,
Can I start by thanking the Choices and Rights coalition – for giving me the opportunity to speak to you today.
You have a very full and interesting agenda and I’m glad that you’ve found time to include the Government’s perspective.
I appreciate that Ministerial roles and responsibilities can sometimes be confusing.
Perhaps especially so at the moment, with Gordon Brown becoming the new Prime Minister and a new Cabinet in place.
I am a member of the Ministerial team at the Department for Work and Pensions – and also have a cross-Government role as Minister for Disabled People.
This role was created by the Labour Government under Harold Wilson to ensure the ‘choices and rights’ of disabled people were championed within Government.
As well as being directly responsible for a portfolio of policies and services that support disabled people, it's my job to ensure that Government works together on issues that impact on the lives of disabled people.
But, as some of you may know, I wasn’t always a Member of Parliament.
I worked in the voluntary sector for many years – with both disadvantaged young people and adults with learning difficulties. So I have a longstanding interest in the issues and barriers facing disabled people and I’m very proud that I have been asked to continue in my current role.
I want to take this opportunity to reassure you that, while we have a new Prime Minister, this Government’s commitment to tackling all form of inequality in this country remains the same – as Gordon said when he took office, “[he] wants the best of chances for everyone”.
As I’ve said, I’m very conscious that you have a very full agenda, so I want to keep my contribution relatively brief today.
But, in the time I have today, I would like to set out some of the key elements of the Government’s strategy for disabled people.
Twenty-five years ago, when I first worked alongside disabled people, they were almost invisible in everyday life.
Disabled people had very few rights and, where those rights were in place, they had only been granted reluctantly – thankfully, we’ve come a long way in a relatively short space of time.
Since 1997, this Government has delivered the biggest extension of disability civil rights this country has ever seen. And, partly as a result, we now see:
This change was due in no small part to the efforts of organisations led by disabled people – like Choices and Rights – who were at the heart of that struggle.
Whilst I believe we should also take confidence from how far we have come over the past decade, I am under no illusion that we have still got some way to go before disabled people are empowered to participate fully in society.
I don’t have to tell you that disabled people are still significantly worse off than the rest of the population on almost every measure – including social networks, income, employment and longevity.
Government’s vision for disabled people and strategy to address this continuing inequality was set out in the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit report, Improving the Life Chances of Disabled People, which was published in early 2005.
The report presented compelling evidence that too often our public services are delivered in a way that excludes and limits the experiences, abilities and ambitions of disabled people.
The main themes that emerged from the Life Chances report for me were that:
The Government made a commitment in that report that “by 2025, disabled people should have the same opportunities and choices as non-disabled people, and be respected and included as equal members of society.”
Through its sixty recommendations – dealing with issues from the early years, the transition to adulthood, employment and independent living – the report sets out a roadmap to equality.
I’m pleased to say that we’re making important progress on some of the key recommendations, for example:
I hope you agree that, taken together, these developments are significant.
But, perhaps more important than any other single measure, we are seeing a cultural shift within Government and the wider public sector which is being driven by the new Disability Equality Duty.
The duty places a positive requirement on all public bodies – including local authorities – to promote equality of opportunity for disabled people and to tackle discrimination.
The duty isn’t “regulation for regulation’s sake” and it’s certainly not just about ticking a box – it’s about delivering services that meet the needs of all our citizens.
And it’s about ensuring that public bodies, which are providing public services, are making a public commitment to promote equality.
We’re still at an early stage, but I am pleased to say that all but a tiny minority of public bodies have got their equality schemes in place.
The ODI, which acts as my eyes and ears within Government, has already undertaken an audit and will also be working with the Disability Rights Commission to evaluate the impact of these schemes – and ensure they are working effectively.
The Disability Equality Duty is unique in that enshrines in law the principle that disabled people should be given a genuine chance to shape and influence the policies and services which have an impact on their lives.
Public bodies will only be able to meet their legal obligations if they can demonstrate that disabled people have been involved in the production of their Disability Equality Schemes – and if they can demonstrate that this involvement has materially changed their policies or services.
Of course, that kind of involvement can sometimes be easy to sign up to – but much more difficult to deliver in practice.
I know there are representatives from local authorities and service providers, as well as disabled people’s organisations and service users in the audience today – and I hope today’s event will help stimulate your thinking about how you can have ongoing and positive engagement with each other.
But I also want to be frank with you and say that not everything is rosy in the garden.
Many user-led organisations are experiencing financial difficulties – and some organisations that do invaluable work in both supporting disabled people to live independently in the community and delivering local services are facing an uncertain future.
We’re determined to turn this situation around and ensure that, in every local authority area, there is an organisation modelled on the existing centres for independent living – like the one based here in Hull and East Riding. How we do that presents a challenge, but I can tell you that this is something that my colleague Ivan Lewis, who is responsible for Care Services at the Department of Health and I are very concerned about and we are currently working towards a solution.
I also want to say something about the importance of employment in achieving equality for disabled people. The number of disabled people in employment, for me, is one of the critical ‘acid tests’ in understanding how far as a society we are breaking down the barriers to social exclusion.
This Government has recognised the importance of this and has invested heavily in Jobcentre Plus, in the New Deal for Disabled People, in Access to Work, as well as in the ground-breaking Pathways to Work programme.
As a result, there are many more diasabled people in work and the numbers claiming incapacity benefits are beginning to fall. The Welfare Reform Act 2007, which rolls our the Pathways to Work is the next step and continues our efforts to shift the focus of the welfare system from what people can’t do to what to people can do. Many businesses already employ disabled people and are reaping the rewards. But as research published by my Department earlier this year highlighted, while employer awareness of the Disability Discrimination Act and employer attitudes towards tackling discrimination have both improved over the past four years, there is still a long way to go.
As many as 1 in 5 establishments were unaware of the employment provisions of the DDA; 1 in 3 unaware of the provisions relating to goods, facilities and services. Less than a fifth had understood that someone diagnosed with cancer would be included within the DDA definition of disability. This is not acceptable, but we can’t just hope employers will change their perceptions of disability. We need to actively engage with and support them. Since March, the National Employment Panel and Employers’ Forum on Disability have, with support from the Office for Disability Issues, been piloting a series of events called ‘Realising Potential’.
These events aim to help employers to develop their awareness of disability issues and to take advantage of the advice and services available from Jobcentre Plus. These events draw on the experience and knowledge of the National Employment Panel and the Employers’ Forum on Disability and develop the case for the recruitment and retention of disabled people. Employers themselves provide delegates with real-life examples of the positive impact upon their business of being ‘disability confident’. The feedback from this project, including feedback from successful events here in Hull earlier this year, has been very positive – and I am very pleased to be able to announce today that that we are rolling out this project.
Alongside this, we will be piloting the “Employ Ability” campaign in the four cities of Leeds, Bradford, Manchester and Liverpool from this September. This campaign aims to challenge some of the negative assumptions about disabled workers – and improve employers’ access to practical information.
I hope that I’ve made clear in my contribution today that this Government is committed to equality for disabled people.
In closing, I just want to add that – despite all the good work and progress that I’ve touched on – we still have a very long way to go. The Government didn’t set a 20-year target through lack of ambition, but because we recognised that the barriers experienced by disabled people have developed over many years and it will take time as well as sustained effort and investment to remove them. Inevitably, there will be some huge challenges and difficult decisions ahead.
But, if we get this right, the prize of success – in terms of our society, in terms of our economy, in terms of our country – could not be greater. Thank you again for your time – I hope you have a very successful conference.
Page last reviewed: 11 August 2008