Chapter 5 - continued

But just as the home straight seemed to loom for disabled people in Great Britain, along came the Government with a few more hurdles. Alf Morris’s Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill failed at the second reading on 26th February 26, 1993, and amidst great controversy the Bill, this time being promoted by Roger Berry, the MP for Kingswood, was talked out at its report stage in May 1994.

In spite of overwhelming support for Berry’s Civil Rights Bill across the House of Commons, the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People, Sir Nicholas Scott was successful in using what were seen by most commentators as procedural means to talk it out.

Just a week later, Alf Morris made the following statement to the House about Scott’s tactics:

“Never was there a more blatant act of indecency than was witnessed in this House on the day of John's funeral last Friday, when, as my Hon. Friend the Member for Kingswood (Mr. Berry) said, the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People, having already had to apologise, in a personal statement to the House, for his conduct in the debates on the Bill on May 6, ‘cynically talked out’ a measure whose only purpose is to give full citizenship to Britain's 6.5 million disabled people.”

One of Scott’s fiercest critics at the time was his own daughter Victoria who was working for the national disability organisation RADAR as a parliamentary lobbyist on disability rights issues. She was reported as saying "professionally, I am very, very angry. Personally, I feel rather let down".

On May 23, 1994, disabled people held a demonstration at the House of Commons to express their anger and disappointment that the Bill had been talked out having been so close to becoming UK law. Dennis Skinner, the MP for Bolsover told the House:

“Earlier today, as you may be aware, at about 11 o'clock, a number of disabled persons wanted to get into the House of Commons. I agreed that I would see them and take them round Parliament. They wanted to go through the main entrance.

“They were stopped by the Serjeant at Arms, who said that he was not prepared to see them trying to get up the steps. He then told me that they could go round through the big carriage gates. They decided to do it as an act of symbolism — to crawl on their hands and knees against what has happened to the Civil Rights (Disabled Persons) Bill. When they got to the carriage gates, although they had been promised access that way, the gates were shut in their faces.

“It is one thing for the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People to kick away the crutches of those disabled people, but I think that it is an affront when, in parliamentary terms, they are not allowed to go through the main entrance and they are not allowed to crawl their way through the side entrance either.”

Prompted by a re-invigorated ground swell of public anger on top of the embarrassment of the Minister and two colleagues having to apologise to the House of Commons for using misleading tactics in talking out Berry’s Bill, the Government moved very quickly to introduce their own equality legislation.

Following a rapidly undertaken consultation in the autumn of 1994, the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 was finally passed on November 7 the following year. In the words of Roger Berry “with all the loopholes, it was like a string vest”.

In terms of grabbing the headlines at the end of 1995, the DDA had stiff competition from the disabled people’s movement. The spirit of direct activism which had increased amongst disabled people’s organisations in the previous five years, became very visible for the first time on the streets of Birmingham in September 1995.

With the formation of a national network of activists in 1992, the Disabled Person’s Direct Action Network (DAN) held its first protest in Christchurch, Dorset, in 1993. Katherine Walsh recalls the weekend in 1995 that the DAN network came to the Second City:

“Members of Birmingham Disability Rights Group got together with DAN to organise a weekend of campaign in Birmingham. Disabled people came from all over the country.

“Following on from Black Civil Rights in the USA, DAN set up weekends of direct action across the country. In Birmingham, we began by bringing the traffic to a halt at 8.45 in the morning around Smallbrook, Queensway. Weren't we popular! There followed a barrier at the NEC, another around New Street and perhaps the biggest of the lot, a complete blockage of the transport in New Street on a Saturday afternoon. There was an evening of debate on Central Television’ accompanied by some good local news coverage by the BBC.”

In November 1995, John Gordon, a Birmingham based activist and DAN member reported on this, the city’s first “We Will Ride” demonstration, in Pinpoint:

“While there may be debate as to the method, there can be no doubt that it was the most visible demonstration by disabled people that has ever taken place in the West Midlands. Disabled people of all ages, various political affiliations and different conditions or impairments, came together from all over the region, and beyond.

“They were highlighting the fact that buses being bought and sold at the NEC this year would still be inaccessible in 20 years time, and that even newly refurbished railway stations were still taking no account of the needs of disabled travellers.

“Many disabled people have participated fully in the democratic process, only to be unfairly denied the opportunity of civil rights based legislation.

“Reluctantly, they will continue to participate in non-violent direct action in order to bring about these necessary changes to public transport, that will benefit all members of society and not just themselves.

“Those who took part felt powerful and united. It had helped to break those stereotypes of disabled people as being passive, either having things done for them or on their behalf.

“The actions of disabled people in Birmingham have helped to change that perception, and begun a process that will change the transport system in the West Midlands.”