Sir Stephen Timms

I am glad to be able to tell the hon. Gentleman, who raises an important point, that in the race and disability equality Bill, which my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth referred to, we will deliver on our manifesto commitment to disability pay gap reporting for large employers. We will also place the full right to equal pay for disabled people explicitly on the statute book. That will be an important step forward in addressing the concern that the hon. Gentleman expresses. That right is implicit in the Equality Act 2010 already, but we will put it explicitly on the statute book. Earlier today, I visited Google’s impressive accessibility discovery centre at King’s Cross to look at the latest advances in assistive tech. In our forthcoming Green Paper, I want us to look at what more we can do to support access to assistive technology, which can increasingly support disabled people in work. Our manifesto committed us to championing the rights of disabled people, working with them. I have started to meet regularly with a range of disability groups, including: the Disabled People’s Organisations Forum England, which is made up of members from more than 40 organisations led by disabled people; the Disability Charities Consortium, which includes nine of the biggest national disability charities; and our regional stakeholder network—nine networks across the country of members of the public who are willing to use their lived experience to improve the lives of other disabled people in their area. I also meet the Government’s disability and access ambassadors, senior business leaders who encourage improvements to the accessibility and quality of services for disabled people across 20 sectors, from advertising to universities. We support the British Sign Language Advisory Board, which was set up in the aftermath of Rosie Cooper’s British Sign Language Act 2022. We will shortly publish the 2023-24 annual British Sign Language report, which I think is the second such report since the Act was passed, describing what Departments are doing to promote and facilitate the use of British Sign Language in their public communications. Earlier this year, the equality hub in the Cabinet Office was replaced with the Office for Equality and Opportunity, which will deliver our commitment to breaking down barriers, boosting opportunity and putting equality at the heart of all the Government’s missions. I want to work with other Departments across Government, so that disabled people get the support that they need to overcome the daily barriers that they face. Floating bus stops are an important issue that we need to reflect on and work on across Government. I am pleased to announce today the appointment of new lead Ministers for disability in each Government Department. They will represent the interests of disabled people and champion disability inclusion and accessibility in their Department. I will chair regular meetings with them and encourage them to engage directly with disabled people and their representative organisations as they take forward their departmental priorities. I look forward to this new group of lead Ministers for disability together driving real improvements across Government for disabled people. My focus as Minister for Social Security and Disability is primarily on domestic disability policy, but I make the point that I am also responsible for UK implementation of the UN convention, which my hon. Friend referred to—the convention was extended to Bermuda to a few weeks ago—underlining the Government’s commitment to protecting and promoting disabled people’s rights across the UK and around the world. A great privilege of my job was to attend the Paralympic games in Paris in August, which was a fantastic event. Earlier today, I attended the launch of the strategy of the Activity Alliance, which brings together disability sports organisations around the country. In its new strategy, it highlights the benefits for society of disabled people being able to be more physically active. One of the things that they want to talk to me about is removing the barriers in the benefit system that sometimes make that extremely difficult. I very much congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth on bringing forward the debate. I am delighted that we have had good attendance in the House this evening. I look forward to working with her and other Members to ensure that disabled people have the power, the rights and the opportunities that everyone else does. Question put and agreed to.