Disabled MP faced discrimination twice in less than 24 hours after arriving in Brighton for Lib Dem conference

A disabled MP has revealed how he twice faced discrimination in less than 24 hours after arriving in Brighton for his party’s annual conference this week.

Steve Darling, who is registered blind and has an assistance dog, was failed by the passenger assistance service at Brighton rail station, and then by staff in his hotel.

On arriving at the rail station, the passenger assistance he had requested did not turn up to guide him to the taxi rank.

The next morning, he was making his way to breakfast with his assistance dog, Jennie, when he was told the hotel did not allow dogs in the breakfast room.

The hotel manager confirmed that he would not be allowed to take Jennie into the room, a clear breach of the Equality Act, before the hotel’s operations manager eventually arrived and apologised and said there had been “a terrible mistake”.

Darling told Disability News Service: “I’m very fortunate. I have a very level-headed youngest son who tells me: ‘Look, don’t argue with them, just say: ‘You’re breaking the law. Can I speak to your manager?’’”

He did say that the hotel had provided “incredibly good” support when he was checking in the previous day.

But he said such discrimination, which leaves him “personally upset… sadly isn’t that unusual”.

He and his wife, Mandy, who also has a guide dog and was mayor of Torbay at the time, previously secured a legal victory over a hotel in Cornwall, which told them they could not sit in the main dining area because they had their assistance dogs with them.

They secured £2,000 in damages, which they donated to local charities.

Earlier this year, he said, his wife was prevented by a security guard from entering a Lidl store with her guide dog.

When Darling mentioned the breakfast incident to colleagues in the party this week, they told him they had thought such discrimination “was all ancient history”.

He said he believed the answer to the continuing discrimination that blind and other disabled people face was improved staff training.

He said: “I think there has been some progression… and I think this is why I feel very fortunate as a member of parliament that I’m able to talk about my lived experience… of being discriminated against.”

He said he is “able to bring that to the table when I’m at select committee, occasionally, or holding the minister account at a Westminster Hall debate, because I’ve had that lived experience of somebody saying, ‘You can’t come in here,’ effectively because of your disability, because you have a dog.

“It’s upsetting, but it’s really useful to be able to play that back to ministers sometimes.”

Darling also revealed that he had been “frustrated” with his own party because it needed to do more on disability policy, but that he accepted that, “as the third force in British politics, it’s just being realistic about the level of capacity within us as Liberal Democrats”.

But he has resisted taking a more active role in pushing the party on disability policy “as the challenge for me is I don’t want my disability to define me as an MP”.

He said: “It’s Steve Darling, who happens to be registered blind, rather than Steve Darling, the campaigner on disabled issues.

“It’s important that I do the appropriate challenge when it comes up – and I do do that within the party – but I don’t want to be the voice of disabled people within the Lib Dems.”

He said he also had limited capacity himself, as a constituency MP, the party’s spokesperson on work and pensions, and a member of the Commons work and pensions committee.

But he said he would consider if there was a way he could use his experiences as a disabled person to influence the party’s next general election manifesto.

Picture: Steve Darling and Jennie at the party’s conference in Brighton in 2024