CONFERENCE: Hague slams Brown’s DDA boast

By Paul Carter in Manchester

William Hague has launched a stinging attack on the Prime Minister for citing the Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) as one of the Labour government’s major achievements since 1997.

Speaking at the party’s conference in Manchester, the shadow foreign secretary and former Conservative Party leader was clearly angry at Gordon Brown’s claim.

At the Labour conference in Brighton last week, Gordon Brown listed a number of policy successes over the lifetime of the Labour government, which included the DDA, to rapturous applause from the audience.

 The DDA first came into effect in 1995, two years before Labour came to power.

However, it was amended in 2005 to include such measures as the public sector duty.

At the time the DDA was passed, Hague was a government minister at the then Department for Social Security, with a brief that included disabled people.

His own profile on the Conservative website lists designing and passing the DDA as his proudest political achievement.

He told delegates: “Last week Gordon Brown read out a list of what he thought Labour had achieved.

"Imagine how I felt when I heard him proudly list among Labour’s achievements the Disability Discrimination Act, and watched the Labour Conference slavishly applauding it, when as many at this conference will know the Disability Discrimination Act was passed under the premiership of John Major and was designed, written and taken through parliament by me.”

“That tells you something about the Prime Minister and it tells you a lot about his list,” he said.