Invisible Disabilities and Accessibility Challenges — House of Commons, 2019-06-05
Topic: Mixed Topics
Tracey Elizabeth Anne Crouch (Conservative, Centre-right): I absolutely agree. I always think that one of the main advantages of being Members of Parliament is that we get exposure to issues that, ordinarily, members of the public do not. We get to learn things and to discover issues and conditions that ordinarily pass the vast majority of members of the public by. The more we can do to educate and inform people about these issues, the better. My hon. Friend the Member for Orpington (Joseph Johnson) mentioned what he had learned as a dementia friend. Like the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams), I was previously—before ministerial life—a co-chair of the all-party group on dementia. What we learn in this place about dementia is incredible, and we need to get that across to everyone As the chair of the partnership board, I have learned things about disabilities that I would never have come across. Some of that is just about basic education and information. Unless someone has a family member who is affected, or they themselves have a disability—physical, visible, intellectual or hidden—they do not necessarily know about these things, and they certainly do not understand them. I have tried in my speech not to use the word "understand", because I do not think I would ever fully understand these things; I could only appreciate the challenges that people face It will be no surprise to anybody in the House that one of my other great pleasures in life is watching and participating in sport. I want briefly to give a nod to the amazing Special Olympics team and their sponsors—especially Coca-Cola, which has partnered them since 1978. Special Olympics is by far the largest disability sports organisation in the world, with a strapline of transforming people’s lives through sport. Our competitors, who do not receive any regular funding from central Government—much to my disappointment, but not due to a lack of effort—are quite possibly the happiest, smiliest, most appreciative group of people you will ever meet in your life. I would like to mention the phenomenal work of my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), who has supported Special Olympics for many years. Special Olympics GB notes that 200 babies are born with an intellectual disability every week. Eight out of 10 of them will be bullied and all will be socially excluded. Sport dramatically enhances the psychological, physical and social wellbeing of every athlete, as well as having a positive impact on family members, who often face increased isolation and mental health deterioration Team GB has just returned from this year’s world games in Abu Dhabi with 169 medals, 61 of which were gold. What an amazing achievement, but what a shame it was barely mentioned. For the competitors, the world games would have been a life-enhancing moment, and I for one am trying to get some of the medal winners to come to my constituency, to go round some of my local schools and especially to meet those who share similar challenges—who knows, those athletes might even inspire them into sport in one way or another Sport England has been enormously helpful in recent years, and it now provides much-needed funds to get more people with physical, hidden and intellectual disabilities active. We know that those with disabilities are twice as likely to be inactive as able-bodied people. Sport England has also provided funds to Special Olympics to engage more volunteers and to support the delivery of competitions, to help it develop its commercial opportunities. However, I firmly believe we should be doing more as a state to support the Special Olympics organisation and its competitors When the Minister held this brief before, and I was still in my old post, we spoke of what more we could to support Special Olympics. I would be grateful if he agreed to resume that discussion with this now humble Back Bencher and others who might have an interest. There is a real appetite for the future world games to be held here, and I see no reason why we should not support that bid in the way we did for the Olympics and the Paralympics. Imagine how brilliant it would be for our athletes who have a variety of different disabilities to compete in front of home crowds as we welcome several thousand athletes from 170 countries around the world Had I realised that I would have more time, I would have prepared something celebrating some of the excellent work that goes on in my constituency, in this House and beyond on having a better understanding of dementia. The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth has been doing a fantastic job in that regard. Locally, we have a dementia alliance that is trying to work with all partners to ensure that we have proper dementia-friendly communities. We have an ambition to make this place dementia-friendly, but we still have a very long way to go with that. We could start by getting rid of all the black strips and black rugs in this place Bradfields Academy is one of my favourite schools in my constituency. I am an honorary member of its school council. It is a special educational needs school. It has children there with extremely challenging disabilities, yet it is one of the calmest and kindest schools that I go to in my constituency I pay tribute to Kent Autism Trust, which is doing some brilliant work with local people and local employers to get a better understanding of autism and how we can support people with autism into the workplace and in our communities I would like to make special mention of those who support people with Parkinson’s disease. As the hon. Member for East Lothian said, some people assume that people with Parkinson’s are drunk. It is one of those conditions where people think that some sort of inebriation has been involved because of their reactions. We still have a long way to go in getting a better understanding of that I pay tribute to the work that the Government are doing with Changing Places. I recently listened to an incredibly powerful and emotive phone-in on a local radio station about the challenges that people still face in just going into their own communities, particularly town centres, and finding it very difficult to find places to use the toilet Some debates in this House really influence and inspire Members to do more for their constituents, and so far this has definitely been one of them. I am genuinely inspired by the hon. Gentleman’s constituent Grace. I will take away much of what I have learned today and consider what more I can do, in addition to the work I do on physical disabilities, to support those with hidden disabilities in my own constituency and beyond.