Forty years on

The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act was the first piece of disability legislation in the world. Looking back to its inception and parliamentary passage, Sunil Peck discovers that it was helped by a large piece of luck and hindered by ministerial hostility and political events

Issues like social care and independent living are high on the political agenda now, but just over 40 years ago before the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act was passed, disabled people were all but invisible to politicians.

Lord (Jack) Ashley of Stoke, who was an MP at the time, says that it is difficult to convey the extent of the discrimination faced by disabled people before 1970.

“In the 1950s and 1960s, we had no interest in parliament at all in disability. The two words were neglect and discrimination and especially in such fields as employment, qualifications and general poverty. Disabled people were out of the picture and this meant that they were out of mind and took no part in the discussions about future policy on disability or indeed any policy.”

The fact that there has been a shift towards inclusion is largely down to the efforts and passion of Lord [Alf] Morris of Manchester who introduced the original bill.

But why did Alf Morris, a non-disabled Labour MP, now a peer, take up the cause of disabled people in the first place?

“My earliest memories are of my father waiting to die. He was very badly gassed in the First World War and his lungs were cut to pieces. He lost a leg and an eye in the war too. My wife’s father was also badly gassed and her mother was in a wheelchair. We had a shared indignity because I used to have to lift her out of the wheelchair into the bath.”

But despite his conviction that disabled people should be able to lead more dignified lives, it was only a stroke of good fortune that enabled him to pursue the bill.

“I had no expectation of being given the opportunity to legislate in the policy area of my choice. It was the purist accident and had nothing to do with the quality of my ideas; it was the quality of my luck that brought me first place in the private members ballot in 1969. The odds against winning were about six hundred to one.”

Having won the ballot, he had the task of drafting a piece of legislation that stood a decent chance of becoming law.

“I trawled all the organisations of disability and only one came forward with any idea of a proposition that I could make in the bill. It came from Mary Appleby, the general secretary of the charity now known as Mind. She said that we needed to know for the first time ever how many disabled people there are in Britain. That became clause one of my legislation.”

The Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act, the first piece of disability-related legislation in the world, also recognised disabled people’s right to access the built environment and public transport and gave practical help at home including the installation of telephones. It also brought legal recognition of autism and dyslexia.

And all this in the face of hostility from key figures in the Labour party including Dick Crossman the Minister for Social Services whose advice Morris sought when he was drafting the bill.

“He got very angry with me. His attitude was ‘who do you think you are to come here with all your five years of parliamentary experience lecturing me on social priorities’? He said that the most helpful thing I could do would be to rip the bill up.”

In fact, the bill did come close to failing. It made it through the Commons and was making its way through the Lords when Harold Wilson announced the date of the 1970 general election.

“That meant that the bill was dead in the water,” says Lord Morris.

“When a general election is announced, the leaders of all the parties meet and decide which bills can be cleared. You’ve only got about five days so very few pieces of legislation will go through. Harold Evans, the editor of the Sunday Times, wrote a leading article and said that the only bill worth saving from the ragbag of legislation was the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Bill.”

It’s a salutary note that, despite the Act, we still don’t know the exact number of disabled people in Britain. The intentions of Morris and the bill he’d championed, such as disabled people’s right to an accessible built environment and social care were also undermined by unfavourable legal judgements which tested the Act soon after it was passed.

But Bert Massie, now Sir Bert, who travelled from Liverpool to London to lobby his MP to back the campaign for disability benefits as well as the bill, says that the Act left an important legacy.

“What it did was bring disabled people out of the closet. It was the first time MPs would go on television discussing disability. The Act really was a breakthrough in that disabled people were suddenly on the political agenda.”

But Sir Bert says the Act remains a beginning. He emphasises that disabled people will have to carry on the campaign which the Act began if full equality is to be a reality in another 40 years.

Lord Ashley says that the Act has been a “starting pistol” for subsequent legislation aimed at bringing about greater equality such as the Disability Discrimination Act.

But he agrees with Sir Bert.

“There’s always a further step. These are important steps on the way but they are not the ultimate. We’ll be demanding more and more and more.”