Equality Bill, Second Reading

Mr. Paul Burstow (Sutton and Cheam) (LD): Thank you, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I shall endeavour to assist colleagues, to ensure that as many as possible get the opportunity to contribute to this important debate. One of the striking features of this debate compared to the one on the earlier version of the Bill-I read that debate-is the slight change in tone. The sounds off during this debate have been somewhat different from the debate before the election. That is interesting for what it says about where parties stand.

I make no criticism of the speech from the official Opposition Front Bench. That was a sound position, but a number of speeches from Back-Bench Conservative Members suggested that legislation and a commission were not the answer. My question to those who hold that view is, what is the alternative that ought to be proposed and argued for? I did not hear, particularly from the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink), a cogent argument for an alternative way forward, other than some description of organic change.

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We have perhaps been experimenting in real time with organic change on a range of equality issues that the Bill will address, and we have seen that discrimination has continued to be corrosive and to harm the interests of many in this country. That is why I strongly support the Bill.

Chris Bryant : Was the hon. Gentleman as saddened as I was by the speech from the hon. Member for Castle Point (Bob Spink), not least because many of us who know him know that he is much nicer than some of his views? He said that the Churches are unanimously opposed to homosexuality. Is not the truth that they are pretty ambiguous about homosexuality? They are much clearer about equality and their support for it.

Mr. Burstow: Absolutely, and much clearer about being tolerant. That was omitted on this occasion. I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman's comments about the normal character and demeanour of the hon. Member for Castle Point. I am sorry he is not in his place to hear me-[hon. members: "He is."] Ah! He moved. He will have heard the point made by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), and I echo much of what he said.

Much in the Bill is long overdue. There are three aspects that I shall touch on, all of which relate to age equality and age discrimination issues. First, the commission will be charged with promoting age equality and tackling age discrimination. Older people can face multiple discrimination. For example, evidence shows that older women are considerably poorer than older men, and the oldest are the poorest of all. On average, women's income in retirement is just 57 per cent. of men's, due in part to their greater caring responsibilities for children and other family members throughout their adult lives. As others have observed, this pensions gap is the product of a mid-20th century set of assumptions about family structures that no longer apply. No wonder that, as a consequence of those assumptions, a quarter of older single women live in poverty.

The recent recommendation by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence-NICE-concerning the availability of disease-modifying drugs, such as Arecept for the treatment of dementia, points to ageist assumptions in the appraisal of drugs.Another example is the way in which benefit system discriminates against older disabled people. At the age of 64, a disabled person can claim disability living allowance, which, with its mobility component, is worth up to £43 a week. However, once the person turns 65, they can no longer claim DLA if they become disabled, and are entitled only to attendance allowance, which is a less generous benefit with no mobility component.

For those who are old and disabled, the message that seems to be sent by the benefit rules is that an active life ends at 65. That is not the message that the Government want to send, and I hope that through the Bill we can explore ways of ensuring that such a message is no longer sent by the apparent divide in our benefits system when a person reaches the age of 65.

Age discrimination compounds other forms of discrimination. The challenge for the new commission will be to work across the various equality strands, tackling real-life discrimination in the round, rather

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than trying to shoe-horn people into one category or another. I was heartened by what the Minister said in opening the debate. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey (Sandra Gidley) that a committee-based structure that maintains the existing silo approach to equality is not the right way forward. Although I understand the concerns expressed by some about a possible loss of focus on some of the work of the existing commissions, I strongly believe that a single commission will bring benefits to everyone.

That brings me to my second point. The commission will realise its full potential only if all equality strands enjoy parity under the law. I very much agree with the hon. Member for Tooting (Mr. Khan) about the need not to level down, but to level up in that respect. Although the Government have updated and developed the protection in law for every other strand of discrimination, they have left age discrimination behind. The best they can do is the minimum they must do: implement the EU equal rights directive in respect of employment. Even there the protection against age discrimination in employment is weaker than for any other form of discrimination in the workplace.

The law should protect older people against discrimination in the provision of goods, facilities and services. The Lords have already extended the law to include sexual orientation, albeit through regulations, as we heard. The positive duty on public authorities should apply to all strands. It has already been widened in the Lords to include gender. It should be widened to include age as well, as it does in Northern Ireland. Such a positive duty also exists in Scotland and Wales, so why are older people in England treated less favourably?

The impression given is that in England the elderly are second-class citizens, compared with their neighbours. Why must we wait for the conclusions of the law review? Why can we not find ways through the Bill to provide the means-the paving stones-to give older people equivalent rights in this regard? The danger must surely be that we will end up with a single commission hamstrung by the need to discriminate between the different strands, working within a confusing and complex set of legal protections that result in unequal quality-a hierarchy of equality, as was said earlier, which is enshrined in the Bill in clause 10(4).

My third and final point relates to the human rights dimension, which is such an important part of the Bill. The Human Rights Act 1998 asserts the equal dignity and worth of each and every one of us, but does that really apply to all of us? The answer is clearly no. Thanks to the way the courts have interpreted the meaning of "public authorities" under section 6 of the Act, when one crosses the threshold of a privately run care home, one enters a twilight zone, where an out of sight, out of mind culture of abuse can become the accepted norm. Care homes are places where human rights can be denied. There is what the British Institute of Human Rights calls a "protection gap", into which older vulnerable people can fall.

Mr. Boswell: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that that situation is all the more offensive given that many residents of those homes are present by virtue of public money and public support?

Mr. Burstow: I am coming on to that point and agree with the hon. Gentleman that the situation is more offensive in those respects.

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When older people are neglected or mistreated in a care home, when medication is used as a chemical straitjacket, when relatives are told that they cannot visit because they ask awkward questions, when a married couple are separated and sent to different care homes against their wishes and when an older person is evicted from a care home, they are rarely seen as human rights issues. Such matters are often seen as poor practice or poor standards-yes; standards matter-but first and foremost, they are violations of a person's human rights, which relates to the rights-based approach discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for Romsey. Twice yearly inspections by the Commission for Social Care Inspection are not the answer to violations of older people's rights and dignity. Plans are afoot to introduce an even lighter-touch inspection regime in the future, so the inspection regime will not deliver the protection of human rights.

If one crosses the threshold of a private care home, the Human Rights Act 1998 does not apply, and a person receiving services from a private body does not benefit from the protection of the 1998 Act, which was a point established in the Leonard Cheshire Foundation case.

Meg Hillier : The hon. Gentleman has made some interesting points about care in institutions. On a slightly wider point, if a worker registers with a private agency, performs badly and is asked to leave, they can register with another agency and, provided that they do not have a disciplinary record, continue to work with people. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the issue goes wider than rights in care homes?

Mr. Burstow: I could not agree more with the hon. Lady. Another Bill is coming before the House to widen the protection of vulnerable adults list in order properly to safeguard others within the system. I think that that change is a result of the recommendations of the Bichard inquiry, and I hope that the legislation goes on to the statute book at the earliest opportunity.

Returning to the Leonard Cheshire Foundation case, we must deal with the restrictive interpretation of the 1998 Act. On Second Reading of Human Rights Bill, the Lord Chancellor described the Government's intention:

"We also decided that we should apply the Bill to a wide rather than a narrow range of public authorities, so as to provide as much protection as possible to those who claim that their rights have been infringed."-[Official Report, House of Lords, 3 November 1997; Vol. 582, c. 1232.]

The problem is that that is not happening in practice. In the care homes sector, which particularly concerns me, nine out of 10 care homes are operated in the private sector, but two thirds of the people who live in those homes are paid for by local councils. Despite the legal duty on public authorities under the National Assistance Act 1948, the 1998 Act does not apply because privately run care homes are not public authorities for the purposes of the legislation. Self-funders pay for themselves and are never assessed by the local authority. They face an even greater potential risk because there is not even the possibility of a vigilant local authority using its contracting muscle to safeguard their dignity and welfare.

Two years ago, the Joint Committee on Human Rights concluded that the courts should interpret the 1998 Act more widely and agreed with the proposition

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that that could be done by intervening as a third party in a test case. The problem is that we are still waiting for an appropriate case to come along in order to make the Government correct the law. How much longer must older people in care homes in the private sector wait before that action is taken? It is not acceptable that some of the most vulnerable in our community are waiting for the Government to step in. I therefore hope that during the passage of the Bill some way can be found to enable legislation to be amended so that that anomaly, which the courts have brought into being, can be put right and older people can be given the protection that they deserve, whether they are in a council-run or a private sector care home. I hope that the Minister will provide reassurance on those points.

The Bill is long overdue and rightly brings together all the strands of discrimination, because discrimination does not occur in a silo. Discrimination does not often occur purely on the basis of gender, sexual orientation or any other matter, and many of us have experienced multiple discrimination, which is why we need an agency that can examine such matters together. I hope that the existence of such an organisation is not too far in the future and that the right legislation will provide a comprehensive equality framework, too.