Revised

Members present

Baroness Deech (Chair)

Baroness Brinton

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton

Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland

Lord Harrison

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington

Lord McColl of Dulwich

Baroness Pitkeathley

Baroness Thomas of Winchester

________________

Examination of Witnesses

Neil Crowther, Independent Consultant, former Director of Disability and Human Rights Programmes at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and Nick O'Brien, Independent Consultant, former Director of Legal Operations at the Disability Rights Commission and expert in ombudsmen

Q157 The Chairman: Good afternoon, Mr Crowther and Mr O’Brien; we meet again. As I expect you know, this session is open to the public. A webcast will go out live and is subsequently accessible via the parliamentary website. A verbatim transcript will be taken of the evidence and put on the parliamentary website. A few days after this session, you will be sent a copy of the transcript for correction. If you have any corrections, we would be very grateful to receive them as soon as possible. If, after this session, there is anything extra you would like to tell us or anything you wish to clarify, please write in, because as you know our time is fairly limited and it may well be that you think of things afterwards that you wish you had told us. If a bell goes, that means there is a vote and we will have to adjourn for 10 minutes or so while we go downstairs to vote and then come up again. Would you like to introduce yourselves to us? Then we will move on to the questions.

Neil Crowther: I am Neil Crowther. I am an independent consultant with a particular focus on human rights, equality and disability rights. I was previously a Director of the Disability Programme at the Equality and Human Rights Commission and, before that, Head of Policy at the Disability Rights Commission.

Nick O'Brien: I am Nick O’Brien. I am a judge in the mental health tribunal and an honorary research fellow at Liverpool University. I was formerly Legal Director at the Disability Rights Commission and at one time Director of Policy and Public Affairs at the office of the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

The Chairman: Thank you. If any of us have relevant interests to declare, we will do so before putting a question. To save time, I will just refer to the interests of Lady Campbell, who has so many. She is a patron of Just Fair; a patron of the National Disability Archive; founder and member of Not Dead Yet UK; recipient of a social care personal budget, disability living allowance and Access to Work. She was a Disability Rights Commissioner throughout the life of the Disability Rights Commission and she was a Commissioner, for three years, of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The first question is going to come from Baroness Thomas.

Q158 Baroness Thomas of Winchester: Good afternoon. I receive DLA, am a trustee and Vice‑President of Muscular Dystrophy UK, a patron of Thrive and a member of the disability access committee at Lord’s. A number of our witnesses have regretted the incorporation of the Disability Rights Commission into the EHRC. Is there any way of making the EHRC more effective in relation to disability, short of recreating the DRC? Would it help, for example, to put the disability committee of the EHRC on a permanent statutory basis? I do not mind which of you starts, but I expect you both have views.

Neil Crowther: If I can answer your question in reverse, I do not think putting the disability committee of the EHRC on a permanent statutory basis of itself would make the commission more effective. It might help prevent things from getting worse. My experience from my time there was that, on a number of occasions, the committee as a body of experts intervened to ensure that issues were addressed that might otherwise not have been, for example in relation to features of the Equality Act and the position that the EHRC took on them.

Many of the issues that people regret about that transition are to do with the overall focus and operation of the commission. For example, a perception that it is not doing sufficient enforcement work is not of itself a factor to do with the committee. It would not be a magic bullet because, whatever its statutory remit, its operating context is the commission as a whole.

The major issue is the commission’s depleted resources. For equality and human rights as a whole, it has fewer resources than the Disability Rights Commission had in its last full year of operation, nine years ago. That means that, where the Disability Rights Commission was making strategic choices on what to do about disability rights, the Equality and Human Rights Commission has to choose whether to do anything about disability rights, in competition with, say, stop and search or maternity rights and so on. It is a different beast.

Not only does that mean the overall quantum of resources devoted to disability rights is vastly reduced; it also means that the commission has become more of a bit player than a strategic leader on disability rights issues. The committee’s status in the EHRC is more akin to that of the older and disabled people committee in Ofcom than it is the board of the Disability Rights Commission within its operation.

There is one case to put it on a statutory footing, though, and it is slightly different from where it began. Since the EHRC came into being, it has become the recognised independent mechanism for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the UK. Central to that convention is the principle of involvement. Internationally, the committee stands out as pretty good practice among national human rights institutions as a mode of involving disabled people in a meaningful way.

Were the committee to be renewed on a statutory basis, explicit reference to the commission’s role in relation to the convention would be extremely valuable. The other benefit is that it would give the committee a role again in relation to that broader strategic leadership on disability rights, rather than just on an issue‑by‑issue basis.

Nick O'Brien: I agree with that. Making it statutory and long term would be a desirable step, but not sufficient. The key factor is hardwiring the place of disability within the overall strategy of the commission. The big thing that has changed since the EHRC was set up is the arrival of the UN convention. The rationale, therefore, for the committee has changed. The acceptance of that rather deeper rationale is probably one of the key changes in mentality that needs to be accepted within the commission’s general outlook, to enable disability to be hardwired in the way that is needed.

Baroness Thomas of Winchester: What can anyone do about that hardwiring of disability in the EHRC?

Nick O'Brien: It comes down to persuasion, winning the intellectual argument for the distinctive features of disability, but that is very much aided now by the arrival of the convention and the distinctive role the commission has, as an independent mechanism for monitoring that convention. It does not really have, as I understand it, a similar role in respect of other strands. There is something distinctive about the role that has to be played internationally by the commission. That is in turn based upon good intellectual reasons relating to the distinctiveness of disability. If that argument can be won and accepted more generally at a strategic level, then that could filter down into daily practice. Making the committee statutory is probably an important signal to send out, and a necessary but not sufficient step.

Baroness Thomas of Winchester: How much do you think cutting the budget right down, and the fact they have far less money than the DRC ever had, has made a difference?

Neil Crowther: I cannot see a rational argument as to why it could not have made a huge difference. The budget now is less than a third of what it was when it opened its doors. Its staff resource is much, much smaller. In some ways, that has meant it has had to be more creative in the work that it has done. Some of the key projects it has delivered on disability rights are often overlooked. There have been some important developments: its work on disability‑related harassment; its work to date on the UN convention; and it work on home care for older people. That is a series of really important outputs, but its scope to act has reduced significantly because of its available budget.

The process by which that budget is set is a dialogue with Government. It is important, if the Committee does not recognise it, to recognise that process, in the sense that the commission puts forward budget proposals to Government and they are or are not accepted. For example, I believe the commission was keen to do work around the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and to support civil society to engage with it. It sought a budget for that, but that was declined. There is the influence of Government on the agenda of the EHRC as well, which is important to acknowledge.

Q159 Baroness Pitkeathley: I want to ask you about reasonable adjustment. Some witnesses believe that the law should be more detailed on what constitutes a reasonable adjustment, and in particular on the weight that should be given to the cost of making that adjustment. Others think that the current flexibility should be retained. What do you think?

Nick O'Brien: I would be inclined towards the arguments in favour of retaining the current flexibility, in large measure because the variables that will impact on any particular situation are so considerable, particularly in the provision of goods, facilities and services, where the environment can be so completely various and different. I would be slightly nervous about trying to be more prescriptive.

It partly depends on the mischief we are trying to remedy. I can see that further definition might make it easier for goods and service providers and employers to satisfy themselves that they have done what is necessary, but, if the objective is to try to find creative solutions that produce substantive equality of delivery and experience, then that sort of approach is not what we are looking for, and I cannot help feeling that more prescription would be counterproductive.

Baroness Pitkeathley: Could you elaborate a little more on why that prescriptive role would be counterproductive?

Nick O'Brien: Unfortunately, the tendency where there is a prescriptive list is for that to serve as the lowest common denominator. When people are busy, it can lead to a tick‑box approach and so on.

Baroness Pitkeathley: The flexibility perhaps enables you to go deeper into it.

Nick O'Brien: I think so. Also, the objective has to be the engagement of people’s minds and hearts with the actual situation, and that requires the difficult task of thinking about difficult choices and what is required to achieve substantive equality, not what complies strictly with the letter of the list.

Baroness Pitkeathley: Have you anything to add, Mr Crowther?

Neil Crowther: I agree with the principle of flexibility, not just because of the various situations or scenarios that the law might engage with but because it is better to have the law as a living instrument that can adapt to technological change, changing social expectations and evidence of what works. That does not mean you just leave things the way they are.

What can be done is threefold. First, it is important that there is a constant restatement of the principle that reasonable adjustments are about removing the barriers that impede equality of access and opportunity, not about meeting special needs as something separate, so constantly reminding people what the role of reasonable adjustments is.

There has been an absence, perhaps, of expert guidance and the promulgation of that guidance, and of promoting and celebrating best practices, which is a gap the Equality and Human Rights Commission could fulfil, but it does not presently. It is something that requires quite a sound and detailed technical knowledge. There is a gap there.

The other issue, which I am sure has come up and will come up later, is seeking remedy, which has always been notoriously difficult in relation to goods and services claims, but has become so in relation to employment now as well. That is the other factor.

Q160 Baroness Campbell of Surbiton: Who do you think should be doing the constant reminding? One of the criticisms we have been hearing of the EHRC is their lack of promotion: promoting the Act, promoting the idea of inclusion and equality for all. Who should be doing it?

Neil Crowther: Ideally, I would like to see the Equality and Human Rights Commission doing it. We have already mentioned the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which it is the obligation of Government to promote, ultimately, even if some of those tasks are assigned to the EHRC. We still have an Office for Disability Issues. There are various actors who can perform that function or arrange for those tasks to be carried out.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton: How are they doing, in your view—the Government in its obligation, and the EHRC in its promotion?

Neil Crowther: If I am honest, I do not really sense there has been any major promotion behind disability discrimination since the demise of the Disability Rights Commission. The next stage after that was the introduction of the Equality Act. There was basic guidance across the whole Act. But we have not seen anything like the kinds of campaigns and efforts that were put behind the DDA at its introduction for almost a decade now.

The Chairman: Do you think it is a question of resources or a failure of strategy?

Neil Crowther: It is a bit of both. As we have discussed, resources are certainly an impedance. The sort of advertising campaigns that the Disability Rights Commission ran are probably unthinkable now, but, in the same time period, we have had the rise of social media, which was not available to us in anything like the same way there. There are still very creative ways through which these ideas could be promoted to business and other duty‑bearers. Yes, it is partly resources, but it is also a lack of strategic prioritisation.

Baroness Pitkeathley: When those promotions and campaigns—and we should rightly call them campaigns—were taking place, they were done not only by the organisation but by people with disabilities. The two came together. Have you any explanation for why that is not happening now?

Neil Crowther: I would add to that. Importantly, they also involved duty-bearers. Organisations like the CBI, the Federation of Small Businesses, chambers of commerce and others were very much engaged in those promotional campaigns. The focus of disability organisations, for the past five or six years, has been very much on trying to challenge and defeat welfare reforms. The degree to which there is a focus on this particular agenda has therefore ebbed away, which is why I so much welcome this inquiry bringing these issues back. People’s focus has been elsewhere. In the last month, there have been celebrations of 20 years of the Disability Discrimination Act. Compare the response to that here with what happened in the USA last year, when it was the 25th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act. One would not expect quite a US-style response, but it was very different in terms of how people were responding and not celebrating it, really.

Baroness Pitkeathley: I am sorry; I omitted to declare my interest, which is as Vice‑President of Carers UK.

Q161 Lord Harrison: The problems with enforcement through the courts have been raised with us throughout this inquiry and, indeed, by the previous witnesses this afternoon. Do you see there being effective alternatives? Could, for instance, a disability ombudsman work and what powers would he or she use? Are there existing regulators that could be given enhanced powers and could local authorities make more use of their powers under planning and building regulations, as we have indeed heard earlier this afternoon? I am going to ask Neil Crowther to answer, and then Nick. Then I want to come back to Nick O’Brien on a completely different question.

Neil Crowther: I have to say that Nick is by far and away the expert on this question, compared to me. As a quick answer, I do not see an immediate and obvious sensible case for a specific disability ombudsman, particularly not when the direction of travel is merging the various existing ombudsmen, and given the fact that, in many instances, people’s complaints may include a discrimination component but are likely to include other factors as well. The bigger task is to make sure the ombudsmen work effectively for disability rights.

Nick O'Brien: The answer to the question of whether or not there are other ways of giving enforcement is yes. Perhaps more importantly, there are ways of giving force to the Equality Act other than strict legal enforcement. Once that distinction is drawn, it then opens up the way to softer law mechanisms such as ombudsmen, regulators and inspectorates. The EHRC has, from its inception, tried to co-ordinate, to some extent, regulators, inspectorates and ombudsmen, and to infuse the idea that they have powers to take forward the human rights and equality agenda. That has been done in a very informal way.

As to the question of the specific disability‑specialist ombudsman, we have heard from the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman’s office, which, after all, is only one of very many ombudsmen in this country—and it is important to remember there are a whole plethora of public and private ombudsmen—that the landscape is already quite cluttered. My own feeling would be that that is correct. The challenge is to make sure that the existing ombudsmen more self‑consciously use the powers they already have to embed equality and human rights in what they do.

Over almost the last decade in the public service ombudsman sector, there has been, at the prompting of the Council of Europe, an attempt to raise the profile of human rights in ombudsman work. There is still a lack of confidence on the part of ombudsmen in recognising that it is their remit to do that, and a lack of awareness among citizens that they can turn to ombudsmen with these sorts of issues. I tend to agree that, while the ombudsman institution has a lot to offer, a disability‑specialist ombudsman is not the answer. Rather, the infusion of disability rights as a key priority in their existing mandates is to the fore.

Lord Harrison: What about local authorities?

Nick O'Brien: As we have heard, planning and licensing authorities can do a lot. In other spheres, if you look at the role of Ofsted, for example, their new inspection framework gives a more prominent place to equality issues. The CQC, again, has periodically focused on these sorts of issues.

Lord Harrison: Nick O’Brien, you mentioned a familiarity with Liverpool and presumably Merseyside. I used to represent both Merseyside and Cheshire many years ago, in the last century, in the European Parliament. Is there a postcode lottery in this domain? Might you be treated differently in Liverpool from sunny Chester?

Nick O'Brien: I should certainly hope so. Is there a postcode lottery in respect of the extent to which you will get protection from regulators and inspectorates?

Lord Harrison: Exactly so.

Nick O'Brien: I do not think there is, to any great extent, at the moment. One thing that is sometimes said about the ombudsman service as a whole is that it does not tap into local experience very much. Some people have said, for example, that ombudsmen would be much more effective if they were regionally based and could have a reciprocal relationship with local service deliverers that would generate a relationship over a period of time. Even the Local Government Ombudsman, which has had three sites and has, to some extent, split the country up, has not developed the local presence that makes it very visible to most citizens.

I do not think that is the problem at the moment. The problem is battling your way through the system to get heard and knowing that the ombudsman institution can do a lot for you. That is not properly recognised. There is partly an educational role of building up the confidence of ombudsmen and others to feel that this is their business, but there is also this reciprocal job of trying to alert people to the fact that ombudsmen can do what you need them to do.

Lord Harrison: Mr Crowther, do you detect any difference in practice between somewhere like Cheshire and Merseyside? Is there sometimes disequilibrium in the use, application and knowledge of the law?

Neil Crowther: It certainly seems to be the case that some areas have taken a more progressive approach to accessibility than others, for example. That has come from local authority leadership and so on. That is one of the difficulties. To the question of whether councils could do more in relation to planning and building regulations, the answer is yes, of course. The question is: why would they, and what would make them do so? To a degree, it is a political decision, driven by a range of factors that are hard to police at a national level.

The power of comparison is interesting and useful to explore. Again, you need an organisation to make that comparison across different areas. The whole issue of transparency could be incredibly helpful, whether that is a piece of research or some form of monitoring. That would be a useful exercise.

Q162 Lord Foster of Bishop Auckland: I have no relevant interest to declare. Can we focus, for a moment, on the public sector equality duty? As you know, it requires public authorities to have due regard to the implications of the proposals on disabled people, but, ultimately, authorities can ignore the effects of their proposals. Should the PSED be stronger? How could this be done without unduly fettering the decision‑making powers of authorities?

Nick O'Brien: We now know that the due regard requirement has proven to be a little weak. The suggestions put to you by the Discrimination Law Association, for example a clause requiring steps to be taken rather than simply the process requirement of having due regard and passing on, could be one way round the difficulty. That would not, in itself, unduly fetter the discretion of public authorities; it would still give them considerable room for manoeuvre.

The other thing that has diminished the duty to a large extent is the lack of a requirement to engage disabled people particularly, which was there under the disability duty. The empowerment and engagement of people in things that matter to them is probably the best way, if you can pull it off, of achieving universal vigilance. Without that, it seems that the duty is diminished. Those two provisions might go some way to addressing it.

In connection with the previous question, ombudsmen, and public sector ombudsmen in particular, could have a very clear role in reinforcing the monitoring and use of the public sector equality duty. Any complaint referred to them that has an equality dimension to it could easily prompt the question about what has been done in respect of the public sector equality duty. That would not entail them stepping into the position of the courts in trying to make fine distinctions about whether or not there had been discrimination in an individual case. It could be a very systemic probing inquiry. That would be a particular role that ombudsman could play.

Q163 Baroness Campbell of Surbiton: Would you agree that the PSED has now become a process-driven activity, rather than one that is active in trying to find a remedy? I am thinking of the recent independent living fund judicial review. It seemed that the Government simply went through the process again and it was then, the second time, confirmed, but nothing was gained at all. How do you see this situation? Do you agree with me, and how do you see this exercise in process, but nothing else?

Nick O'Brien: I am sure Neil has things to add. Yes, I agree. Familiarity can breed contempt, and people have become familiar with the process and found ways of dealing with it. It has become meaningless, perhaps, in many situations. There is a need for something that, as I said before, engages minds and hearts in the process of thinking about the implications of these decisions.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton: If we were to make a recommendation, what do you think that could look like? I am not asking you to write it.

Nick O'Brien: That is a shame. I believe in the provision for engagement of disabled people. That was such an important thing, and very much consistent with the whole spirit of the UN convention. This is not a little local anomaly; it has international backing. Ultimately, if disabled people themselves are not empowered and engaged in these activities, then I fear whatever processes there are will become bureaucratic and wither on the vine. Reinstating, in effect, the provision in the disability duty on engagement would be the most significant step that could be taken.

Neil Crowther: I agree with that completely. Efforts should also be made to enhance transparency and accountability through the process. You mentioned the independent living fund judgment and so on. It is important to recognise that the disability equality duty and, to some degree, the public sector equality duty were introduced at a very different moment in time economically, politically and otherwise. Since 2010, we have very often seen the duties used as a way to challenge spending cuts, whereas, when they were introduced, they were a way of directing quite a surfeit of public resources towards better ends. It is shifting in effect.

Public bodies could be required to state much more clearly than is required now how they have considered mitigating negative impacts. In a case like the independent living fund, where they have gone through the process and decided to make that decision in any case, there should be more transparency regarding how they came to that conclusion and the mitigations they might put in place. Those things would be useful and avoid fettering the discretion of Government.

The Chairman: Do you think this needs to change in the statutes, with amendments to the Equality Act to make the PSED more positive and more proactive?

Neil Crowther: The Equality Act itself is possibly okay. The issue is with the specific duties, the secondary legislation. I am not sure if the Committee has heard from witnesses from Scotland and Wales, because both Scotland and Wales have gone in slightly different directions, in terms of the level of prescription in the specific duties, than we have in England, so it would be an interesting comparison to draw in terms of how they have performed. I am afraid I do not have an answer to that right now.

The public sector equality duty was always a mode of enforced self-regulation. The law was there as a catalyst for public bodies to do something. What has been debated since is the degree to which the law should prescribe precisely how they go about it. In the absence of that prescription, it feels like it has become more of a process-driven duty. That is a problem in itself, because you want public bodies to be creative in the way they respond to this.

In the face of the duty being used mainly to challenge spending cuts, it seems to me it has become more and more a matter of public bodies post‑rationalising what they have done, rather than the duty being used to make better decisions. There needs to be a debate about the best mode of embedding equality within public bodies. In law, the opportunity to do that will be in the secondary legislation, not the primary legislation. But there may also be improvements to guidance we could make within the scope of the existing Act.

The Chairman: We have had more favourable evidence about how it works in Scotland and Wales. It is a shame if England lags behind.

Q164 Baroness Jenkin of Kennington: I have no relevant interest to declare. This question follows on. When Governments put forward complex proposals for changes to the law or practice relating to disabled people, how useful are cumulative impact assessments? If a Government fail to provide an assessment of the cumulative impact, should the EHRC insist on one by using its statutory power to enforce compliance with the PSED?

Neil Crowther: There is a policy answer and then a complicated legal answer, which I am probably not going to try to give you. From the policy point of view, if Government are considering introducing a policy or making a decision, they are not doing it in a vacuum. That decision may well have knock‑on impacts on a whole range of other things. They might be direct. For example, the transition from disability living allowance to the personal independence payment means a high number of people will lose their entitlement to a mobility vehicle, will lose their independence and will not be able to go out, which will probably impact on their health and well-being.

Policy always has effects beyond the immediate policy that is there. It would seem reasonable to expect, in equality analysis, public bodies to think about the wider context, rather than just narrowly about the specifics of the policy that they are going to introduce. I think that would be reasonable.

When it comes to cumulative impact, it becomes slightly more complicated. Unless a whole series of decisions have been made at exactly the same time and by the same body or department of government, how can one expect that department or body to be somehow responsible for all of those decisions and how they all tie together? It is a lot more complex. We should expect equality analysis to look at and be mindful of wider context and to think about potential unintended consequences and wider impacts.

One thing we have seen in the last five years, which is slightly outside the law itself, is the depletion of bodies, within government and outside, that have strategic oversight and can see where those links are and the potential risks. The Office for Disability Issues, for example, was specifically conceived to achieve cumulative impact. The idea was to co‑ordinate across government policy so that it was more effective; to tie different strands of activity together; to create some kind of coherence. I feel that coherence has gone. We do not have that level of direction. Similarly, outside, we had the Disability Rights Commission. We do not have a body that is monitoring in quite that kind of way. Yes, it is a factor of the law, but it is also a factor of how disability policy is being or not being directed strategically.

Baroness Thomas of Winchester: You say the coherence has gone. Was it ever there? Was anybody ever going to say to the DWP, “If you make these policy changes, you are going to make life much worse for disabled people”? Was that ever going to be a job the ODI, the Office for Disability Issues, or the Government Equalities Office should have done? Was anybody ever looking at that?

Neil Crowther: At the risk of over-politicising, the Office for Disability Issues was born of the report by the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit on the life chances of disabled people in 2005 and specifically tasked with bringing coherence to government policy. All of that policy was expansive; it was moving things forward. We have been in a very different place for a number of years now and a primary objective of all government departments is to find savings. The objective of coherence is perhaps not as strong, unless, of course— and this is important—a saving made over here leads to a cost over there. That is a very big risk we are currently facing in terms of the number of cuts that have been made.

Q165 The Chairman: This is the $64,000 question. Our recommendations can be far‑reaching, but we know that, if they are disproportionately expensive, they are very unlikely to be adopted. What two recommendations would you each most like to see this Committee make?

Nick O'Brien: The first one I would go for is linked to this question of giving force without having to enforce. The Disability Rights Commission had a power to arrange for a conciliation service in respect of goods, facilities and services disputes. The need for that, or something similar, has become more acute now that the prospect of taking cases to court—civil cases in the county courts and even in tribunals—is so significantly reduced. It seems to me a power, indeed an obligation, on the EHRC to establish and/or co‑ordinate the arrangement of proportionate dispute resolution mechanisms, including engaging with existing institutions such as ombudsmen, regulators and inspectorates, might at least go some way towards redressing the increasingly emerging gap. That would be my first one.

In respect of the second one, I would like to cite some words of a former colleague and friend of many of us here, the much-missed Caroline Gooding, who wrote in 1991 that the most important attribute of the rights ethos it its ability to stimulate the collective self‑organisation of disabled people, upon which ultimately the potential for progress depends. In the spirit of that observation, which I think remains as acutely accurate nearly 25 years later, the reinstatement of the obligation to engage with disabled people in respect of the PSED would be my second. In fact, it would be my first, but I put it second.

Neil Crowther: That was one of my two, so I am going to choose an extra one. I absolutely agree with that. My first one is about signalling. There is something welcome at the moment, in that the Government have committed to halving the disability employment gap. Doing so is a tacit acknowledgement of discrimination and disadvantage; yet, to date, the focus of policy has not really addressed discrimination. It has very much focused on the employability and motivations of the individual. I was heartened recently to see David Cameron make a major speech about equality and talk about the importance of tackling race discrimination. We have seen the Government do stuff on LGBT equality and work around maternity discrimination. It being the 20th anniversary of the Disability Discrimination Act, which was introduced under a Conservative Government, a strong signal from Government as to the importance of addressing discrimination in the employment field and beyond—just that simple act—would be very powerful. There is a vehicle to do that in the specific policy objective of halving the disability employment gap. It is a pretty cost-free recommendation, but one that would make a high degree of difference.

Yesterday evening, I did a Jeremy Corbyn‑esque survey via Twitter, to ask people what they would like me to say. There is unanimity, in that the big gap people identify is the question of remedy: the cost of going to employment tribunals, the cost that has always been there of going to the small claims court. If there is one thing that would make a difference, it is to either eliminate or significantly reduce those costs and make access to remedy far easier.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton: Nick, do you think access to justice has got a lot harder for disabled people since the Criminal Justice and Courts Act, for instance, when judicial review was a primary focus?

Nick O'Brien: There are a number of things. There is that and the diminishment of legal aid. Also very important are the impact of various cuts to advice services, so that specialist advice is much diminished, and the fees in employment tribunals. There are a number of things that, in a pincer movement, have begun to impact upon disabled people particularly, and access to justice is more difficult now than it was 10 or 15 years ago.

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton: Not trying to put words in your mouth, but, if you were to make a recommendation on pure access for disabled people to realise their rights under the Equality Act, what would it be?

Nick O'Brien: There needs to be a reinstatement of the level of dedicated and specialist advice services, free of charge, that was formerly there in the community. Those need to return and be signalled and identified. Without that, people are effectively disfranchised of their rights.

The Chairman: Your Corbyn‑istic sampling will fall on less deaf ears than his did. That was interesting. This has been very useful, stimulating and comprehensive. Thank you for your time.