly than with gentle persuasion or pointing out that things are wrong. That is mainly because in this country people want to abide by the law, and legislation can provide the framework or civic context that says that something is wrong. To discriminate against people because of their disability is wrong. To stop someone getting a job because they happen to have a disability is wrong. Without the context of legislation, people are not always sure what is right or wrong. Legislation has been proved to work and I am pleased that the Government are continuing to plug the gaps of the existing legislative framework.

I do not want to go into the details of the Bill, because my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State set out the framework very well in his speech, and I am conscious that other hon. Members want to scrutinise the Bill. I am most pleased about provisions covering, for example, private clubs. The fact that private clubs could discriminate against people with disabilities was always a huge gap in the provision. Guests and members of clubs with more than 25 members will be covered by the Bill.

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend, not least for highlighting the provision covering private clubs, which will do a great deal. Does she agree that the perniciousness of the previous situation was not just that disabled people went to clubs and were not admitted, but the climate of uncertainty and the feeling that they would not be welcome in such clubs in the first place?

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

That is important because we want disabled people to play their full part in an equal society. That includes social life and engagement with other people who may not share a disability. For many disabled people the only clubs they could go to were those for disabled people where they would meet only people who shared some of the same problems. They want to be able to go to mainstream clubs. Just because someone has a disability, it does not mean that they necessarily share the same hobbies and interests as other people with disabilities. It would be absurd to assume that, but 30 years ago it was often assumed that if someone was severely disabled and in a wheelchair they would like to go along to a club to play draughts, dominoes and other passive pastimes.

When I was teaching, one of my pupils said to me, "I think we should have clubs for disabled people, so that they could go along and play draughts or whatever. That's how we should get disabled people back into society." I asked that young girl if she would like to go to a club to play only draughts and dominoes. She said, "No, I would hate it." I said, "Well, I would hate it too." It took a wee while for the penny to drop that I as a disabled person—perhaps she did not regard me as a disabled person—would hate such a club. The limit of imagination about what disabled people are capable of doing often limits disabled people themselves.

That story illustrates the perception of what disabled people could do on the part of those who are not disabled. However, I am glad to say that attitudes have changed immeasurably in recent years, thanks to this Government and the legislative framework. When the Bill was undergoing pre-legislative scrutiny, I received an email from a climbing club, which was concerned that if it was, as a private club, brought under the remit of the DDA it would have to make its huts—or bothies, as they are called in Scotland—accessible to people in wheelchairs, which would be an unreasonable cost. I pointed out to the club the test of reasonableness. If someone in a wheelchair could not get up the mountain to the hut, there would be no need to ensure wheelchair access. However, less than 5 per cent. of people with disabilities use wheelchairs and what the climbing club could no longer do was to discriminate against someone who was blind or had a limb missing, but who could still get up to a hut to stay the night. We often need to point out that people with disabilities have different disabilities and a raft of different access needs. It is important that private clubs be brought under the DDA, and the Bill will achieve that.

Another important provision in the Bill concerns housing, especially in the rented sector. As the hon. Member for Wycombe pointed out, in the Joint Committee I was concerned about what happens when disabled people cannot get adjustments made to the access to their homes because it is along a communal path, up communal stairs or through some communal ground and the other people who have access object. That concern was based on the experience of one of my constituents, who had bought their own council flat, as had the person who lived upstairs—the properties were four-in-a-block flats. The upstairs neighbours objected to a ramp being installed up to the front door of the downstairs flat because it would have been along the communal path. That seemed grossly unfair. The Bill would not necessarily answer all such problems, but I welcome the fact that the DRC can act as mediator when relationships break down in such circumstances. That was what was missing in my constituent's case. No one had the ability to act as mediator to ensure that the changes could be made. I am glad that housing, especially in the rented sector, will be brought under the DDA by the Bill, because inevitably many disabled people live in the private rented sector and it is important that landlords have the duty not to block the aids and adaptations that may be necessary to allow disabled people to live in their own homes.

I am also glad that councillors will be covered by the DDA under the Bill. As a disabled MP, I am probably already covered under employment legislation, so I cannot be discriminated against, although since I was elected I have not faced such discrimination. It is good, however, that councillors, who are not employees in the normal sense, will be covered.

Perhaps the aspect of the Bill that will make the biggest change in the lives of disabled people is the inclusion of travel and transport. It was a huge gap in the original 1995 Act that transport was not regarded as a service, and it has been a perpetual bugbear for disabled people that transport is so difficult. Disabled people have difficulty getting around in the first place, and then they find that the vehicles that they may use are not adapted for their needs. That is a double whammy and feels like a particular insult.

I noted that the Budget introduced free bus travel at off-peak times for disabled people in England, following Scotland's example. However, there is no point in giving disabled people free bus travel if they cannot get on the buses in the first place. The imperative is to ensure that all new rolling stock is accessible. That will not be the case for coaches, and we need to do more work on that. When disabled people want to travel by bus using their free bus pass, they should have access. There is no point in giving people extra freedoms if the transport providers have not come up to scratch.

I am glad that the other place put into the Bill an end date for accessibility for rail rolling stock. I would have liked it to be earlier, and the Joint Committee recommended 2017 by splitting the difference between what the Government wanted and what the disabled organisations wanted, which was 2015. I was heartened to hear the Secretary of State reiterate that 2020 is an end date, not the date at which change must start. I hope that rail operators will recognise the economic advantages of providing accessible rolling stock. More disabled people will travel more, but so will those who accompany them. I always have somebody else with me, and if I cannot travel, they do not travel either. It is not only the disabled people, but their friends and families who are discriminated against. There is, therefore, an economic case for making all forms of transport accessible as soon as possible. That is crucial and I hope that the rail operators will take heed of it.

The issue of education tribunals was raised by the hon. Member for Wycombe, with regard to what is happening in Scotland. Under the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, the SEN provisions apply to England and Wales, but the civil rights provisions apply to the whole of Scotland, because education is a devolved function. Although education as a service was brought under the auspices of the DDA, how that was implemented was obviously left to the Scottish Executive.

At the time, when disputes arose over a child's special educational needs, tribunals were to be set up in England and Wales to hear such cases, but the Scottish Parliament had not legislated for the equivalent provisions in Scotland. The only way that any argument over such access could be settled in Scotland was through the existing legal system—the sheriff courts—as SEN tribunals did not exist in Scotland at that time. Since then, the Scottish Parliament has legislated in respect of SEN. Such tribunals now exist with regard to SEN provision, but access issues must still go to sheriff courts.

In the past day or so, I received an e-mail from the DRC in Scotland to say that, following constructive talks with members of the Scottish Executive, positive moves are taking place to set a time scale in Scotland to ensure that tribunals hear cases that relate to SEN provision, as well as cases where a child has been discriminated against because of a disability and perhaps not allowed to go to a certain school. The time scale has not yet been set, but I hope that the Minister will confirm that the Government are in discussion with the relevant Ministers in the Scottish Executive to ensure that they have the powers to bring both sorts of dispute under the same type of tribunal hearing. I am sure that a solution can be found.

There was some discussion about whether the House would need to pass the necessary legislation or whether that could be done by the Scottish Executive, but I hope that the Minister can assure us she is engaged with Ministers in the Scottish Executive to ensure that they have the powers they require to make that decision themselves. The decision has to lie with them and it is for them to make up their minds, but if any legislative quirk means that the relevant changes must be made by the House, I hope that they will be put in place when the time comes.

Those are some of the things that I welcome in the Bill. There is a lot more in it—it has lots of little bits that fill in the various gaps—but it is worth remembering that the Bill is not the only thing that the Government are doing in relation to disability. Although the Bill will help to ensure that people will not be discriminated against on the grounds of their disability or for many other reasons, it is worth nothing that the Government are taking a great deal of action—for example, on employment—to ensure that disabled people play their full part in society and are not excluded.

It is one thing to ensure that disabled people will not be discriminated against when they go for a job interview; it is another to ensure that they are properly equipped to go to that job interview in the first place and, indeed, that the job exists so that they can apply for it. All the other things that the Department for Work and Pensions is doing with regard to encouraging disabled people into the workplace—whether young disabled people or those who are sitting on incapacity benefit—cannot be divorced from these proposals. That work is crucial to ensure that disabled people can take advantage of the rights that the Bill will give to them. It is one thing to have the rights; it is another thing to be able to use them fully.

I should like to raise another issue that has slipped past: genetic discrimination. I was delighted to hear that the moratorium on insurance companies gaining access to information about someone's genetic make-up in determining the policy that they will award has been extended. That is very important because, at some time in the future, the House may have to pass legislation saying that it is as wrong to discriminate on the grounds of genetics as on those of disability.

I do not want to take up any more of the House's time at the moment, but I want to reiterate what both the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and the hon. Member for Wycombe have said: it is absolutely crucial the Bill get on to the statute book before the election, because many of the rights that disabled people are still waiting to receive are included in the Bill. It will make a difference to people's lives. It will ensure that those of us who have a disability are not disadvantaged in the lives that we lead, and we will be able to hold our heads up high and go out and do what everyone else is doing.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I welcome the Bill, as every hon. Member who has spoken so far in the debate has done, and I expect that every hon. Member still to take part will do so as well.

Since the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 first started to come into effect, steps have been taken to plug the various gaps in that original legislation. The Bill represents another major step in that direction, and no one wants to see it fall at the last hurdle. For example, the Local Government Association recently said:

"The LGA welcomes this bill, which will give greater equality of opportunity to disabled people, extending their civil rights and addressing the barriers that they face, and looks forward to its enactment. The LGA believes this to be an important piece of legislation and is keen to see that adequate parliamentary time is made available for this bill to complete its passage in the current parliamentary session."

The Disability Rights Commission, as we have heard, also strongly commends the Bill and says that it is

"urgently needed to outlaw discrimination in key areas of daily life and break down the institutional barriers which impede the social inclusion of 10 million disabled people across Britain."

The DRC continues:

"It represents a major advance for disabled people . . . It is now imperative that the Bill reaches the statute book in advance of a general election."

Many other organisations have said exactly the same things, but not everyone agrees. I do not know whether the Minister has seen an article in The Times today, in which Alice Miles criticises the Bill, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the Government's advertisements in relation to disabled access to work, to shops, restaurants and transport and to life in general. That a supposedly serious journalist in a supposedly serious newspaper can write such crass and patronising nonsense in this day and age simply illustrates why the Bill is needed. The Times article implies that there is no problem of access for disabled people to businesses, shops, transport and work because good old British common sense and our sense of fair play mean that everyone helps out the "genuinely disabled" and all is well. Hon. Members should note the use of the phrase "genuinely disabled".

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

I very much concur with the sentiments that the hon. Gentleman expresses. Does he agree that one of the problems inherent in such comments is the assumption that the great British public can always see what the disability is?

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

Absolutely. I agree with the hon. Gentleman—and the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) has just made the point that most people think about people in wheelchairs when they talk about disability, but that is a small category of the range of different disabilities, and much disability is invisible in that sense.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

We must not make too much of this, but the author of that piece wrote:

"The public, it seems, is capable of showing admirable common sense in the application of over-wieldy regulation".

I think that was a reference to the regulation introduced under the 1995 Act. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the fact that the public are indeed showing admirable common sense shows that the regulation is not over-burdensome in many cases, so the author was defeating her own arguments?

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

Again, I can only agree with the hon. Gentleman's observation. The article assumed that there were no problems with access and that everyone would realise how to overcome any difficulties that occurred. For example, it said specifically that the average adaptation to allow disabled access to premises would cost only £70 to £100. However, many small businesses do not know that. They fear that regulations will mean that they must install much more expensive adaptations and do not realise that relatively simply measures can be implemented. The article was wide of the mark.

There was a clear implication behind the article's reference to the "genuinely disabled". It seemed to be asking how many of the 10 million disabled people figure that it ridiculed might be classified as "genuinely disabled", rather than, presumably, malingerers or non-genuinely disabled.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

I am afraid that I did not read the article, but perhaps the author might class me as one of the "genuinely disabled". Although I would love to think that the general public were always polite and helpful to those of us with disabilities, I know that people who park in disabled bays too close to my car so that I cannot get into it with my wheelchair have not been polite when challenged about their lack of courtesy or forethought.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I agree with the hon. Lady. No one in the Chamber can speak with more authority about the issue than her. I drive my mother-in-law to the supermarket in my home town of Chesterfield. She has a blue badge so that we can access disabled parking spaces, but they are often full. After remonstrating with people who park in them for convenience rather than because they need to use them, I know from first hand about the arrogance and rude behaviour that the hon. Lady describes.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that the converse of that situation is that some people do not recognise their own disabilities or claim what is their right, especially by accessing services? I am thinking especially of people with hearing impairments who regard that as a difficulty that they must overcome, rather than something of which other people must now take account under the law when providing goods and services.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

Absolutely, although we are in danger of going off into the long debate about the social and medical models of disability. The social model indicates that disability is society's problem owing to the obstacles that it puts in people's way, rather than the problem of the people affected.

Several organisations such as the Royal National Institute of the Blind and RADAR have put out responses to the ridiculous and demeaning article. I would be grateful to hear the Minister's response to it because she indicated earlier that she had read it.

Every serious commentator inside and outside the House welcomes the Bill. No one wants it to fail at the last hurdle, which is why it is disappointing that the Bill was introduced late in the Parliament and that it is running up against the buffers of an imminent general election. The progress of the Bill could have been a superb model of how to pass legislation in the 21st century.

The Bill first went before the Joint Committee for pre-legislative scrutiny. The hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) has indicated that he did not think that that was such a good idea, but I disagree completely. I have taken part in pre-legislative scrutiny with the Education and Skills Committee on the School Transport Bill, for example, and I think that it is a welcome innovation that can do much to improve the way in which Parliament works and improves legislation.

The pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill produced many suggestions about how to improve it and the Government accepted a great majority of them, although by no means every one. That process has led to major improvement to the Bill. However, I have never understood that pre-legislative scrutiny is supposed to replace one of the Houses of Parliament. An earlier speaker almost seemed to suggest that, given that the Bill had received pre-legislative scrutiny and gone through the House of Lords, there was no need for the House of Commons to play its part in the process. That is not the purpose of pre-legislative scrutiny. It was designed to add an additional stage to a Bill's consideration at an early time in its passage when the Government and the Opposition would not be entrenched in political stances and thus more open to accepting good, sensible suggestions. It allows legislation to be considered in a less partisan manner than is the tendency during the formal legislative process.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

I suspect that I am the hon. Member to whom the hon. Gentleman refers. I was not saying that I did not think that the Bill should complete each of its stages in this House, but that less time would be required for its consideration because it had been discussed in the other place and by the Joint Committee. I was not trying to undermine this House, but pointing out that it is at the end of the process, not the beginning, unlike most other Bills.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I accept all the points that the hon. Lady makes. The programme motion provides for the Bill to spend two weeks in Committee after the Easter recess, but more or less everyone accepts that that will not happen because of an imminent general election. Perhaps the Bill will get one day in Committee on 5 April, or we may get no time at all and the whole lot will be dealt with in the wash-up. A two-week Committee process would have been perfectly adequate for a Bill that has been thoroughly scrutinised and to which many amendments have been made—although there are still some outstanding issues to address—so I agree with the hon. Lady that we do not need an especially long process at this stage. However, we need that legitimate process to be carried out, although that will almost certainly not happen after the recess because of the election.

The Bill's passage could have been a model example of how to pass legislation in the 21st century. It received excellent pre-legislative scrutiny after which many suggestions were accepted, and then went through its full process in the other place. The Lords did a lot of excellent work on the Bill, and I mention especially the work of Lords Addington and Oakeshott. Lord Addington successfully moved an amendment to require an annual report to be made to Parliament to monitor the number of exemptions granted to the rail industry to exempt stock from being accessible to disabled people. That measure will increase the pressure on rail operators to ensure that they not only meet the target by 2020, but hopefully exceed it and make all their stock accessible before that date. We hoped that we could finish the job in the Commons after such excellent work in the other place, but the Bill will probably go into the wash-up instead of being properly considered in Committee.

The Minister has said that the desired end of the process is an Act of Parliament, not a Bill that has been excessively well scrutinised. If the Government had introduced the Bill in 2001 or 2002, that would not have been a problem, because we would have been able to scrutinise it properly, improve it further and then get an Act of Parliament. If the Government had not left such a long gap between the report of the Joint Committee and the Bill's introduction in the Lords, we would not have had a problem and could have gone through the whole process properly. I am not making that point for the first time. On 10 June 2004, I stood in this spot during a debate on disability and made exactly the same point. I said that the responses from the draft scrutiny were being considered and asked whether the Bill would be timetabled to get through Parliament before the next election destroyed it. If the Government had given the Bill higher priority earlier, we would not face such a problem. However, given that I made the point last year and even before that, it is well worn and I shall not take it any further.

We lack an equalities Act. The LGA said in its recent briefing on the Bill that it felt strongly that

"a Single Equalities Act would provide a clear and common standard of protection against discrimination for all in society."

As we know, there are six strands of discrimination, all of which have different degrees of law and protection extended to them at the moment. The LGA argues:

"Separate duties to promote equality of opportunity for different groups will add to the administrative burdens on councils",

although that also applies to other bodies. It says that that will increase the number of "plans and strategies" that councils, the Government and other bodies are dealing with and trying to rationalise at present.

The Bill instead goes down the road of placing specific duties on specific bodies to promote equality of opportunity, such as councils and schools. I shall talk about schools later. Lord Lester of course piloted the Equality Bill through the House of Lords, and although many hon. Members supported that private Member's Bill, the Government refused to implement it. We are putting the cart before the horse, in a way, because it is regrettable that we do not have a single equalities Act before moving on to address other matters and the single equality commission.

I seek the Minister's clarification on three specific areas of inclusion or omission in the Bill as it stands. First, I want to mention including cancer from the point of diagnosis as falling within the definition of disability. That was a welcome step forward, but the Government have chosen to exclude what they term minor cancers, because they are quickly and easily treated and will not therefore lead to discrimination. That unnecessarily complicates the Bill, and it will mean that the Government have to produce detailed statutory guidance about what would or would not constitute substantial treatment, for example, in individual cases of specific cancers.

More importantly, apart from complicating the Bill, such provision ignores the fact that stigma is the basis of discrimination, rather than the illness itself. The cancer organisations and disability charities argue that a cancer diagnosis, however minor, can lead to discrimination against an individual regarding employment, travel or life insurance, mortgage applications or income and payment protection on loans or mortgages. All the various bodies to which such people make their applications may discriminate on the ground of cancer. They may not draw the line between serious and minor, in so far as such a line can be drawn.

I welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to make regulations excluding certain cancers only after the Government have reviewed the evidence submitted to them, and to do so through affirmative procedures. I noted that the Disability Rights Commission was prayed in aid as saying that it was satisfied with that approach and that we did not need to go any further. The DRC is an admirable body with which I have done a lot of work and I have great respect for it, but although it says that that is enough, many other bodies do not agree. For example, Macmillan Cancer Relief, Cancer Research UK and CancerBACUP are still very concerned about the issue and would like to see further changes in the Bill to meet their concerns.

Will the Minister confirm that she has received a letter from the chief executives of those three leading and respected cancer charities? Will she confirm that they have appealed to her in their letter and in their detailed submissions to the Department's consultation, which has just ended, to strengthen a Bill that they welcome very much so that everyone with a cancer diagnosis is protected from unjustified discrimination from the moment at which they are diagnosed, in line with the proposals in the Bill for people with multiple sclerosis or an HIV diagnosis, for example? Will she explain to the House how the Government's acknowledgement on 26 November last year in a letter to one of her hon. Friends that stigma is the basis of discrimination can be reconciled with the Bill's proposal to exclude from protection people with certain types of cancer? Is she not thereby implying that the Government can somehow decide arbitrarily that one type of cancer will incur stigma, while another will not? How can they be so sure of that position?

On the question of substantial treatment, will the Minister comment on Cancer Research UK's view that the prescribed cancers should not be excluded from clause 17, partly on the ground that many of the exempted cancers frequently require substantial treatment eventually? There was a long discussion in the other place about the point at which a superficial skin cancer or melanoma, for example, became serious. At a depth of one sixteenth of a millimetre or slightly more, it would apparently become a serious cancer as opposed to a minor one. Many minor cancers require substantial treatment. Will she respond to Cancer Research UK's questioning of the definition of substantial treatment and comment on its view that the current definition ignores the distress caused to all patients, whether they have a minor or major cancer at the initial point of diagnosis?

Is Cancer Research UK not absolutely right when it says:

"the Government proposals to exclude people with certain types of cancer from protection . . . particularly on arbitrary or ill-defined criteria, risks creating a complexity where none is needed"?

Does the Minister accept that it would make a very good Bill even better if she were to do the logical thing and ensure that it avoided complicating the situation in such a way?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I was intrigued by the hon. Gentleman's suggestion that we might have a day in Committee. Does he agree that it would be far better if we spent such a day discussing matters such as cancer and did not spend any of it rolling back the gains on depression that were made in the Lords?

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I agree that, if we do get a Committee, it should be used for those purposes. A number of amendments were made in another place, and I think that Ministers have so far indicated that they intend to try to reverse only one of them, which deals with depression. That would be a retrograde step. The wide range of disability charities in the disabled charities coalition have made it clear that they would be very unhappy if the amendment on depression were removed. It would be better to look at how we can improve the Bill after the recess rather than look at ways of weakening it.

As a final point on cancer, does the Minister agree that, even at this stage, there is still time to get the Bill right for everyone with cancer, so that all people with cancer and all the cancer disability and research groups can welcome it wholeheartedly and without reservation? After a Parliament in which the Government have rightly given cancer priority, surely getting the Bill right for everyone with cancer would be a testimony to joined-up government and is a golden opportunity for them to reaffirm their commitment to everyone living with cancer.

I was asked to raise the second of my three issues by the Parkinson's Disease Society. It has major concerns about the inclusion in the Bill of just one neurological condition—multiple sclerosis—rather than a clause that covers all progressive and fluctuating neurological conditions. The current Bill specifically included MS from diagnosis as a result of an unexpected and unsuccessful discrimination case that was brought by a man with MS. As a result of the failure of the case, the Government decided that they needed to include MS in the Bill.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

MS was already included in the Bill; in fact, it was in the original Disability Discrimination Act 1995. The problem that the case threw up was that somebody who everybody thought was obviously disabled was said not to be, because he could not prove that his condition would deteriorate. That is the minor issue that we are trying to put right.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I welcome the Minister's comments, but they lead into exactly the point that the Parkinson's Disease Society wishes to make. Exactly the same condition that applies to the MS sufferer who lost a discrimination case when everyone thought that the rules covered it would apply in future to people with Parkinson's disease. Do we have to wait until somebody with Parkinson's disease goes to a tribunal or a court and loses before we look at changing the legislation, or are we adequately covered at this stage if we are naming only one neurological condition, MS, and not others, such as Parkinson's? Does that leave the Bill too open and too weak with regard to Parkinson's? The Minister is shaking her head; I am sure that she will reassure us later.

Anne Begg (Labour, Aberdeen South)

I have some sympathy with what the hon. Gentleman is saying. The MS decision was perverse, however, possibly because the condition cannot always be proved by any clinician to be necessarily progressive. That would not be the case with regard to Parkinson's, Huntington's or a number of the other neurological diseases. I cannot imagine any clinician saying that there is not an automatic progression in those conditions, so they would, I hope, already be covered.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I hope that the hon. Lady's observations are correct. The Minister was nodding, and I am sure that she will reassure us. The Parkinson's Disease Society was concerned to get the point clarified on the record in this debate precisely because after the early onset of Parkinson's is diagnosed, it can be many years before it starts to affect somebody's life and ability to work and to appear as a debilitating condition. As that long period can elapse in some cases of Parkinson's, people are worried that they might have to go through the same legal procedure as the MS sufferer went through in order to be covered.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

Perhaps I should clarify now that the current law provides that, on the onset of the first symptom that one normally gets before a disease such as Parkinson's is diagnosed, as long as the condition is going to be progressive and lead to disability, one is covered from that point, even if one is not suffering severe symptoms at that stage.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I thank the Minister; I am sure that the Parkinson's Disease Society will be happy to have that clarification on the record.

My third point concerns schools, which play a major and fundamental role in shaping our society in a couple of ways, the first of which is access for all. Certain categories of children may be excluded from access to a good education because they are poor and qualify for free school meals, are in care—the Department for Education and Skills has expressed concern that children in care do not get a good deal on access to schools—or have special educational needs. Such children need just the same, if not more, access to schools as any other children. Otherwise, they will miss out on educational opportunity, finish their education with inferior qualifications, and have much less chance of going into satisfying and well paid careers and having a good life as adults. Schools are very important in respect of social inclusion and equal access to education.

Secondly, schools are important in a more general way, because of the role that they play in socialising and forming attitudes among our young people, who are our future adults, business men, Members of Parliament, Ministers and so on. If all children are educated together where that is practical—I know that there are difficulties about how far that can go—they become, as children and later as adults, far more tolerant, understanding and accepting of differences, whatever they may be.

I speak as one who was a teacher for 22 years. For 17 of those years, I worked in a school in the constituency of the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt)—at first it was a boys school, but then it merged with a local girls school to become a mixed comprehensive. In its two different incarnations, that school had a very good reputation for including children with special educational needs and disabilities. In the course of those years teaching in mainstream classes in a mainstream comprehensive, I taught children with fragile X syndrome, cerebral palsy, spina bifida and Down's syndrome, as well as children who were registered as 85 per cent. to 90 per cent. blind. That worked very successfully. Pupils accepted that such children were simply other children and, later, simply other adults. They accepted such conditions automatically because they had been exposed to them and experienced them all the way through. It was not a matter of separating people out into different categories by saying, "You go to a special school; you will never mix with anybody else." That is exactly how it should be. I can see hon. Members nodding.

Ofsted has pointed out that, according to its inspections, up to 50 per cent. of schools are not completely fulfilling their obligations on social inclusion. I would argue, as I frequently have here and in the Select Committee, that one of the reasons for that is the pressure of league tables and testing. The Committee has repeatedly criticised that—for example, in its report on secondary education, which was published last Thursday morning, and in its report on school admissions and diversity of provision in schools, which was published last year. There is widespread concern about the whole area of social inclusion, not only the specific issue of children with disability or special education needs.

Somebody said that the Bill is perfect. I do not think that the DRC would go quite that far, even if it feels that there is nothing else to change at this stage. The Disability Charities Consortium, which includes a very wide range of disability groups, does not agree. It is worried that while a general duty to promote equality of opportunity for disabled children will apply to schools, it appears—this is reflected in what the Secretary of State said in his opening comments—that a specific duty will not be applied to schools even though it will be applied to councils, universities and further education colleges.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

If the hon. Gentleman had listened to the Secretary of State, he would have heard him say that specific duties will apply to schools.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I thank the Minister. That is certainly not the way I heard it, but I will look carefully at the written record tomorrow.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I think that the Minister is right about what the Secretary of State said. The important point is that he said that it would be done by regulation, and some of those who were calling for action were hoping that these measures would be in the Bill. It now looks unlikely that we will get a chance to debate that or to table amendments in Committee that would insert them.

Paul Holmes (Liberal Democrat, Chesterfield)

I welcome those comments. As I recall, the Secretary of State said that any such measures would be made much less onerous than those relating to race relations, for example.

In relation to Ofsted's observations on schools that do not meet requirements on social inclusion, I draw on my experience in education and the numerous investigations by the Education and Skills Committee into secondary education over the past two years, which have led to critical reports by that Committee, although it is dominated by Government Members. I am concerned that unless the obligation on all schools—not only those that grasp such opportunities wholeheartedly, as many do—is crystal clear, this will not go as far as we want. At a recent meeting, representatives of the Disability Charities Consortium pointed out that the slow progress that many schools are making in implementing their duties under the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001 justifies their concern about what might happen in future.

Many other matters, some of which have already been mentioned, would normally be considered in more detail in Committee, but I doubt that we will able to do that. I absolutely welcome and support what has been achieved by this good and much improved Bill as it has gone through the process from pre-legislative scrutiny onwards, and I regret that we will probably not be able to finish the job properly because of the imminent general election.

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

I join all Members who have spoken so far, and no doubt those who will speak after me, in wholeheartedly welcoming the Bill.

We all bring our different perspectives to a subject such as this and it is only fair for me to start, if the House will indulge me, by displaying the two main elements of mine. The first is personal, in that, for nearly 30 years, my mother has battled a very cruel and debilitating disability—osteoporosis. That started with an horrendous accident that she had about two days before my A-levels, which gives an idea of the time span. During that period, she has battled strongly, in a very feisty way, and has probably taught me as much as I learned, before becoming a Member of Parliament, about the practicalities, limitations and challenges of being disabled, particularly with that disability.

Osteoporosis affects around one in two women over the age of 50 and, as people are increasingly aware, one in five men over the age of 50. Sadly, just as haemophilia can have disastrous effects on people as regards the blood, osteoporosis does the same with bones. Despite all that, my mother has managed to battle her disabilities with great perseverance. Over the years, she has managed to travel to the Holy Land and other places by air—the aviation aspects of the Bill are particularly welcome.

I pay tribute to the National Osteoporosis Society, which has battled tirelessly to raise awareness of the condition, and to its local representatives in the Blackpool and Fylde area—Jean Marsh and others—who have lobbied tirelessly.

Of course, my mother would not have been able to do much of what she did without the support and devoted contribution of my late father as her carer. That is an important aspect that we should bear in mind when considering the Bill. Carers are the glue that binds together many disabled people's self-esteem. In many cases, they are the people who help disabled people to maintain their struggle for quality of life. It is right that we should remember the relatives, friends and, indeed, thousands of young people—often teenagers—who act as carers.

The Carers National Association does a great job, as does the carers association in Blackpool. I was delighted to support the Carers (Equal Opportunities) Act 2004, successfully promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Aberavon (Dr. Francis). The Bill is for carers as well as for disabled people. It will help to encourage and empower many carers and people with disabilities.

A second influence that underpins my commitment in this field has been my experience as Member of Parliament for Blackpool, South. Disabilities are a major issue in seaside and coastal towns, because they have a larger than average number of older people who are more prone to disabilities. Furthermore, a larger than average number of people with health problems and disabilities move to such towns. I might gently point out, in a wholly non-partisan fashion, that that is not always fully recognised in funding formulae.

In Blackpool, 37 per cent. of my constituents have a limiting long-term illness and 11,600 of them receive disability living allowance or attendance allowance, which gives some indication of the issues in my constituency.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

Although my hon. Friend is correct in saying that there are costs associated with a high number of disabled constituents, and indeed visitors, is not it also the case that some parts of the tourism industry do better than others in attracting the disabled pound and making their services more attractive to disabled people, who have not always been well catered for in the past?

Gordon Marsden (Labour, Blackpool South)

My hon. Friend is right and he provides the hook for the next bit of my speech.

Seaside towns obviously offer leisure and relaxation, but they face the challenge of building on the market to which my hon. Friend referred—for accommodation, shopping and visiting restaurants and clubs—so the way in which they cater for their disabled visitors as well as for their disabled residents is crucial. That is why the recognition of responsibilities that the Bill provides in those aspects is so vital.

I am proud to have been the honorary president of the Disability Services Organisation for Blackpool, Wyre and Fylde, which provides a number of services with only a small number of paid staff and volunteers. Two key services are rideability and shopmobility. As Members will appreciate, millions of people visit Blackpool every year and it is important that disabled people should be able to use the motorised vehicles and other equipment that shopmobility can provide.

In places where there is a high concentration of people with disabilities, there is also a high concentration of champions of people with disabilities, and I want to pay tribute to some of my constituents in that respect. Mr. Chris Williams of Layton fought tirelessly against the anomaly whereby disabled people had to swap a flat-rate concessionary fare for a half-price one when they reached the age of 65. That is why I, like many others, welcomed the Chancellor's announcement about free transport for disabled people in the Budget. I praise Mr. Ray Ball of the Macular Disease Society and all the other members of that society who have fought tirelessly on that issue, and also to get a proper crossing point for a busy road in South Shore in my constituency, near the Princess Alexandra home for the blind. The role of disabled people in terms of work is important, and I pay tribute not only to the Princess Alexandra home, which operates a bed factory in Blackpool, and to its secretary, Mr. Kevin Winkley, but also to my constituent Mr. Martin Penfold, who is a member of the Blackpool trades council and a doughty fighter for the rights of disabled workers.

There are other organisations in my constituency, such as Action on Access, the Disability Services Organisation and the carers association, to which I have already referred, run by Mr. Doug Slimming. About four minutes' walk from my home in Blackpool is the BLESMA—British Limbless Ex-Service Men's Association—home. Many people will know of the good work it does for ex-servicemen and their dependants. In all communities, there are individuals who feel strongly about and fight on disabled issues. They do best when they have the support of crusading local journalists. I pay tribute to my local paper, the Blackpool Gazette, and to its feature editor, Jackie Morley, who has done so much to raise awareness and advance change.

Those people need a framework for all that campaigning—what Neil Kinnock memorably described in another context as a platform on which to build. The Bill helps to provide another layer on that platform. I want to touch on some of its detailed provisions. I welcome its widening of the definition of disability to relate to people with HIV infection, multiple sclerosis and cancer. There were important discussions across the Floor about the important questions to be resolved on the definition of cancer, but I ask the House to remember two important things about the extensions the Government have proposed in the Bill.

First, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) said, disabilities do not automatically mean wheelchairs, a point that would be echoed by macular disease sufferers in Blackpool. Incidentally, the Bill gives reassurance to small businesses—there are many in my constituency, not least in the leisure and hotel trade—which will be concerned about access and the major adjustments that they may have to make under its provisions. Most Members are familiar with the provisions that reasonable attempts should be made to provide access.

The second important implication of the changes is their meaning for those who may be attempting to claim DLA and other benefits, which can be a mountain for many people to have to climb. I am dealing with the case of a constituent who has throat cancer. He has undergone two severe operations but is still knocked back in his claim for the personal care element of DLA. Although that is very necessary for him, he has found it extremely difficult to claim. The Bill has important implications in that regard.

I welcome what has been said about the extension of responsibilities in relation to transport, especially the fact that exemptions will no longer apply to infrastructure or service features. We have a strong local interest in Blackpool, where the tram network is not easily accessible for disabled people and where our light-rail transit bid submitted to the Department for Transport stresses the need for access for people with disabilities. In Blackpool, we are making progress on the bus front, and I pay tribute to Blackpool transport services and its managing director for what they have done in that respect.

There is much more in the Bill about putting the onus on operators to make reasonable adjustments. That is important, but so, too, is advancing understanding and attitudes. I entirely agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South said about that earlier: there is a seamless web between legislation and improving attitudes.

Let us consider, for example, access to taxis for disabled people who use wheelchairs, most of whom need ramps. People with severe osteoporosis certainly have to use them. As my mother would strongly testify, there is nothing more terrifying and stressful than being physically manhandled into a taxi, however well meaning the taxi driver might be. Attitudes among some, although not all, airline carriers also need to be improved and the Bill sets the context for that.

The Bill will also be of assistance in changing hearts and minds, and encouraging commitment. As with reassuring people in hotels and guest houses that they need to make reasonable provision, we need to ensure that people in the transport industry, having made reasonable provision, get the improvements road-tested by disabled people to make sure that they do the job that they are intended to do.

Clause 12 is welcome, in that it brings private clubs with 25 or more members within the scope of the Act. The change in attitude involved here is very important. Not so many years ago, I remember a doughty member of my constituency Labour party who had a disability threatening direct action against a club in my constituency that did not have proper access or toilet facilities. Thankfully, much has now changed in that regard, and those changes will be strengthened even more by the Bill. There are also issues around meetings and activities that take place in historic properties. Again, the Bill has struck the right balance. It does not propose blanket expensive changes, but reasonable attempts to provide access. English Heritage's booklet, "Easy Access to Historic Buildings", deals with this matter well.

I want to pay tribute to the thoughtful and sensible way in which many people in the leisure and tourism industries, particularly those with small guest houses and small businesses, have responded to the proposals. I have seen that among the hoteliers' organisations and business improvement district co-ordinators in my constituency, as well as in the work that is being done nationally through the various task forces operating through the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.

I also want to mention the important extension of the responsibilities and duties of public authorities. The House of Commons briefing note on the Bill talks about clause 3 encouraging participation and positive attitudes, and promoting equality of opportunity. Those are all key elements of the Bill. It is important that public authorities not only assist with needs but provide that assistance as naturally as possible. It should be seen not as a concession but as a right.

I am privileged to have discussed many of these issues with two party members in my constituency, one of whom is the chair of the disability services organisation to which I referred earlier, and who has also been a non-executive member of the health trust. The other, Nick Gradwell, is a past councillor and a disability activist. Incidentally, neither of those people has wheelchair needs—they have sight impairments.

The balanced proposals on residential premises in clause 13 are important to a town such as Blackpool that has a large number of rented properties and houses in multiple occupation. The majority of such properties are well run, but some have absentee landlords who do a very poor job. I remember from my casework some terrible examples, ranging from problems with a constituent's guide dog to a case of a landlord being unwilling to make the necessary adjustments for a tenant's children who had disabilities. The explanatory notes make it clear that what the Bill suggests is very reasonable, namely that

"a landlord or manager may be obliged . . . to allow a tenant who has mobility difficulties to leave his rubbish in another place if he cannot access the designated place".

Clause 16 deals with recognising people's rights and dignity with good will and good sense, and I am particularly pleased that Baroness Hollis tabled the Third Reading amendments to ensure that disability adaptations would be included when a lease entitled a tenant to have such improvements with the landlord's consent.

Legislation can do only so much, and there will need to be a proactive attitude on the ground. Local co-operation will be needed to make the Bill work. In Blackpool, we have a good relationship between the local council and the landlords' forum, but it is important that such bodies see themselves not as antagonists but as joint enablers when it comes to implementing these measures.

Clause 15 deals with qualifications and education, and I very much welcome it as a further step towards ensuring that general qualifications bodies do not discriminate against disabled candidates for prescribed qualifications. It will be important, for example, in regard to practical issues such as the provision of ramps for wheelchairs in examination halls. The measure also deals with providing redress to candidates if they are denied those facilities, and I again praise the amendments that were tabled by the Government on Report in the Lords in that regard.

My experience as a part-time Open university tutor over 20 years involved a number of disabled students. I was full of admiration for them and how they overcame their problems, but I must also pay tribute to the Open university for how it assisted them in that process. That example has not always been followed by other more mainstream and traditional universities, but we are getting there.

The inclusion of schools has been mentioned this afternoon, and the Disability Rights Commission has also rightly raised it. I know from my own experience that provision for disabled children in schools can be patchy—not because of lack of willingness or sympathy, but because of lack of awareness, of a framework and, sometimes, of finance. That has been strongly present in higher and further education, but it is beginning to change. I am convinced that the measures in the Bill will assist that process.

In that respect, I again pay tribute to a local person, Professor Alan Hurst of the university of Central Lancashire, who has done much to raise awareness of the issues for disabled students in further and higher education. When we had a conversation on that subject, he made an important point to me. He said, "In all these areas, there is a threefold process. You start by recognising what the problem is. You then apportion an access officer to begin to deal with it. Then you have to move on and ensure that all staff, all teachers and all lecturers gain awareness of the students' needs. It is not just a question of being able to box it off."

Those things have had to take place to combat discrimination on grounds of race, ethnicity or sexual orientation, and we need to bear that in mind when we consider the issues in relation to schools, which is why I welcome wholeheartedly what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said this afternoon about duties for schools. I urge him and other Ministers to take carefully on board the points made by the various bodies that have lobbied in this respect when they draw up the regulations under clause 3.

I refer to the parliamentary briefing that the DRC has circulated to Members to pick up two important points. It says it is important that we realise that the

"efforts of FE and HE providers to widen access for disabled people will be undermined if schools are not subject to . . . specific duties".

It continues:

"Specific duties would boost attempts to recruit and retain more disabled teachers and other school staff."

Those are salient, cogent points. I am sure they will be taken on board when regulations are considered.

My experience in Blackpool is that children with multiple disabilities—often, such children have attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, which can be associated with other disabilities—and their parents in particular need the maximum framework of support. We would not consider it acceptable to tell schools that they had a general duty of care only to their gay, lesbian and ethnic minority students, or that they must not be proactive or take specific steps to improve the self-worth of such students, or maximise their ability to achieve and to be treated equally. That is an important point to bear in mind when we are thinking about the issues for children with disabilities and drawing up the regulations.

I want to end by praising all that the Government have done on disabled issues. The Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), who is the Minister with responsibility for disabled people, and all at the Department for Work and Pensions have worked tirelessly, and they have been assisted by all the disability organisations and the DRC. The Bill is another vivid example of the Government's commitment to the active championing of disabled people's equality rights. It is a tribute to the hard work of MPs of all parties, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry), secretary of the all-party disablement group, who unfortunately is not in the Chamber today.

There has been a sea change in attitudes since the pioneering initiative of Alf Morris in the 1970s. As I speak, an ambitious project is under way in Blackpool, involving Heritage Lottery Fund money, to modernise and spruce up Stanley park, which many Members might know. Central to the bid accepted by the HLF, and to the planning, is better access for and use of the park by people with disabilities. The Blackpool Bears, a disability sports club in Blackpool, is central to the planning process. That is real change and real progress.

I commend the Government on immeasurably strengthening the framework in which those sorts of initiatives can take place by bringing forward this Bill.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

Like others who have contributed to this debate, the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) made some constructive points in relation to education and leisure, and was also right to highlight the importance of carers and the large role of all the voluntary organisations in the field of disability which protect the various interests and people concerned. His remarks were entirely consistent with the general tone of this debate and the deserved welcome that the Bill has received from all quarters of the House. I am no exception to that: I am pleased that the Bill is being discussed today. I would have no problems with its passage into legislation, and would not seek to frustrate it.

My hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman), in a speech of some breadth and complexity, prefaced his remarks with some of the parliamentary history of the scrutiny of this legislation. It is not necessary to revisit all those points, except to say that the House will know that I had Front-Bench responsibilities for these matters for my party before he did, and I had the same experience as he had of trying to persuade the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Liverpool, Garston (Maria Eagle), to get on with it, and of warning her of what might happen if progress was not made. We now have a pistol to our head. It would be mistaken of Ministers, the Disability Rights Commission or whoever, to assume, in the mode of a reactionary Member of the House prior to the Reform Act of 1832, that the British constitution was so perfect that no possible amendment could be considered. Quite a lot remains to be considered in terms of the various interests, including points that have been made today, and that is why I would very much welcome detailed scrutiny of the Bill in Committee, although, sadly, that might not happen.

Perhaps my last contentious point is that what has happened with this Bill has, in a sense, been a paradigm of the marginalisation of disability issues more generally. This Bill comes very much at the end of the queue in relation to consideration by this House, although it is not the only such Bill. In addition, as my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe reminded the House, the last time that we considered such matters strategically was on European election day. I, the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt), to whose contribution we look forward, and others—coincidentally, with a strong representation from the east midlands, partly because we all had all-postal ballots—spoke on that day and felt strongly about the issue. If that happens in the House, perhaps it is merely a paradigm of what happens elsewhere.

Having taken an interest in disability matters in the House for some six years, apart from those as a constituency Member, my impression is that there are two parties. There is a minority party, which is represented on both sides of the House, who take an active interest and wish to promote these issues—Members from both sides of the House have said generously that this is an all-party effort, through the disability group and otherwise—and a much larger number of people on whom these matters do not impinge day to day. If it is difficult to create awareness in this place, how much more difficult it is to create it among service providers or users outside. That is part of the role of legislation, to which I will return in a moment.

In closing my remarks on the legislative history, it would be fair to say—from time to time Ministers show generosity, and I note the remarks made by Baroness Hollis in the other place about the Disability Discrimination Act 1995—that this is not an oppositionist issue.

We are not emerging from darkness into light. Social progress in this country, in many contexts, is secured through the progressive activities and influences of different Governments building on each other's experience. If we can claim credit for the 1995 Act, the Minister can equally claim credit for the Disability Rights Commission, for the extension to education in the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act 2001, and indeed for this Bill. There is no need to argue about it; we are on the same side in seeking progressive improvement.

We should also record our gratitude to those who have helped to lay the foundations for these additional changes: the Disability Rights Task Force and the Disability Rights Commission. When the commission was first established, I was, as it were, the Minister's opposite number. I proceeded with a reasonable degree of healthy scepticism, needing to be convinced; and I was convinced—that the commission was doing a good job in a sensitive way, and was an active force for good. I say that unequivocally, because I believe it to be true. Along with the task force and its well known report, it has looked at the operation of the 1995 Act and improved it.

I hope the Minister will not think I am trying to put her down when I say that a parliamentary analogy could be drawn with Ministers' alleged argument in favour of the European constitution. Some of the Bill is a tidying-up exercise to deal with areas that have not been properly covered, but—in a spirit of bipartisanship, or multi-partisanship—I concede that it makes at least two major advances. First, I think we are all pleased to see that real progress has been made in improving transport. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), who spoke interestingly from direct experience of disability, rightly said that mobility was an important component of the empowerment of disabled people and the improvement of their lot. Secondly, clause 3 and other parts of the Bill give public authorities a general duty to promote disability equality and the interests of disabled people.

Those are important issues, but the transport issue is not straightforward. It is fair to say that a private sector provider of goods and services is bound by reasonable adjustments. As disability interests have been able to demonstrate, there are ways of making such adjustments that are affordable and sensible, and I would endorse such an approach. In the case of major public sector provision, however, it can be quite expensive, and objectives may occasionally overlap or clash.

There are only two railway stations in my constituency, both very small. One is Kings Sutton, the other Long Buckby. One is unmanned; the other has someone there in the mornings. They are both very much Victorian stations. The cross-line access at Kings Sutton is soon to be improved, but the problem with both stations is that the platforms are rather short. The problem with altering rolling stock—in the entirely commendable and desirable interests of mobility—is that it tends to require more space. Trains may have to be longer to retain the same capacity. Trains are getting longer in any case, to meet the capacity of stations. Unless and until single-door control is introduced, it will be difficult to achieve a service at those stations. If they are closed for that or another reason, such as the rather poor access arrangements, the alternative is to go to a railhead in the town, which may not serve the interests of disabled people. I rehearse those as the sorts of difficulty that may be encountered, which is why I understand that Ministers will want some time to get this done. I hope that they are determined to press on and to make sure that it is done.

As regards the general duty, I am reassured by, and take comfort from, the fact that although there were some stern duties under the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, it seems to have worked well. I have never had to deal with an adverse case or report from a constituent, and it is reassuring that it is possible to produce such duties without a backlash, if I might put it that way.

There are some technical differences between disability duties and awareness on the one hand and those related to racism and sexism. To use an analogy, it has always struck me that the difference between racism and disability compliance and awareness is a bit like the difference between digital and analogue. Broadly, either one is a racist or one is not, and there is a clear decision, one way or the other. In relation to disability awareness, the situation is more complex because the questions tend to include whether adjustments were considered, made and reasonable. There is much more feedback in terms of whether the action taken is appropriate.

In relation to gender preference, there is an intermediate position because the Minister, from her experience of employment law, will know that it is possible to be judged to have discriminated indirectly through for example the differential operation of the qualifying period for an employment tribunal, in terms of the length of time one has been at work. These are complex issues and it would be wrong and unnecessary—from the experience of race relations legislation—to seek to run away from giving the duties to public bodies, which I welcome.

I appreciate that the Equality Bill has now been given its Second Reading date and I rather anticipate making a contribution on that Bill as well. It would therefore be inappropriate to make a Second Reading speech on that subject now. I have listened to the exchanges and various interventions on the DRC's attitude to the Equality Commission, and we have made a good deal of progress. However, in considering that legislation, as and when it moves towards the statute book, it is necessary to make sure that the particular features of disability are properly covered. There is already provision for a commissioner, but there is also a need for a body of expertise and the resources to meet the needs of, as well as safeguards for, disability interests in a single commission. No one would be happy with a situation where we legislated to put everything together and then found that none of the single strands was being adequately catered for.

There is greater complexity in relation to the nature of reasonable adjustments as against having a simple on-off test for whether or not someone is compliant in relation to discrimination matters. There is more work to be done there and the DRC and some of the studies to which Ministers have referred will help to take that agenda forward.

An interesting issue that interacts with the one of public duties is that in disability matters, even more than in other equality issues, there is an interaction of different providers. It may be that a particular provider wants to do something and is perfectly prepared to comply with the duty, but other aspects of the jigsaw are not put together. We all know from our constituents how difficult it is for people to deal with disability issues. There could be legal complications for an individual provider accused of not seeking to promote the interests of disabled people, because even if the situation was not their fault and somebody else was responsible, the service, in effect, would not be being provided, regardless of whose legal fault it was.

The second issue, about which I feel very strongly, is that we need to pay much more attention to the different forums of enforcement and the relative difficulty of carrying out enforcement within them. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, South mentioned the Scottish legal system and the sheriff court. She clearly implied that that was a more difficult process than using a special educational needs tribunal, which I can understand. Of course, under English legislation, schools are dealt with through the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal, but further education and higher education are not, so a distinction remains in that regard. A few years ago, the Royal National Institute of the Blind did some work on the part 2 duties relating to employment. Such duties are dealt with by the tribunal, whereas part 3 duties relating to goods and services are dealt with by the county court. It seems highly implausible that there is more discrimination in one area than in the other, so that issue has to be looked at.

Finally, there is the question of bringing all this together in a single body of legislation, taking into account people's human rights. The Government are seeking to amalgamate the various institutions and, I concede, trying to preserve disability as one of the essential strands. However, we need to look at the wider human rights agenda. I will offer for free to the Government an insight prompted by a former Labour Secretary of State, Dick Crossman, some 40 years ago. He said of rents, "What we want is rents that are fair." Public bodies, in dealing with citizens—whether or not they have a particular disability or equality issue—should be expected to treat them decently. How one puts that into law and adjudicates on it I do not know, but there is still a great deal to be done in that regard.

I acknowledge that, here, the law is an important participant, and it has two functions, the first of which is declaratory. Its first function is to say that we as a society are not prepared to put up with some of our citizens being treated as second-class citizens. Its second function is to deal not just with businesses that make honest efforts, but in particular with those that say, "We do not want to get involved in all this; it is not for us, you know." It must make sure that that attitude is rooted out and if necessary punished. But at the same time it must try to encourage those who want to help to take a positive attitude, to take advice, and above all to consider the necessary adjustments that must be made, and to take forward the agenda of serving our disabled and other minority constituents. So law has a function, but I advise the House against saying that this Bill will in itself transform the situation. Although it will help and be another brick in the edifice, it will not conclude the building.

I do not often quote others commenting on me, but I was rather proud to be described in a parliamentary sketch of some 18 months ago—the phrase related to another aspect of the equality agenda, and I enjoyed it after I thought about it—as "relentlessly inclusionist". I am quite happy about that, because we should be relentlessly inclusionist; indeed, I hope and think that everybody in this Chamber is so. We should work to ensure that it becomes a matter of course that all our citizens are empowered, included and given the opportunity to give of their best: to make their own contribution to the economic, social and cultural life of this country, and to take all the benefits that we take for granted. We do not necessarily need to treat them in a special way to do that. The more we can approximate to that situation, the better. We need the underpinning of law, but we also need the right assumptions and attitudes to become a normal part of life. I am not a Marxist—I would not be sitting on these Opposition Benches if I were—though I might be more of a sceptic, but if we could see all the business surrounding equality withering away, no one would be happier than me.

Greg Knight (Conservative, East Yorkshire)

I am grateful to my semi-Marxist friend for giving way. Perhaps he can help me with a particular concern about clause 10, which deals with discriminatory advertisements. If a football manager were to advertise for players for a football team, could such an advertisement imply that the applications will be determined by the extent to which the applicant does not have a disability?

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for raising that matter, but I am conscious that he is more legally qualified than me. My answer ad interim is that if the Bill had a proper Committee stage, we could properly thrash the matter out and ensure that we got it right.

To take my right hon. Friend's point a little wider, the one thing that would discredit all this, to borrow from the language of race relations, is the Scotch porridge case, where people find themselves in ridiculous circumstances that defy common sense as they see it. What we need is an agenda to promote the rights of disabled people, without pillorying those who are trying to do their best to meet it.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who says that he is not a Marxist. I am a Marxist, but of the Groucho tendency. The intervention of the right hon. Member for East Yorkshire (Mr. Knight) ignores the fact that many disabled people play sport very well, even sometimes professionally. The answer is that it would be a bit dodgy for a football manager to advertise in the way the right hon. Gentleman suggested.

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I am grateful to the Minister for helping to clarify that matter. We look forward to debating it further in Committee, if and when the Committee stage takes place.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

The reference to Groucho Marx reminds me of a sketch by Peter Cook and Dudley Moore that raises this very issue. A one-legged actor applies for the role of Tarzan, leading Peter Cook to say to Dudley Moore, "I have nothing against your right leg; the problem is—neither have you".

Tim Boswell (Conservative, Daventry)

I had forgotten that, but I have a horrible feeling, Mr. Deputy Speaker, that if we extend this line of argument, we may get into dead parrots, at which point we would probably be marginalising at least one party in the House.

To conclude on a serious point, we should be "relentlessly inclusionist", we should look for every opportunity to advance the real interests of disabled people, and above all, we should make all that mainstream rather than a self-conscious exercise by a limited number of people in the House or elsewhere. To accomplish that, we need the right balance between sanction and encouragement, and between the law and good practice.

That is in no sense a cop-out for the law, which must be there as an underpinning, as I said, but I do not want anyone in the business world, for example, to settle merely for compliance with the law. It is perfectly proper to expect businesses, having made their reasonable adjustments, to consider what else they can do. They may well be pleasantly surprised when they do so, which applies not just to disability but in respect of the wider equality agenda. If a company is prepared to examine its customer base and try to ensure that its work force mirrors that base, it is likely to be more commercially successful, especially when dealing with the general public, than it would have been if it had walked away from these problems. It may not be easy to do, but many companies of different sizes are prepared to consider that option.

Above all, we do not want just a tick-box exercise saying "we have done it", and we do not want a parliamentary tick-box exercise, either, saying "we have legislated; that is the end of the matter; now get on with it". There needs to be a wider public debate about how we take the agenda forward.

In the end, the Bill is about treating people decently and enabling them to unlock their power and influence. I feel very strongly about a number of matters that I have to deal with, which tend to bear on the work of the Department for Work and Pensions. If we can make a convincing connection between the moral and business cases, there will be a chance of getting something done.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

It is always a pleasure to take part in a debate with the hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell). As we have reminded each other on several occasions, it is more than 20 years since we first debated against each other. When I say that it was on the sixth form circuit, I do not suggest that we were in the sixth form 20 years ago: in fact, we were visiting sixth forms to present the respective positions of our parties. Even then, he was relentlessly inclusionist and, having seen him in action in the House in our time here together, I sometimes think that his compassion and values are more suitable for the Labour Benches than for the Opposition Benches.

I am sure that the hon. Member for Daventry will not take much issue with what I am about to say. In 18 years in office, the previous Conservative Government managed one piece of legislation in respect of disability, but the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was singularly ineffective in a great many ways. It did not contain any powers of enforcement, nor establish a commission for disabled people. In fact, the Ministers responsible for the 1995 Act fought tooth and nail against proposals to include any enforcement powers.

I recall amazing scenes, when it was clear that one of the Ministers involved—whose daughter was renowned for leading the disabled rights campaign—sometimes found himself in a great pickle. He could see the strength of the argument in favour of establishing a commission, but was obliged to fight against it.

The 1995 Act talked about disability discrimination but contained almost no reference to transport, which is the key to accessing all other services. Bizarrely, the Act made it obligatory for station platforms to be accessible to disabled people, but not trains. In that respect, it was a charter for disabled train spotters: it was certainly not one for disabled travellers.

The 1995 Act completely excluded education, and that omission is something that this Government have had to put right. Also, it failed to address the problem of people's attitude to, and understanding of, disability. That problem is at the heart of the barriers between disabled people and their full civil rights. Those barriers must be broken down.

Richard Spring (Conservative, West Suffolk)

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman is going down this route, as it is not in the spirit of the debate so far. Like him, I was in the House when the 1995 Act was passed. I can confirm categorically that it had a considerable impact, in more than narrow legislative terms, as it helped disabled people in our communities to resolve problems of access, and so on. I hope, therefore, that he will not pursue that line of argument.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

My point is that the 1995 Act contained huge gaps that need to be filled. I shall say more about them in a moment, but I accept that a process of evolution was under way. I do not understand why the Government of the day committed themselves so firmly to opposing private Member's Bills on disability discrimination put forward by my hon. Friends the Members for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) and for North-East Derbyshire (Mr. Barnes), and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke). Their Bills were all very sensible, but they were all thwarted.

I also mentioned in a previous intervention the long delays in the DDA, such that parts of the Act, had we not addressed them, would still not have been implemented even now. They include part III on access to goods and services. Indeed, as that legislation stood in 1995 in terms of employment rights for disabled people, it affected only about 6 per cent. of all businesses—I think that that figure is right. The small firms exemption meant that the vast majority of businesses were not obliged to take the needs of disabled employees and prospective employees into account.

The DDA set up the National Disability Council, which gave some disabled people a forum, but I do not believe that that body, ably led by David Grayson, would ever have been as effective as the disability rights taskforce. When that was created, as soon as this Government came to office, it had a momentum to it, precisely because the doors were then seen to be open to ensuring that civil rights for disabled people became a reality.

I was privileged to serve on the Committees that examined the Disability Rights Commission Bill and the Special Educational Needs and Disability Bill. In their turn, they both added to the power of disabled people to achieve their civil rights and plugged holes in the DDA. We also implemented part III of the DDA and removed the small firms exemption, so that 100 per cent. of businesses are now covered by the rules.

The Bill addresses many of the remaining gaps in provision. I am particularly pleased to see that councillors are included for the first time. I actually wrote a pamphlet on the subject of councillors and disabled access in 1995, so I was 10 years before my time, but I am glad to see that its recommendations will now be enforced.

The Bill also addresses transport. Again, there must be a lead-in time, which must be a compromise between the ability of the providers of transport services to respond and the urgency of fulfilling those civil rights needs. I believe that we have got the balance about right on that.

The Bill removes many exemptions from the previous legislation and, to pick up the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden), I am pleased about private clubs. It is fair to say that the hon. Member for North Dorset (Mr. Walter), after his private Member's Bill did not succeed either last year or the year before, can nevertheless be pleased to see how the spirit of that proposal has been introduced into the Bill that we see before us.

The duty to promote good relations is essential, and the duty to promote the civil rights of disabled people exists on not just local but all public authorities. I am sure that, considering how the debate has gone in the past 10 years, we have seen the cart before the horse. A momentum already exists, but the Bill will ensure that no public authority will lag behind.

Alongside the civil rights legislation that we have had over the years, we have changed part M of the building regulations to make buildings more disabled accessible. The new deal for disabled people has helped 200,000 people have the dignity of work, and now for the first time more than 50 per cent. of disabled people are in employment and many more are seeking opportunities to earn through work. The vast improvements in the funding for the access-to-work schemes also enabled that to come about.

There are still some holes in the legislation, and I would like to mention three of them. One relates to an issue that I wanted to push strongly in the scrutiny Committee, which is the situation of volunteers. I understand why the Bill may not be the most appropriate place to include provisions on that, but it must be said that we have rights for employees and prospective employees who are disabled, and the role of volunteers nowadays in many organisations is very much akin to that of employees. Many volunteers are doing work experience and many are gaining experience as part of achieving a qualification. Many have an understanding with their employers that is close to being a contract of employment. However, to argue at this stage that we should extend the disability rights legislation to cover volunteers would ignore the fact that sex equality legislation and race equality legislation do not apply to volunteers. Perhaps the Equality Bill would be a better place in which to ensure comprehensive protection for volunteers against unjustified discrimination when their role is akin to employees. I was pleased to have had the opportunity in the scrutiny Committee to explore that possibility and to make the case for extending disability discrimination legislation to volunteers.

We heard earlier about the scrutiny Committee's statistics and, in addition to the contributions of its members, the quality and enthusiasm of the witnesses, including my hon. Friend the Minister, who appeared before it were very high. That was the only time I have been a member of a scrutiny Committee and it was rewarding, fulfilling and, looking back, valuable. It was appropriate for that Committee to scrutinise the Bill.

The second matter that I want to refer to is housing, about which the scrutiny Committee raised issues and made recommendations, although many of them were not taken forward. I am pleased that matters relating to common areas in shared properties will be reviewed. I want to make one suggestion, which would not require legislation. We have part M of the building regulations, we have disabled facilities grants—which cover funding for extensions and alterations to properties—to set standards and the concept of lifetime homes has become a reality in the design of properties. Can we be assured that the standards that those three different criteria apply to those three different concepts are consistent and that lifetime homes, disabled facilities grants and part M all seek to point developments and alterations in the same direction and to produce the same level of access?

I heard what hon. Members have said about not having a Second Reading debate on the Equality Bill now, but I am pleased with the debate on the new equality commission. I was Parliamentary Private Secretary to my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Mrs. Roche) when, as Minister of State at the Cabinet Office, and subsequently at the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister, she was responsible for the early days of that legislation and the article 13 legislation, so I have been involved in the debate on the equality commission for some time. I was originally a sceptic and did not believe that it would be possible to take on board the historic and particular needs of the three existing strands for which commissions exist and merge them with the three article 13 strands. However, I was wrong. I said that there had to be clear horizontal and vertical structures so that if I were being discriminated against by harassment, irrespective of whether it was because I was disabled or because of my gender and so on, I should have access to the best legal advice on harassment from the commission. That horizontal strand is just as important as saying that a disabled person should have access to people who are experts on disability.

I now look forward with optimism because the process has worked. In particular, the views of disabled people and the Disability Rights Commission have been taken on board in moving towards the equality commission.

I want to celebrate two other Government achievements because I have had a close personal involvement in both. One is the roll-out of digital hearing aids in the NHS, managed by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People at a time when I was a trustee of that organisation. That was an excellent example of partnership between Government and the voluntary sector and will be seen as a real emancipation of people with hearing impairments. The other is the recognition of British sign language. The Government not only recognised it as a language, but provided funding to give some reality to what is meant by recognition. I looked back through Hansard and discovered that I called for such recognition in an Adjournment debate in 1999, but better late than never. Recognition is an excellent step forward for the 50,000 people in this country whose first language is sign language.

If we look back 10 years, not many people could be said to be public role models for disabled people. That situation has changed. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Brightside (Mr. Blunkett), the former Home Secretary, is one example and my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) is another, but I wish to put on record a few other names. The reputation of Peter White, the Radio 4 presenter who is blind, as a journalist has grown and grown over the years. People such as Heather Mills have taken on high profile positions, not necessarily on disability issues—rightly, in many cases. They have shown that disabled people can be in the limelight and carry it off. I know a little about stand-up comedy—but that is a story for another day—and there are now several disabled comedians, including a deaf comedian, who are well established on the circuit. Of course, only in the past few days, Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson has had her contribution to public life recognised. I also welcome the fact that as we all pull together towards London 2012, it is being made clear that it is a bid not only for the Olympics but for the disabled Olympics.

That all shows that public opinion has moved on in 10 years and perhaps, as the hon. Member for Daventry suggested, the 1995 Act opened a few doors. It could have done more, but we have now made up for many of the omissions. In that respect, I regard the Bill as a consolidating measure that will make progress in some areas and put right some matters that had not been put right in the past. I am certain that every party in the House will co-operate to ensure that the Bill gets a fair and appropriate hearing in the next few weeks and that the ambitions expressed today that it become legislation as quickly as possible reach fruition.

Richard Spring (Conservative, West Suffolk)

I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate. I am pleased to do so and I know that various disability organisations are delighted that this debate is taking place and we are making progress. As we have heard from many hon. Members this afternoon, there is a real desire to see the legislation on the statute book.

It is curious how one becomes interested in a subject. In the case of the hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden), who spoke movingly about his mother, the cause was his personal family conditions. It is not something that has affected my own family, but in 1992 when I became a Member of Parliament I had a secretary who was quite severely disabled. It is extraordinary how the facilities in the Palace of Westminster, however imperfect, have moved on in the 13 years since I have been an MP. It was seeing life through my secretary's eyes that gave me an abiding interest in this subject. I saw the difficulties that life presented for her in many respects in this particular place of employment, as well as the bureaucracy that she had to face on many different levels, and that is why I have continued to take an interest in the subject.

That is why in 1995, when the original Disability Discrimination Act was passed, I felt it was a welcome step forward, and I certainly supported it because it was the first attempt by a British Government to legislate on the concept and principle of disability discrimination. It gave disabled people a right not to be discriminated against in employment and a right of access to goods, facilities, financial services and the transport infrastructure.

I entirely take the point made by the hon. Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt) that, as we look back over 10 years, we can see that the 1995 Act was imperfect and that there are gaps to fill. Indeed, that process has moved on, but we can equally say that it was important legislation that changed attitudes, and it was certainly radical in dealing with discrimination against disabled people. I therefore have some pride in the then Government's achievement at that time. When I saw for myself the results of that legislation, I became interested and started to make contacts as an MP with groups that were speaking for various causes related to disability. I was able, as I know many hon. Members were also able to do, to assist them in achieving results such as wheelchair access and in changing the culture of understanding so that people became aware of the needs of people with disabilities. That was an important moment.

Today, however, after seeing the effects of the 1995 Act over what is quite a lengthy period, it is certainly clear that we need to amend the existing legislation to meet the considerable challenges that people with disabilities must overcome. It is disappointing, however, that the introduction of the Bill has been left quite late, although, of course, I support it in principle. I know that my Opposition colleagues and, indeed, others would have valued extra time to consider the Bill, and in a sense, this is something of a missed opportunity.

Many hon. Members have lived with disability at first hand, whether directly or indirectly, and are perhaps in a unique or special position to scrutinise the Bill with the expertise that arises from their own experience, but many of us who are not in that position may nevertheless have had temporary experience of mobility problems. Others will have regularly accompanied wheelchair users and people with mobility problems and have experiences of the difficulties that disabled people face—a point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg). That is why the provisions in the Bill that relate to transport are so welcome. Inaccessible transport has a major impact on disabled people's independence, social participation and employability. Some 60 per cent. of households with a disabled member do not have access to a car, so access to the public transport system is a crucial part of many disabled people's lives. Of course, that is doubly the case in rural areas, where public transport is limited. The Bill represents a step towards a public transport system that is more accessible for all disabled people.

Many hon. Members may have spoken to representatives of the disabilities charity consortium—the DCC—about the Bill's contents. As we know, the DCC is an informal coalition consisting of Leonard Cheshire, Mencap, Mind, the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, the Royal National Institute of the Blind, the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and Scope. They, like me, believe that constructive debates in the other place have resulted in a much improved Bill and some very valuable results for disabled people. However, they still have some concerns that relate to transport, and I should like to make these points now in the hope of encouraging further response.

Although the rail and bus industries will have to comply with a legislative framework, the aviation and shipping industries currently operate voluntary codes of practice on accessibility. The DCC believes that the voluntary codes have not proved fully effective in improving services for disabled people. The regulation-making powers in the Bill will allow the Government to make both those codes statutory. Indeed, the Joint Committee that considered the draft Disability Discrimination Bill reported that

"The Committee received a significant amount of evidence which suggests that voluntary compliance is not currently effective".

I understand that the Government wish to wait until later this year to see the results of research on compliance with voluntary arrangements that are designed to secure better access to air and sea transport for disabled people. If that is still the case, will the Minister comment on that specific matter?

There are numerous examples of airlines and ferry companies acting thoughtlessly and inappropriately towards disabled passengers and thus causing a great deal of embarrassment and anxiety, so that needs to be resolved as quickly as possible. Will the Minister explain the situation regarding the exemption from statutory regulations and tell us how she thinks the matter can be addressed? I share the DCC's concerns about the effectiveness of existing disability equality training programmes in the transport industry. It is important that people who work on buses, trains and the underground are fully aware of the needs of disabled passengers. Perhaps the Minister will also comment on that matter during her winding-up speech.

Disabilities are not always visible. I was pleased that a modest Opposition amendment on depression was agreed to on Report in the House of Lords. Mental health is often overlooked in anti-discrimination policies and rules, so I congratulate my noble Friend Lord Skelmersdale on tabling the amendment. I echo the appeal made by the DCC and

"urge the Government to retain the amendment and do not do so simply because of the time constraints that have been imposed on the Bill but also because they recognise the case for the amendment."

Under section 1 of the 1995 Act, a person's impairment must have

"a substantial and long-term adverse effect on his ability to carry out normal day-to-day activities"

to fit the definition of a disability. An impairment is defined as "long-term" if it has lasted for at least 12 months, or if it is likely to have a substantial effect for at least 12 months. The provisions in the Act designed to cover recurrence have not been effective in the case of depression, although I know that the Secretary of State commented on that and I understand that he talked about a Green Paper on the matter. However, according to the website www.psychdirect.com, the risk of recurrence of an episode of depression within a five-year period is as much as 70 per cent.

Depression carries a huge stigma, so it is important that the Bill recognise that. Let me quote from a briefing sent to me from the DCC:

"People who have recovered from an episode of depression can find that they never find paid work again yet their ability to work is not reduced in any way except by prejudice. A recent study found that where two job applications, one disclosing a diagnosis of diabetes the other one of depression, were submitted to 200 personnel managers, the 'applicant' with depression had significantly reduced chances of employment. Discrimination can short-circuit the process of recovery for those who have undergone depression, it can undermine self-esteem and exacerbate the illness. This destructive cycle brings about, above all, suffering for individuals, but also a loss of talent for society and cost to the public purse in health/social care and welfare benefits."

In light of that compelling argument, I ask the Minister to build on the comments made by the Secretary of State and reflect on the amendment tabled by Lord Skelmersdale, which deserves to be supported.

The final aspect of the Bill on which I wish to comment relates to the way the Government have declined to give a firm commitment to include schools in the specific disability equality duties in the Bill. The Secretary of State spoke about anti-discrimination and a general duty in the public sector that there should be proportionality, which is absolutely understood. However, he implied that such specific duties in the Bill would place an extra burden on schools. Teaching unions, such as the National Union of Teachers and the National Association of Schoolmasters Union of Women Teachers, have stated during consultation that they would welcome the specific duties in Bill being applied to schools. According to Ofsted and a recent report from the Prime Minister's strategy unit, some schools are failing disabled children. Just one of the many saddening statistics from the Disability Rights Commission is that 27 per cent. of disabled people aged between 16 and 24 have no qualifications whatever. That compares with 12 per cent. of non-disabled people at the same age. The Government have recognised that more needs to be done to support disabled children in school.

We are all agreed that the public sector duty at the heart of the legislation will make a tremendous difference for disabled people. I am told by disability organisations, however, that it will be very hard in practice for schools to comply with their general duty without having specific duties in the Bill to guide them.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

The Secretary of State said in his speech that the specific duties would apply to schools.

Richard Spring (Conservative, West Suffolk)

The difficulty lies in the difference between what is contained in the Bill and what will be done in regulation. Will the Minister clarify that point, because there is some lack of understanding, and not only in my mind?

Such specific duties would ensure that schools have to produce disability equality schemes involving disabled people and monitor and report on their progress against those schemes. Without the schemes, it will be very difficult for schools and the Government to monitor how schools are meeting the general equality duty.

I know of schools that have worked hard to include disabled pupils. I have visited a number of such schools in my constituency, and I applaud the head teachers, other teaching staff and governors for their efforts. The best schools have been taking that approach successfully for some time. I have become aware of one head teacher who was keen to maintain an ethos in which children responded to and interacted with each other as equal members of the community and as their friends, rather than as disabled or non-disabled pupils.

In my own school—I look back at this with some degree of surprise—the head teacher, even in those days, took an extraordinarily far-sighted view on including young people with disabilities. When I think about the fellow pupils who had disabilities, I reflect on what a satisfying experience it was for them to be in such an environment. For the majority who did not have a disability, the issue never occurred to us; the approach that was taken was an act of normality. That is what I saw with my own eyes in a much more limited way than now. I am glad that the culture has moved on considerably, but I have seen that the idea of inclusion where possible works. I hope that it can continue and be carried much further, as it is a desirable objective.

Commendable practice of the sort that I have described is not, however, consistent. It is exactly the sort of activity that would be included in the disability equality schemes required by specific duties. Again, I ask for clarification, and I know that the Minister will respond. In November 2002, the DRC surveyed the aspirations and experiences of young disabled people. It found that many had low expectations about educational and employment opportunities. Almost half those interviewed said that they had experienced problems at schools for reasons related to their impairment, and 38 per cent. of respondents said that they had been bullied. Some 11 per cent. of those surveyed had been unable to get access to all school resources, and many also said that they had missed out on school sports or trips. A significant number felt that they had been actively discouraged by their teachers to consider higher education. We are aware that schools are required to have accessibility plans to try to combat such problems, but there is no requirement for them to evaluate the effect of the plans. The Government cannot tell us what effects such plans have had. In any case, Ofsted research demonstrates that 50 per cent. of schools do not even have the plans in the first place.

Furthermore, the drive of Government policy is to join up the different agencies dealing with children. The Children Act 2004 will extend the functions of some schools to include essential child care services, and many children's services in health and social care already deliver through schools. How does the Minister respond to claims from disability organisations that it is nonsensical that these services, which are delivered in schools, will be covered by specific duties while the schools will not?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

The Secretary of State has said that schools will be covered by specific duties.

Richard Spring (Conservative, West Suffolk)

I can only ask the Minister again: when she makes her winding-up speech, will she make it clear—for it is not clear in my mind—that such a provision is in the Bill and part of the relevant regulations? Schools make up about half of all public bodies, so it would appear strange to exclude them. Thirty-two of the organisations consulted felt that imposing specific duties on schools was important and that the issue of disability in schools had to be at the forefront of that. I look forward to the Minister's comments.

This Bill is wholly welcome; it closes all sorts of loopholes that needed to be closed. As we reflect on the past 10 years, we see that a considerable amount of progress has been made, but there are still areas to be addressed. I echo what has been said by so many other hon. Members this afternoon in hoping that we can complete the proceedings on this Bill as soon as possible.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to add my two ha'p'orth to this debate and to welcome the Bill. I echo many of the excellent contributions already made by hon. Members.

First, I should declare an interest as chairman of the Conservative disability group. I work closely with various groups in my constituency and in wider west Sussex—particularly with the West Sussex Association for the Disabled and the West Sussex Disabilities Network. I am vice-president of my local Mind branch and vice-chairman of the all-party group on autism.

The hon. Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) represents a seaside constituency, as I do. As he said, in such constituencies we have—not least because of the age profile of the populations—an above-average number of people with disabilities, not only physical disabilities but many mental disabilities: dementia-related disabilities such as Alzheimer's.

I should like to pick up on a few of the comments made by hon. Members. Typically, the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) made a very pertinent point—in this case, on how we view people who have disabilities. As she said, too many people call disabled people "the disabled" and think that all they really need is a place to play draughts. That same tokenism applies to elderly people, be it in Worthing or anywhere else—apparently, all they need is somewhere to play bingo—and to the young, whose problems of boredom can apparently be solved by building a skateboard park.

There is tokenism in all sections of society. That is why it is so important that the Bill should not be about tokenism, but about real action for disabled people, who are, first and foremost, people—people who happen to have disabilities and who enjoy and dislike certain things, just like anybody else in this Chamber or outside it. We are not here to discuss tokenism, but real measures that give real access to people who do not have it as fully as they might, but who have every right to it and should have every expectation of it.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) said, this long-awaited Bill is about social justice and builds on the good work done in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. We are foolish not to be doing much more to help people with disabilities. As hon. Members have said, people with disabilities often represent a great, untapped source of talent and potential and it is a waste not to tap into that. I echo the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe—although I shall not discuss them at such length—about the time that it has taken to get to this stage of the Bill. There were six and a half years between the Labour Government's 1997 commitment to produce such legislation and its appearance in the form of a draft Bill.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

The hon. Gentleman will realise that we dealt with 70 per cent. of our manifesto commitment on inclusion before the Bill was introduced because we could do so without primary legislation, so he is not being entirely accurate.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

The premise on which the Government made their disability proposals was that a new Bill, such as the one we are debating, was necessary to consolidate existing legislation and to take forward the disability reform programme. It has taken a long time and it is especially unfortunate that we are discussing the measure at the fag end of this Parliament. All the supporters of the Bill, inside and outside this place, have expressed concern that at best there will be minimal time for scrutiny and at worst that time will not be sufficient before the axe of the likely general election falls. None of us wants the Bill to go to waste, but that is not to say that more scrutiny should not be undertaken to improve it further.

We all agree on the need to consolidate legislation on disability discrimination 10 years on from the original Bill, which was introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague) when he had ministerial responsibilities for disabilities. I applaud the work done in another place, especially by my noble Friend Lord Skelmersdale, who described the measure as

"a needed Bill which could be made better".—[Official Report, House of Lords, 6 December 2004; Vol. 667, c. 675.]

Many of the actions of the upper House have made the Bill better, and I hope that the Government will respect those amendments.

Much can be improved through better regulation and the Minister rightly pointed out the good work that has been done through regulation rather than through primary legislation. I do not want to diminish that in any way. As my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) said, all Governments can take pride in, and claim credit for, building on a progressive foundation, started in 1995, for a much better deal for people with disabilities.

Definitions of disabilities, the way we treat disabilities and our social vision of disabilities have changed enormously just in the 10 years since the original Act, and it is right that legislation should keep up with both changing attitudes and changing physical and mental conditions. It is not merely about the visible physical illnesses with which people too often purely associate disability; it is about a whole range of mental conditions. I am pleased that they are mentioned in the Bill and I shall return to that point.

We need to be realistic about what is workable, however, and what will take business and the community at large with it, given that many of the new duties under the 1995 Act came into force only last October due to the long lead-in time. Several Members commented on that. I certainly agree with the proposed long lead-in times for some of the public transport considerations. My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) was right to welcome the emphasis on public transport, which is so essential for many people with disabilities, especially in rural areas.

I welcome the amendments made by Conservative peers to put an end date of 2020 on the Bill, although I should have liked that to be rather sooner. I reiterate the point that I made earlier about the lifetime of rail franchises. It is unacceptable that our constituents and those of us who use the train to travel between our homes and our constituencies still have to travel on slam-door trains from the 1950s. That still happens all too often on the south coast line, despite the fact that we have been through at least two train operators since privatisation. Any new bidders for the franchise should do so on the basis that from day one of their operation all their rolling stock will be disability-friendly and that slam-door trains will disappear, because their demise is long overdue. They are exceedingly unfriendly to anyone with any sort of disability. The obscenity of people in wheelchairs having to travel in the guard's van like a piece of luggage is also an entirely outdated concept that we should reject sooner than 2020.

A couple of years ago, a constituent of mine who is a civil servant was travelling up to London on one of the local services from Worthing. She is in a wheelchair. She was eventually able to arrange for someone to get her on to the train at Worthing station, which has a ramp, although it is not always available. However, the station in London at which she wanted to get off did not have a disability ramp available on the northbound platform. She had to go all the way up to Luton in order to get off the train. I am afraid that she did not spend much time there, although I am sure that the Government Whip, the hon. Member for Luton, South (Margaret Moran) would agree that she would have had a delightful time if she had.

My constituent then had to come all the way back to the London station at which she had originally intended to get off, where there was a disability ramp only on the southbound platform. That is absolute nonsense. Whoever was responsible had picked on the wrong person, however, because it so happened that my constituent was a member of the Government's Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, so the matter was reported straight away to the appropriate powers. That sort of thing still happens far too often, however. We need much greater clarity and transparency in the way in which new rolling stock and new disability-friendly public transport is coming on stream. My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk mentioned some of the atrocities that take place when people in wheelchairs or people with other disabilities try to get on to cheap flights, which really are not geared up for dealing with the large market of disabled people who enjoy going on holiday abroad just as much as anyone else.

I welcome the measures in the Bill that deal with local authorities and other public bodies. The Local Government Association has said in its briefing, however, that it wants to

"ensure that the administrative burdens resulting from this bill will be kept to a minimum. Where possible we would like to see timescales and processes aligned to allow authorities to develop generic equality schemes."

The LGA also believes that

"the provision to bring councillors within the scope of the DDA is long overdue, and we are happy to see clarity now given to the category of law occupied by disabled councillors. Local councillors will be better able to perform their community leadership role if there is no ambiguity about their treatment in law."

I entirely agree with that.

In many cases, local authorities could do more, and that is often a problem of funding. On several occasions, however, I have pushed a constituent around Worthing or other towns in my constituency in a wheelchair, just to see how easy it was to find disabled ramps—to go into the tourist information office, for example. I have found ramps set at an angle of about 45°. It was a struggle for me to push a little old lady in a wheelchair up such a ramp; imagine what it would be like for a little old lady pushing her husband, for example. It would be completely impossible. The provision of such ramps is tokenism; in practice, they are not doing the job that they are supposed to do. Local authorities could be more proactive in having local audits of disability access. It should be a question not of saying, "We've got the ramp; we can tick the box", but of asking, "Does that ramp actually work? Why aren't people using it? How can we improve it?"

In places such as Worthing, several people have mentioned problems relating to gaining access to the beach. Disabled people enjoy the beach just as much as the rest of us, but just let them try to get on to it. At the moment, a very large investment is being made in the sea defences in my constituency, which I very much welcome. This has involved large quantities of shingle being bulldozed up to the beach, the construction of rock groynes, and so on. That is fantastic for keeping the sea out of my constituents' front gardens, but very bad for enabling people with disabilities to get on to the beach to enjoy the facilities there. It has proved nigh on impossible for me to get the Environment Agency, the local council or whoever to devise a scheme whereby people—not just those with disabilities or those with extreme disabilities who may be in a wheelchair, but elderly people with sticks and parents with children in pushchairs—can gain access to facilities that we all like to enjoy, such as the beach. A lot more can be done.

We must also consider problems with social services departments, which are spending a lot of money and finding their budgets enormously squeezed. That is the case in West Sussex, where there was no real increase in spending on social services this year. They are, quite rightly, having to spend money to make adaptations so that people with disabilities can stay in their homes. Government policy is for more people to be able to stay in their homes longer—that is absolutely right, if it can be achieved—rather than, as the Under-Secretary of State for Health, the hon. Member for South Thanet (Dr. Ladyman), and the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, previously Secretary of State for Health, have described, elderly people being banged up in residential homes.

Well, it is horses for courses. Residential or nursing homes provide an excellent essential service for those people for whom it is appropriate. For those who are able, it is fantastic to be able to stay at home for longer and to have that encouraged, but this can happen in practice only if those facilities are available in homes so that people can look after themselves and have the support of home care visits and all that goes with them.

Social services departments are having their budgets squeezed, however, so this problem does not arise through a lack of desire to make those houses disabled-friendly. Often, they are not getting the extra money for that from a Government who are forcing them to allow more people to stay at home, even if in some cases that might not be entirely appropriate for the person concerned.

We need greater education and awareness among the public on disability issues and on getting rid of stigma for people with disabilities. That is certainly appropriate for local authorities when dealing with social housing, looking after people with learning disabilities and handling school allocations for people with disabilities. So the extra requirements in the Bill are welcome, but this is another example of placing extra requirements and resource implications on local authorities without necessarily providing the resources to make them possible and practical.

I return to the point that several hon. Members have made about the apparent exclusion of all the duties on schools and echo the request from my hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk that the Minister make this point crystal clear in her winding-up speech. Clearly, not only Members of the House, but many well informed bodies outside are confused about exactly what will be required of schools in respect of their disability obligations.

For example, the Children's Society briefing says:

"We recognise that schools are subject to a range of existing legislation and guidance in respect of special educational needs. However this is no substitute for clear and unequivocal regulations and guidance setting out schools duties.

Schools are at very different stages of meeting their current obligations and many disabled children. The recent Ofsted report "Special educational needs and disability: towards inclusive schools" published in October 2004 highlighted that over half the schools visited had no accessibility plans and that only a minority of mainstream schools meet special needs very well. More recent research involving interviews with LEA officers in 2004 shows that progress is slow and limited for disabled children in schools and that pupils with special educational needs are still losing out on admissions policies and practices."

The Disabilities Charities Consortium, in responding on why it thinks specific duties on schools are needed in the Bill, says:

"Schools have a particularly important role in promoting disability equality because of their unique influencing role on future generations. They provide the bedrock for disabled individuals' opportunities in future life.

We know that the schools system is currently not delivering equality of opportunity for disabled pupils. For example, 27 per cent. of disabled people aged 16–24 have no qualifications whatsoever, compared to 12 per cent. of non-disabled people of the same age, disabled people aged 18 are only 40 per cent. as likely to go to university as their non-disabled peers".

It continues:

"The Government's reluctance to impose the same specific duties on schools as on other public bodies means that unlike other public bodies, schools will not have to produce Disability Equality Schemes, involving disabled people in the process, nor will they have to monitor and report on their progress."

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

Many Members have mentioned this issue, and I keep saying that the specific duties will apply to schools, as the Secretary of State has made clear. It has only ever been proposed that the duties should be in regulations, as the hon. Gentleman will see from the Bill. They will therefore apply in the same way to schools through regulation as they will to any other public authority. I hope that that makes the position crystal clear to any Members who have been concerned about the issue.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

Will the Minister therefore confirm my point that disability equality schemes, for example, will be required to be produced by all?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

We have just completed a consultation on how the regulations should operate and what the regulations will say. When the regulations are published, the hon. Gentleman will see precisely how they will work. They will apply to schools as they will be applied to other public sector bodies.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I think that the Minister is now saying something different. She is talking about regulations that none of us have seen, and about a consultation exercise that does not form part of this legislation. That is why there is confusion. I have asked her a specific question as to how our fears can be allayed by the legislation, and that provision is not in place. It is only fair that such concerns should be aired. We will need clear guidance as to the form in which she suggests that the regulations will appear, when they will appear and how they will interact with this legislation. That is a fair point, and that is why Members have raised the concern time and again, much to her annoyance. Such concerns are legitimate, however.

In relation to education, I welcome the clauses dealing with the general qualifications bodies. I have a particular concern, as an officer of the all-party deafness group and having visited a deaf school recently, about some of the changes that some examining bodies have made, which would disadvantage seriously those with deafness. Previously, such people have been accommodated much more generously when taking exams. Perhaps the Minister will tell me, when she winds up, whether such considerations will now be included in the part of the Bill on general qualifications bodies.

Deafness is a disability that affects many of our constituents. I hosted recently a reception in the House by the deafness group, Sign, which does a lot of good work, particularly for deaf people with mental illness problems, too. It has produced some fantastic innovations and projects, including a software program that can be distributed to every GP in the country for the price of £10 per year, in which a signer in video form on a laptop screen goes through a list of symptoms and possible illnesses, pointing to parts of the body and so on. It is a simple and clever way of enabling a doctor who has no sign language to communicate with a deaf person. It also has applications for people who speak a different language, as a translatable version is possible.

In relation to mental illness, uniquely, patients have had to prove that their illness is clinically well recognised to secure the protection of the DDA. I welcome the amendments tabled in the upper House to deal with that, as it affects an awful lot of people. One in four of the population will experience a mental illness problem at some time in their life. One in 10 children now suffers from mental illness, much of which is related to depression. It is still a very big stigma. More of a stigma is probably attached to mental illness than to any other disability or physical condition. On the day on which the Joint Committee on the draft Mental Health Bill—of which I was a member—has produced its rather damning report, I must say that I fear the Government's proposals will do nothing to reduce that stigma. Indeed, in their present form they would do the opposite.

There is a big shortage not just of acute beds but cognitive behavioural therapy and other alternatives to drug treatment, especially counselling. I hope that some measures in the Bill will make it easier for people with mental illness to gain access to such services. Mental health has been very poorly served by anti-discrimination legislation. The Disability Charities Consortium says:

"These provisions cause real problems for people with depression . . . depression is typically severe though relatively short-lived but discrimination against the person is commonplace . . . once there is a medical record of having had depression in the past, however distant or short-lived, discrimination is common."

My hon. Friend the Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) gave figures demonstrating how difficult it is for such people to find jobs. There are the "revolving door" patients who go into residential accommodation for treatment, then recover, leave the accommodation and may be able to secure straightforward jobs for a time, but then relapse and have to return. The DCC continues:

"However case law has shown that this provision is not effective in the case of depression. There are differences of view within the medical profession as to whether (and when) episodes of depression are manifestations of an underlying condition and when they are discrete episodes. As a result experts often disagree in court on the issues. Furthermore, doctors often, understandably, feel reluctant to testify that a person with a first episode is likely to have a recurrence."

The risk of a recurrence of an episode of depression within a five-year period is as high as 70 per cent., which is a problem for people wanting to enter employment.

In this more than any other context, we need a joined-up approach to, for example, helping people with mental illness back into housing when they have been in residential accommodation. I am particularly concerned about what the Government are doing with the supported housing project. According to a parliamentary answer from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister today, some 12,000 individuals and households benefit from the supporting people programme, which is now to be cut. In Worthing, in my part of west Sussex, it will be cut by some 30 per cent. Many people with mental illness problems who have benefited greatly from that project will not be able to do so any more, and I think that that has severe implications. I urge the Government to think again about trying to reverse the amendments on depression that were made in another place.

At the same time as introducing regulations, restrictions and duties on public bodies such as local authorities and schools, we should bear in mind the enormous amount of good practice that goes on. We should do all that we can to encourage such good practice. It need not be costly. One of the best examples is provided by the store B&Q, which showed itself to be enlightened and progressive when it saw a niche market and became much more disabled-friendly—just as, some time earlier, it had become more environmentally friendly.

To a greater extent than many other large retailers, B&Q has a policy of encouraging the employment of people with disabilities—people with physical disabilities who may be in wheelchairs, and people with learning disabilities. Surprise, surprise, it has found that such people make rather more reliable and hard-working members of staff than some others. Surprise, surprise, it has found that it takes a larger share of the disabled customer base because people see that it is disability-friendly—and not only in terms of providing wheelchairs, situating signs at a lower level and providing large print signs, and not only because it employs people with disabilities. Disabled people like to shop there and B&Q has made a commercial success out of being disability-friendly. If only many more retailers and businesses followed that example! We should not only be imposing more regulations: we should be pointing to the attractions and benefits for everybody—it is a win-win situation—from encouraging good practice among businesses that become disability-friendly.

There are more things in the Bill to be scrutinised and it would benefit from more time in Committee than I fear it will get if the general election is on 5 May. I do not take the point made by the hon. Member for Aberdeen, South that a pre-legislative scrutiny Committee is in some way a substitute for this Chamber or the upper Chamber having a full opportunity to scrutinise the Bill. It is complementary to the process and helps to prepare the Bill before it comes to this place. However, it will deserve no less scrutiny because of that process when it goes through the upper House or this Chamber.

The Government need to come out with further details, but I join all Members who have spoken in this excellent debate in welcoming the Bill and in hoping that it will get on to the statute book before the general election. I hope also that the benefits that it will bring can be enjoyed by our many of our constituents who have disabilities as soon as possible.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

With the leave of the House, Mr. Deputy Speaker, I should like to respond to the debate. The Under-Secretary has a lot of ground to cover, so I will not go into detail on the three comprehensive and knowledgeable speeches from Government Members—from the hon. Members for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg), for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) and for High Peak (Tom Levitt)—or the three equally knowledgeable and sensitive speeches from my hon. Friends the Members for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) and for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) and, not least, my relentlessly inclusive hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell).

I shall not repeat points made in the debate but shall raise one that arose during it. Much of the debate has focused on what will happen with any time that we have in Committee, which the Under-Secretary knows is likely to be limited. It would be helpful if she gave some idea of the priority that the Government will place on the Bill in Committee. It would be regrettable if that time were spent on rolling back the gain made on depression.

This is a good and worthwhile Bill with all-party support and the Under-Secretary will now have a chance to respond to the debate.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I concur with the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) that we have had an excellent debate and on a number of other things that he said. It is a privilege for me to reply for the Government.

I believe strongly that completing the implementation of full civil rights for disabled people is something of which the Labour Government can be proud. Having listened to the general support for the Bill from all parts of the House, I believe that the progress that it represents when it is enacted will be a change for good for disabled people in Britain. By good, I do not only mean a change for the better in the individual day-to-day lives of our disabled fellow citizens but also that it will achieve permanent change and improvements that will not be reversed in the future by any Government.

For disabled people, this is a major advance, a milestone on their road to true equality and equal respect in our society. Our society is part of the way through a journey. We have left behind the place where disabled people were ignored, excluded and even hidden away, and sometimes feared, reviled, ridiculed and abused. But we need to get to a place where they have full opportunities and choices in life—where they are respected and included as equal members of our society and feel free, like the rest of us, to live their lives and to contribute their talents to our country and to our world. I doubt whether anybody in the House disagrees with that.

This Government have listened to the just demand made by disabled people over the years for true equality and we are acting to speed progress ever faster toward the goals of inclusion, respect, equality and improved life chances. The Bill is a great step forward and I welcome the widespread recognition of that fact across the House. In particular, I welcome the support of the Conservatives, whose eagerness to be seen as the champions of disabled people's rights, as represented in the speeches of the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr. Goodman) and his colleagues, is absolutely apparent.

Such eagerness is very much to be welcomed, but some seasoned observers of this scene might be a tiny bit surprised by it. After all, it was the Conservatives who, for 16 of their last 18 years in office, did regrettably little when they had the power to change disabled people's lives. They repeatedly squandered the opportunity, provided by the work of my noble Friend Lord Morris in the 1970s, to enable Britain to lead the world on disability civil rights. We could have been much further ahead had they taken forward these issues at the beginning of their period in office, instead of at the very end. It is the Conservatives who, reluctantly, passed what proved to be flawed and inadequate anti-discrimination legislation, after using parliamentary tactics for many years to prevent disabled people from having rights. It is a truly astonishing conversion that we have witnessed today, but I stress that it is very welcome.

Many Conservative Members stressed transport provision, but I find myself wondering why the party that originally refused to define transport as a service in the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 is now urging me to bring the proposed end date in respect of transport forward from 2020 to 2017. The Conservatives' legislation did not even include a power to set end dates, so this is something of a conundrum, but as I said, their conversion is very welcome. Indeed, I welcome support from all parts of the House.

Numerous issues were raised during the debate and I will do my best to deal with as many as possible. The hon. Member for Wycombe raised five different issues, including one stressed by other Members: clause 18 and the "depression amendment", if I might refer to it in that shorthand. Since its inception, a fundamental principle of the DDA has been that it protects people who are disabled. The general understanding of "disability" is that it is a condition with a long-term and substantial adverse effect, so there is a basic difficulty in that term's covering people who experience isolated, short spells of depression or any other short-term condition. The legislation has always excluded people with short-term conditions and it is equally important that, as we work to improve its coverage, we do not make it too complicated for those upon whom such obligations are to be placed. The House should remember that, in many cases, we are talking about small businesses and we must not make it too difficult for them to understand and appreciate who is covered by the legislation and who is not.

We do not believe that the proposed amendment has been thought through properly. For example, if it were accepted, the DDA would provide lifetime coverage for someone who suffered a six-month period of post-natal depression, and who suffered another period of depression five years later that had a completely different cause, such as the loss of a parent or other relative. We would all have a great deal of sympathy for such a person, but most of us would not consider them disabled, and we have always tried to be careful not to include in the legislation people who are not seen as disabled. That is the fundamental difficulty that we have with the amendment, and I hope that Members in all parts of the House will recognise that fact. Conversely, the amendment would not cover someone whose circumstances were exactly the same, but who had had five rather than six months of post-natal depression. In other words, the implications are somewhat arbitrary, which cannot be justified. That is our basic difficulty with the amendment.

Tim Loughton (Conservative, East Worthing and Shoreham)

I regret the fact that the Minister was so churlish in her highly partisan comments earlier in her speech. Will she acknowledge that a person suffering post-natal depression for six months would, under her Government's draft Mental Health Bill, be much more likely to be subject to sectioning? Does she believe that such coercive legislation will help to counter the stigma that people suffering from mild mental illness often face? It will do nothing for the rights and entitlements of people with disabilities, yet the Government are seeking to introduce such a measure at the fag-end of their time in office.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

I thought that my introductory remarks were relatively subdued and gentle. I am not going to be drawn into discussing the draft mental health legislation. I am trying to explain to the House, as I have been asked to do, why we are considering reversing the amendment on depression. Members can agree or disagree, but I am simply explaining it to the House.

We do not believe that it is sensible to extend the law in respect of just one type of condition or to breach the principle of long-term conditions on which the legislation is based. Now is not the right time to do that. Conservative Members should realise that this is not the end of the road for disability rights. It is not as if there will be no further opportunities to tweak and improve legislation. I hope that I have dealt with the matter of depression.

The hon. Member for Wycombe and others raised the issue of cancer and, in particular, whether the regulations should exclude certain types. I understand the concern of many people both in and outside the House, but I want to stress that we are carrying out the recommendations of the Disability Rights Task Force, on which we consulted. The results of that consultation showed that 87 per cent. of respondents approved of the policy. These concerns have been raised with us rather late in the day. That does not mean that they are unreasonable—I fully understand them, as I said—but in deciding whether to include those whom a reasonable person would not view as disabled, we have to achieve a balance. That is what we are trying to do.

We are trying to move forward on this matter by undertaking to seek evidence about stigma relating to the conditions that we propose to exclude in the regulations. We shall also have detailed discussions with organisations outside the House, including those mentioned by the hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes), to establish any evidence of stigma. If any evidence is forthcoming, we are open to persuasion and we have said that the regulation-making power will not be used until we are absolutely clear about the issue of stigma. We have consulted on five different types of cancer.

I believe that that provides a positive way forward and I hope that hon. Members on both sides of the House are reassured that this is not a matter that we have come up with at a late stage to cause confusion or a stir. The Disability Rights Task Force made the recommendation, we consulted on it and 87 per cent. of respondents agreed with it. We will, of course, take account of any further concerns and the Secretary of State made it clear in his opening remarks that we intend to be as positive as possible. There is no intention to cause unnecessary complexity or to leave out people who should be included just for the sake of it.

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

I asked one question on this point, which had to with the timetable for the Government's response to the consultation and review.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

Which consultation is the hon. Gentleman referring to?

Paul Goodman (Conservative, Wycombe)

The consultation and review in respect of the cancers at present excluded from cover.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

We want to give those organisations that have raised those concerns at quite a late stage in the process time to submit any evidence that they may have that stigma is attached to those conditions. We will not be rigid about the matter and we will give them the time that they need. There is no reason why regulations under this power should be made according to any speedy time scale. We need to make sure that we get this matter right, to everyone's satisfaction. I hope that that reassures those hon. Members who raised the issue.

The hon. Member for Wycombe also asked when section 146 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 would come into effect. My understanding is that he will not have to wait long, as it will come into effect on 4 April. I hope that he will be pleased with the speedy response that I have been able to give him on that question.

Several hon. Members asked about end dates and the 2020 deadline. Bringing the end dates further forward than originally planned would impose extra costs on industry, but that has to be balanced against the speed with which we can make our transport system more easily accessed by disabled people. We always need to be pragmatic about such matters. The Bill is all about balancing the needs of disabled people against the costs incurred by certain stakeholders in society, such as businesses.

We think that 2020 is the right date. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State said, that does not for a moment imply that no transport vehicles will be ready before then. The accessibility regulations for rail and bus vehicles are already having a positive impact. For example, 3,800 fully accessible rail vehicles are already in service, with 700 more to follow in the next 12 months. The total fleet comprises some 16,500 vehicles, so a good quarter is already fully accessible, and that shows that we are making progress.

Of the taxi fleet, 56 per cent. is already wheelchair accessible, although I admit that that figure mainly applies to black cabs, which are easier to render accessible than other vehicles. However, we expect steady progress towards improvement to be made between now and the end dates. We do not expect everything to remain as it is now until we reach the end dates, with a sudden improvement as those dates approach.

The DRC accepted that 2020 is a reasonable deadline. I fully understand that disabled people wish that everything could be accessible now rather than at some time in the future, but the House must recognise that we have to overcome a legacy of inaccessibility. Transport was not included in the 1995 Act, and that has not helped over the past 10 years. Part 3 of the Bill deals with transport, and that will help deal with some of the other problems that hon. Members set out. We have all heard the stories about ramps that are not used, bus drivers who drive past and disabled people having to use slam-door rolling stock.

By the way, the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) might be interested to know that I have been told that the slam-door stock on the lines in his area ought to be replaced by the end of the year. I can say no more on that subject, but replacement will clearly be very welcome. I agree with him that it is outrageous that wheelchair users should be expected to travel in the guard's van. One of my constituents told me a similar story only a little while ago, so we know that such things still happen. Including transport fully and properly in this Bill is a good way to make sure that they will not continue.

Tom Levitt (Labour, High Peak)

I am a regular user of the Pendolino service on the west coast main line, where disabled wheelchair access is very good, but the same cannot be said for the trains on branch lines. I appreciate that, for the reasons that I gave in my speech, there has to be a relatively long lead-in time. Nevertheless, while the number of carriages that are accessible is less than 100 per cent., a disabled person will not know whether the branch service that they want to use is accessible. Will there be a way of encouraging train operators to ensure that at least one coach in every train is disabled accessible in the time leading up to when 100 per cent. can be achieved?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

My hon. Friend raises the issue of better quality information for passengers. Many train operators are getting much better than they used to be, and they are beginning to realise that disabled people have a lot of money to spend, that they like to travel as much as anybody else and that excluding them from transport services excludes not only the disabled people but often their entire family from a journey. We are seeing an increasing realisation of that among businesses and that is something that we want to encourage.

The other big issue raised during the debate concerned how the general and specific duties would apply to schools. I kept trying to be clear, although I appear to have failed to convince hon. Members about how clear I was. The general duties are in the Bill, and the specific duties will be in regulation-making powers. The Department consulted on how they will apply last year and draft regulations set out how the specific duties are intended to work. We have consulted on those regulations, which are in the Library, so there is some indication of what the duties will consist of. They will cover matters such as a disability equality scheme, demonstrating that disabled people have been involved in producing the scheme and action plan, setting out a plan of action to make improvements, and other such arrangements.

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made it clear in his introduction to the debate that the specific duties will apply to schools, and the Bill has never been about trying to place onerous burdens on anybody, whether schools or any other public sector body. It is not about trying to ensure that public sector bodies are engaged in bureaucratic form-filling and box-ticking but ensuring that we design out institutional discrimination from the way in which our public sector works. Such discrimination is often one of the biggest obstacles to disabled people in their attempt to live ordinary lives: to access services and goods, to go to work and to do all the things that the rest of us take for granted.

David Taylor (Labour/Co-operative, North West Leicestershire)

No doubt the regulations to which my hon. Friend is referring arise partly out of discussions with the Department for Education and Skills. What further discussions are planned as the regulations emerge so that the DFES and schools are clear about their role in promoting the Government's policy for disabled children and their families?

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

Discussions take place between Departments all the time—that is about all that I can say. Of course we will discuss with colleagues across Government how such measures work and how they are implemented.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South (Miss Begg) made an excellent contribution, based as ever on her personal experience. She is much respected in this House as someone who has more right than most to speak on the issue. She welcomed the legislation and gave some examples from her constituency of some other difficult issues that the Bill tries to tackle, such as housing. I acknowledge that the Bill does not deal fully with housing for disabled people. It was never intended to, and civil rights legislation is not the only way in which the issue can be tackled. However, I hope that, as others have done, she will welcome our move to try to make some progress in dealing with the issue of common parts in housing. Housing for disabled people is one of the most difficult issues that remains to be dealt with. The Disability Rights Task Force did not deal with common parts in its recommendations and we will have to return to the matter, whether in civil rights legislation or elsewhere. We must get better at ensuring that disabled people can access housing. As society ages, as more of us become disabled and as young disabled people live longer, the matter cannot be left. It remains unfinished business.

The Bill makes progress because, for the first time, the concept of civil rights applies to the landlord and tenant relationship, although it does not cover common parts. The working group that my Department established to look at progress on common parts could be a positive way of looking at next steps. We hope that it will return to Ministers by the end of the year with recommendations on how to go forward.

My hon. Friend the Member for High Peak (Tom Levitt), who has a distinguished record of speaking on these issues in the House and served on the Joint Committee—as did my hon. Friend the Member for Aberdeen, South—made his usual robust contribution, which made my gentle musings about the Opposition's record seem mild. I enjoyed his speech and, as ever, he emphasised issues of concern to deaf people on which he has an excellent record in the House.

The hon. Member for Chesterfield (Paul Holmes) generally welcomed the Bill and I was pleased to hear that. He made it clear that some organisations representing local government also welcomed it and I am also pleased about that, because the public sector duty to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people applies not only to central Government, but to local government. I was heartened that local government organisations, as well as Whitehall Departments, recognise that we need to do better. The public sector duty to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people could make a real difference to their lives during the next few years, so I was pleased to hear that his party supports the Bill.

The hon. Gentleman referred to the lack of an equalities Act and I heard what he said. He knows that a review is considering some of the issues and I would not want to pre-empt any recommendations that it might make. After some of the extensive revisions to the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the article 13 regulations, the legislation is ripe for consolidation because it will be virtually unreadable for lawyers, never mind lay people, by the time the Bill is enacted. We will have to return to that.

The hon. Member for West Suffolk (Mr. Spring) came to the issue through the experience of a member of his staff, which is a typical way in which hon. Members come to believe that the issue is important. He stressed the general and specific duties and whether they apply to schools. I hope that I have been able to answer his questions.

My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South (Mr. Marsden) also came to the issue through personal experience, but in his case it was family experience. He emphasised a point that no other hon. Member had raised, but with which we all agree—that carers are important to disabled people. We all know and accept that from our constituency experience. He gave credit to many local organisations for disabled people in his constituency, which is an experience that many of us in the House can relate to. We all know organisations for disabled people in our constituencies that do invaluable work daily to support disabled people and to ensure that their voices are heard, although disabled people are increasingly doing that themselves.

My hon. Friend praised a local journalist, as opposed to what might be described as the less than praise for a national journalist that we heard from the hon. Member for Chesterfield in relation to an article in The Times today. I read the article by Alice Miles and what struck me most was the lack of any kind of analysis of the point that discrimination might be occurring. That is the problem I had with the article, but it is clear that not all journalists are as unenlightened. My hon. Friend the Member for Blackpool, South was able to illustrate that with reports of a local journalist who does sterling work in his constituency.

Other hon. Members referred with approbation to the extension of the legislation to private clubs. Of course that includes political parties, and the Bill will challenge and test all of us to ensure that we put our money where our mouths are and change the way in which we relate to our own members—because we are member organisations—so that we do not exclude disabled people. It is daunting in many ways, because the Bill will place far more obligations on all of us as members of private clubs, which we all are as members of political parties. We are taking on some difficult issues and we have to ensure that we get them right.

The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) made his usual thoughtful speech, although I cannot agree with him that the Bill has been delayed. I understand why Opposition Members have claimed that, but the Bill has been improved by the extensive consultation. We need to get it right, because such legislation will be successful only if it gains general support within society. There is no point having theoretical rights on the statute book that do not have the approbation of those upon whom they place obligations. The Bill is now balanced from that point of view. It has been widely consulted on and will be much more widely accepted as a result.

The Bill plugs gaps that need dealing with, such as the transport exemption from part 3, the non-application of the law to councillors and private clubs, which includes political parties, and the functions of public authorities not already covered by the service and employment provisions. It also strengthens and improves the effectiveness of our anti-discrimination laws.

I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Oxford, East (Mr. Smith), who is in his place and who was involved in the issue from the start. He established the Disability Rights Task Force and, as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, he was assiduous in ensuring that the legislation made progress.

Andrew Smith (Labour, Oxford East)

I apologise for not having been here for the earlier speeches. I thank my hon. Friend the Minister for her kind and generous remarks. She is evidently drawing her remarks to a close, but we should not fail to mention that her energy and dedication to the cause and the evident command of her brief that she has shown today and on other occasions are largely responsible for the fact that the legislation is now receiving its Second Reading. In particular, my hon. Friend, her officials and her ministerial team have worked with disabled people and that is the key to getting the Bill right and to implementation, so that we can translate the rights on paper into rights in reality. That will be a huge step forward for disabled people in this country and this Government can be truly proud of that.

Maria Eagle (Labour, Liverpool, Garston)

My right hon. Friend is very generous.

The Bill places the public sector unequivocally in the lead as exemplars, requiring of us all a systematic effort to remove institutional discrimination—the often unthought-of barriers that provide the biggest obstacles to disabled people's equality. It is that provision that has the potential to enable us to end discrimination for good by designing it out of how we do things. I believe that that is an exciting prospect.

Once the Bill is enacted, we can move on to focus our efforts on making the rights we have placed on the statute book a reality in the day-to-day lives of our disabled fellow citizens, instead of being theories in a law book. The Government already have a blueprint for doing just that in the Prime Minister's strategy unit report "Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People". Our next great challenge is to implement that and to make a reality of independent living and employment opportunities for all. That is our manifesto for disabled people and, as a cross-Government paper, it already has the merit of being accepted Government policy.

Today, however, we should not allow the remaining challenges of the future to obscure the sense of celebration that we should all feel as we send the Bill on its way through the House. The Disability Rights Commission says that the Bill

"represents a major advance for disabled people".

It further states:

"It is now imperative that the Bill reaches the statute book in advance of a general election."

I think that we all concur. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.