Angela Watkinson

Conservative Party | Upminster

European year of disabled people

This speech was part of a debate in the House of Commons.

Angela Watkinson (Upminster): I welcome this afternoon's debate, and congratulate the right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) on securing it. I hope that the European year for people with disabilities would be an opportunity to secure funding to solve some of the long-running problems in my constituency, which I am sure are reflected in other constituencies. I am delighted that the terminology has changed over the years and that we are discussing "people with disabilities" rather than defining people by their disabilities. We discuss people who happen to have disabilities rather than, as used to happen years ago, referring to "the disabled" or "the blind".

Mr. Tim Boswell (Daventry): Does my hon. Friend agree that what has happened in Northamptonshire, where the Northamptonshire Council for Disabled People has been renamed Ability Northants, is even more positive? That modern title stresses what people can do rather than what they cannot do.

Angela Watkinson: My hon. Friend raises an important point. I hope that the European year for people with disabilities will not be limited to raising awareness and that there will be some practical outcomes. People who are not disabled can only imagine the everyday inconveniences and difficulties for people with disabilities and their carers. I was once taken ill on a plane, and was taken off it and through the airport in a wheelchair. It was interesting to see that no one looked at me when I was in a wheelchair. I know that I was not at the same eye level as everybody else, but I felt that I had become a non-person. People who use wheelchairs have to be more assertive than others to gain attention and to participate in the activities going on around them.

I spent many years working in a school for physically handicapped children. Because the school was very small, the staff became familiar not only with the pupils but with the pupils' families, and therefore also became familiar with the difficulties that the families experienced in their everyday lives. I ran a group providing riding for the disabled. It is difficult to get heavily handicapped children into a minibus, to the stables, out of a minibus and mounted on horses. It requires lots of volunteers to make such activities happen - but to see the face of a child who is not mobile because they are unable to walk, but is enjoying a ride on a horse and acquiring equestrian skills, is worth every bit of effort. If only such organisations had greater opportunities to raise their profile and get more volunteers - the volunteers also get a lot out of the activity.

My mother was blind, and when her sight was failing, she had difficulties with the simplest things. For example, when we went shopping to buy clothes, I had to describe whether a garment had buttons or pockets, and whether it suited her. The things that we take for granted are enormous hurdles for people who have disabilities. One of my constituents who has an adult son with learning difficulties recently approached me. She is elderly and is concerned about what will happen to her son when she dies, because her property, which she had deliberately chosen to avoid inheritance tax, has risen in value much faster than she anticipated. The property will be subject to inheritance tax when she dies, and she is worried about how it will be paid because she has no surplus savings and the property will be her entire estate. There are all sorts of hidden problems, of which people who do not have disabilities are not even aware. It is important to raise awareness, and we have the opportunity to do so this year, with local authorities and organisations participating in making people aware of the long-term and everyday problems faced by people with disabilities.

I contacted my local authority to find out what it was doing for the European year of people with disabilities. It is launching a range of events and initiatives to raise awareness. I asked whether there was a source of funding that it could tap into, so that by the end of the year there would be some practical improvements. The European Commission allocated £8.5 million, of which the United Kingdom received £500,000. I understand that the Government added another £2 million. However, £2.5 million nationwide is not very much.

Grants are awarded by the national co-ordinating committee. Unfortunately, my authority, the London borough of Havering, was unsuccessful in its application, which was made on behalf of local organisations, in particular the Havering Association for People with Disabilities, which does good work for a range of groups. So here we are in the European year of people with disabilities, raising awareness by using the council's budget, with no additional money to do anything practical, such as ensuring that Upminster station has disabled access by the end of the year. We are confined to making awards. My local authority will award disability awareness awards in a range of categories. However, those awards recognise improvements that groups throughout the constituency and the borough have already put in place. I would have liked more funding to have come from Europe to back up a worthy and well intentioned year.