Baroness Grey-Thompson runs out of time in the Lords as she lists access barriers faced by disabled people 

A disabled peer ran out of time during a Lords debate as she attempted to describe all the barriers disabled people face in their daily lives. 

Baroness [Tanni] Grey-Thompson (pictured) told fellow peers that there was not enough time to describe all of the barriers to accessing services that disabled people told her about in the days leading up to the debate.  

Among the issues she raised were discriminatory and hostile attitudes, physical barriers in the Lords, barriers in education, employment and the built environment, the lack of accessible housing, inaccessible hotels, cinemas and restaurants, and access issues with buses, air travel and trains. 

She mentioned this month’s revelations from Disability News Service that showed rail companies were using data from a mystery shopping company that has come from non-disabled people “role-playing” being disabled. 

And she told the Lords: “Greater Anglia trains are fantastic for level boarding but, when I asked about accessibility, I was told not to worry because I would be in sight of the café-bar.  

“All my dreams for inclusion became as one when I realised that I could see the café-bar, but could not actually buy anything from it.” 

She then listed some of the other many barriers disabled people face, including the lack of accessible charging-points for electric vehicles, inaccessible dental chairs, access to wheelchairs, disability hate crime, the barriers faced by disabled people during Covid, and barriers to elected office. 

But she eventually admitted defeat, and told peers: “…I have run out of time.” 

The junior work and pensions minister Viscount Younger later praised her “verbal marathon”. 

But other disabled peers lined up to add to her list. 

The Liberal Democrat Baroness [Sal] Brinton, her party’s former president, also raised concerns about the accessibility of the House of Lords, which she said was “getting worse” for disabled people. 

She focused on access problems in the transport system, including trains, buses and taxis. 

And she highlighted the Supreme Court legal victory won by disabled campaigner Doug Paulley, which should have made it easier for wheelchair-users like herself to gain access to the wheelchair space on buses. 

But she told peers: “This week I have twice had to argue with bus drivers who have refused to move buggies.  

“I had to intervene yesterday to negotiate for an empty buggy to be folded and ask somebody with a pram to pull it back, let me into the space and then put the pram back in front of me.  

“The driver sat there silently…” 

She also spoke out about the government’s failure to act on accessible housing. 

She said research by Habinteg Housing Association showed that only seven per cent of housing stock meets basic accessibility standards such as having a level entrance. 

The Liberal Democrat Lord Addington, who is dyslexic, questioned why so many jobs demand a written English qualification when voice-operated technology is so widely-available on computers. 

He said: “Most people do not know it is there, but it is: all you have to do is press a couple of buttons, or voice call them into action, and have it read back.  

“We and government agencies are still saying, ‘You’ve got to pass certain tests in a certain way,’ and not, ‘Can you communicate information? Can you pass it on so that somebody knows what you are saying?’  

“No, you have to write it down. We all know how absurd that is. 

“Does anybody care if you have word-processed by talking or tapping a keyboard?” 

The Conservative disabled peer Lord [Chris] Holmes called for a ban on “floating” bus stops, which are “essentially stuck in the middle of the road, with a cycle lane between the bus stop and the pavement”.  

He said: “How can a disabled person – any person – effectively, efficiently and, crucially, safely access the bus?  

“It is a planning folly: a planning disaster. Can we commit today that buses can only pick up and drop off from the kerbside?” 

Disabled Liberal Democrat peer Baroness [Celia] Thomas highlighted the barriers faced by disabled people who try to claim personal independence payment. 

She called for the Department for Work and Pensions to change its rules so a medical report from a healthcare professional has to be obtained, at least at the mandatory reconsideration stage of the claim. 

She said: “The whole appeals process in itself is long-winded and stressful for a disabled person to go through, let alone being very expensive for the government.” 

The Conservative disabled peer Lord [Kevin] Shinkwin spoke of the lack of progress in reducing employment discrimination, and the apparent failure of the government’s Disability Confident scheme. 

He also pointed to work by the Disability@Work group of academics who found that “the percentage of the workforce that is disabled is no higher in Disability Confident level one or level three organisations, and only marginally higher in private sector level two organisations, than in non-Disability Confident organisations”. 

And he pointed to evidence from the group’s Professor Kim Hoque, from King’s College London, who has told MPs that – despite the government’s claim that there are now many opportunities for disabled people with high support needs to work from home – of the 129,000 jobs listed on the DWP’s own Find a Job service, only 0.51 per cent were fully remote and 2.75 per cent were listed as being hybrid remote. 

Lord Shinkwin also criticised the government’s apparent “disdain” shown by its failure to respond to his call for mandatory disability pay gap reporting by bigger businesses. 

Viscount Younger said the government was “proud that this government have continued to tackle the barriers faced by disabled people”.  

He claimed there were now two million more disabled people in work compared to 2010, although similar figures ministers have used have been repeatedly debunked by Disability@Work academics.  

He also said: “We have 20 ministers across government committed to championing accessibility and opportunity for disabled people within their departments.” 

He claimed the government’s PIP consultation was “not a money-saving exercise”, even though ministers launched it by saying it would rein in the “spiralling” caseload and costs. 

He also said the government had doubled funding for the disabled facilities grant, from £220 million in 2015-16 to £625 million this year. 

The minister claimed the government was “fully committed to improving transport accessibility, supporting disabled people to have the same access to transport as everyone else”, although he admitted there was “definitely more to do”. 

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