People with Disabilities: Access to Services

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 16th May 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hughes, on securing this important debate and setting the scene so well on the problems disabled people face in our country today. It is also a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton. I declare my interests as vice-president of the LGA and the chair of the LGA disability forum.

I am grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, for her comment on wheelchair users not being able to sit with their party groupings. Should any of us in wheelchairs become Government or Opposition Front-Benchers, we could not, for example, use the Dispatch Box. At least we have this space here, which is more than can be said for the House of Commons, where there is no provision.

The noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, and I took part in a survey by Westminster Council on the accessibility of Parliament Square, given the very large volume of pedestrians there. The researcher who conducted it said afterwards that he had never understood how hypervigilant people with disabilities need to be moving around our streets today. Actually, that woke me up too, because I had not understood the constant pressure one is under.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, also referred to John Pring of the Disability News Service. He is an outstanding journalist who is not afraid to expose the realities of how challenging it is for disabled people to live in the UK today. I think he has had more refusals on FoIs from the DWP than anybody else, but still he rightly persists and we thank him for that.

This building is getting worse for people with disabilities. With security problems, they are closing doors. I do not know if any noble Lords have ever tried to open a door towards you sitting down, but when you have arthritic shoulders, I have to tell you that it is almost impossible.

I am sure that the Minister, in his summing up, will extol the details of the Disability Action Plan published in March this year. I remind your Lordships’ House about how that was received by Transport for All. Katie Pennick said:

“Nothing on transport, nothing on housing, nothing on social care, nothing on PIP, nothing on hate crime, nothing on urban planning, nothing on healthcare, nothing nothing nothing…”.


My noble friend Lord Addington reminded us that the Government often say the right thing but then legislate in completely the opposite direction. Many noble Lords who have spoken have covered that issue.

I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, for reminding us of the importance of unpaid carers and the consequences of the appalling benefits regime for them. Will the Government address the very particular problem they face now?

Health and social care remains a really big area for disabled people, especially under the current crisis conditions. The Cystic Fibrosis Trust says that people with CF should have access to social workers and to clinical psychologists. But one in four children with CF cannot access a CF social worker and CF clinical centres report that 61% of vacant psychology posts have remained unfilled for over six months. Young Lives vs Cancer reports that diagnosed patients face delays of upwards of 20 weeks for PIP/DLA decision-making. Why is there a three-month waiting period after diagnosis with cancer before applications can even be made for benefits?

Last month the UN once again criticised the UK Government on disability issues. The UN’s CRPD called on the Government to end the detention of people with disabilities in hospitals. So have many of your Lordships over the years. When will this end? Can I ask the Minister for a timetable for this outrageous act to be discontinued?

The noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, referred to school transport and the problems caused by the severe cuts to councils. Also because of severe cuts to social service budgets and the increase in specialist care fees, a number of councils are now telling families that their disabled loved ones can no longer be supported at home and must go into residential care permanently. This is unacceptable and truly shocking.

I am glad so many noble Lords included transport in this debate, for without it many disabled people cannot get to work or have a social life. I point out the getting to work bit because the Government say not enough disabled people want to work. Getting there would be a good start. Outside London, without the wonderful black Hackney cabs, getting a taxi is a complete and utter lottery. Blind and visually impaired people with guide dogs are still refused rides with some Uber drivers. Doug Paulley’s victory in the Supreme Court eight years ago about ensuring wheelchair space in a bus is a legal priority for—guess who?—wheelchair users. This week I have twice had to argue with bus drivers who have refused to move buggies. I had to intervene yesterday to negotiate for an empty buggy to be folded and ask somebody with a pram to pull it back, let me into the space and then put the pram back in front of me. The driver sat there silently.

The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, referred to lifts. At Watford Junction, my local station, a few years ago they decided to completely replace two lifts at the same time, disabling access from four platforms and therefore journeys for six months. Lifts are as important as ramps. There is no point having ramps on a train if you cannot get to the platform. And I echo the points from the noble Lord, Lord Holmes, about bus lanes and bizarre decisions like Bank and the problems of shared space.

Housing has not been much mentioned so far. Habinteg Housing research shows that only 7% of our housing stock meets basic accessibility standards such as a level entrance. And a government report says that, on average, a three-bedroomed semi-detached house would cost an extra £521 to build to the category 1 lifetime homes standard, with a further space cost of just under £1,000. This would mean thousands of elderly and disabled people could remain in their homes. Think how much money the state would save if that happened. We are still waiting for this standard to be implemented.

On supported housing, there is a real problem, because we are being told that, alongside financial pressures on existing schemes, there are now significant barriers to new development. A recent National Housing Federation survey showed that, because of a cash crisis, there is a significantly reduced appetite to develop any new schemes at all—which is ridiculous given the demography in the country at the moment.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, rightly brought up the work of the OU, which was rightly awarded gold for its provision. Disabled students are not just welcomed there but encouraged, and live in the mainstream of its provision. My noble friend Lord Palmer set out the delays with the changes to EHCPs. The scheme was originally proposed in the Children and Families Act 2014, but, despite review, it is still failing the children it needs to serve.

Many people have spoken about benefits, and I will say only a couple of points. I will pick up what my noble friend Lady Thomas and the noble Baroness, Lady Browning, said in setting out very helpfully the problems of claiming and the complexity of forms and processes when claiming PIP. The noble Baroness, Lady Browning, said that seven in 10 people who appeal a PIP decision get a judgment, but there is an extra clause that goes with that statistic—“on the same evidence that DWP already held”. This is not new evidence.

The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Brixton, rightly highlighted the problem of people with mental health difficulties. This Government seem to have forgotten that the coalition Government agreed that mental health services were woefully underfunded, and agreed parity of esteem and funding. It took one year after the coalition ended for this Government to renege on that funding. People with serious mental health problems now face years before they can access treatment, which is a bigger scandal than people with severe depression and other psychiatric conditions wanting to access PIP, because they too face extra costs.

I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Shinkwin, for his expertise on disabled people’s access to work. One of the main problems, though, is what happens when people get into work. I am passionate about training, whether it is training for what is happening inside work or for the front line. My stepmother has been in hospital for most of the past month—three different hospitals and a care home. None of the front-line staff understood how to look after her at all. At one point, a pharmacist held up a very small pot of tablets and asked her what was in it. She said, “I can’t see”, and the pharmacist brought it closer to her eyes.

We have heard today from everybody that there is a real issue. Our lives as disabled people—and we are 16 million people in this country—are affected in our fundamental rights and access to services. We are also victims of attacks and hate crimes. This Government really need to understand how they have further disabled us through their policies and language. We need to make sure that that changes. It needs to change rapidly, otherwise the next report from the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities will be as unfavourable as its previous three.

--- Later in debate ---

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I certainly always listen to the noble Lord. It will be for others to judge, but I very much hope so, and I take note of that.

Quickly on housing, which was raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and briefly by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, thanks to the Government’s actions more disabled people have the support that they need to be able to live independently and safely. The Government have more than doubled the funding for the disabled facilities grant, from £220 million in 2015-16 to £625 million in this financial year. Our Renters (Reform) Bill, abolishing no-fault evictions and creating a new ombudsman for the private rented sector, will give disabled tenants more security and confidence to hold landlords accountable for reasonable adjustments. The Government have also proposed to mandate that all new homes will be built to a higher accessibility standard, providing greater independence and safety at home—which again was raised.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

Could the Minister write to me about my other question, which was about supported housing and the ability for housing organisations to be able to access capital for it? They are finding it very difficult to do so.

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

Certainly, I will write to the noble Baroness on that.

Briefly, on healthcare matters—I realise that time is marching on—my noble friend Lady Browning was right to raise the issue of loneliness. We are aware that people with disabilities or long-term health conditions are more than four times more likely to report feeling lonely. New research on that matter will emerge during the summer.

The noble Baroness, Lady Donaghy, spoke about access to social care for disabled people. Local authorities are responsible for assessing individuals’ care and support needs and, where eligible, for meeting those needs. Where individuals do not meet the eligibility threshold, they can get support from their local authority in making their own care arrangements for care services, as set out in the Care Act—as the noble Baroness will know.

On the subject of local authorities, I noted the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Andrews, about school transport. I will certainly pass her message through the right channels.

I am also aware of the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, about autism. He will know that we published our refreshed national autism strategy in July 2021, which aims to improve understanding in society, reduce diagnosis waiting times and improve access to high-quality health and social care for autistic people. I could say a lot more about that, but I shall just say that, through the rollout of the Oliver McGowan mandatory training on learning disability and autism, which he will know about, we are helping health and social care staff to have the skills and knowledge they need to provide safe and compassionate care for autistic people and those with a learning disability.

Through the NHS long-term plan, the Government are increasing the mental health workforce so that more people, including disabled people, can get the mental health support they need. That is a very important point to make.

The noble Baronesses, Lady Grey-Thompson, Lady Andrews and Lady Brinton, asked about accessibility and transport. I shall allow myself some time in the last few minutes to address this because they are right: the voices of disabled people should be central to how transport policy is planned and implemented. That is what it means to be truly inclusive. The Department for Transport’s statutory advisers, the Disabled Persons Transport Advisory Committee, provide expert advice and constructive challenge to Ministers to help in the development and delivery of policies. The DPTAC has a statutory requirement for at least half of the committee to be disabled people, meaning that it is well placed to provide advice that will ensure that the DfT builds into its work the needs of all disabled people.

To pick up the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, and my noble friend Lord Holmes, the Government are fully committed to improving transport accessibility, supporting disabled people to have the same access to transport as everyone else. The Department for Transport has made good progress against the commitments in the Inclusive Transport Strategy. I acknowledge and say to all those who have raised points today that there is definitely more to do.

I realise that time is against me and that I have not been able to answer a lot of questions. As noble Lords would expect, with my team I will look in Hansard at the questions raised and write a letter to all those who have contributed.

To conclude, this has been a fascinating and important debate. The range of significant support and reforms that we, as a Government, are undertaking within the welfare system and the world of work, as well as in education, housing and healthcare, underlines this Government’s determination to make sure that disabled people and those with health conditions get the right support to improve their everyday experiences—the lived experience of being disabled—so that they can lead full and independent lives.

Personal Independence Payments

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2024 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

My Lords, I reiterate that there are several reasons why we want to bring forward this consultation, which will be launched in coming days. Cost is one factor but not the only factor, as I alluded to in my answer to the noble Baroness. Over the coming four years, PIP spending alone is forecast to rise by 63% from £21.6 billion to £35.3 billion. That is for the years 2023-24 to 2028-29. That is one of the reasons why we are reviewing PIP to ensure that the system is fair, accurately targeted to those who really need it the most, and delivers the right kind of support for people with disabilities and health conditions.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lord, PIP is not a general living benefit, unlike universal credit. It is designed specifically to help fund the extra costs that long-term severely disabled people have just to be able to live their lives, and often to be able to get to work. The Minister said just now that it is important to review all processes. I entirely agree, so why is it that seven out of 10 PIP appeals are won on the same evidence that the DWP had originally, which shows that this funding is desperately needed for the most disabled in our community?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I have already said that this Green Paper is a conversation that we are starting to see how the costs are best targeted and how people are best supported. The noble Baroness will know that some claimants will have considerable extra costs relating to their disability—quite right too—and others will have fewer costs or minimal costs. That is why this Green Paper will look at whether there are ways in which we can improve how we support people in the right way and in a way that is fairer to taxpayers.

Disability Action Plan

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Government for advance sight of the Statement, which came out yesterday. This is the latest in a series of moves on the part of the Government designed to improve the position of disabled people and to tackle societal barriers. I am sorry to say that I think disabled people would be the first to say that the track record so far does not inspire confidence.

First, there was the National Disability Strategy, which was announced in the 2019 Queen’s Speech but did not appear until 28 July 2021. It was then held up in a lengthy court case brought by disabled people who disputed the legality of the consultation process. Then came the health and disability White Paper, which set out plans to reform employment support and disability benefits. The centrepiece of that was the proposal to scrap the work capability assessment, but that has left many disabled people concerned that the benefits system will rely solely on the flawed PIP assessment process.

Now, we have the Disability Action Plan. There are some positives in the plan. It attempts to address some of the well-known barriers disabled people continue to face, through measures such as tackling guide dog refusals, raising the profile of assistive technology and increasing support for disabled people to take part in politics. However, it is impossible to ignore the very large hole at the centre of the action plan: there is little or nothing to address the top concern facing many disabled people at the moment—the cost of living crisis.

The Government know this is an issue, because paragraph 5.12 of the plan starts by saying:

“Another theme which ran through responses to the consultation was the long-term impact of the rising cost of living on disabled people, with respondents calling for greater support for disabled people. Research has shown that disabled people are significantly affected by rising costs”.


When the Government went out to consultation, the preliminary response of the RNIB was to say that

“it’s disappointing there’s no mention of any support measures to address the rising cost of living”.

It is still an issue today. Energy bills are still high, making life very expensive if people rely on specialist medical equipment, or need to heat their home more than the average household. As Scope has calculated, on average, disabled households face extra costs of £975 per month to have the same standard of living as non-disabled households.

If the Government want to know how things are for disabled people at the moment, they need look only as far as the document Below Average Resources, published on 18 January. This was the very interesting update on the work the DWP is doing to look at developing a new poverty measure, named “below average resources”, or BAR. It compares the impact of measuring resources versus measuring income. It told us something quite interesting along the way about the position of disabled people. It says that in the financial year ending 2022,

“30% of individuals in families with a disabled person were in low resources, compared to 27% in low income. Of individuals in families without a disabled person 17% were in low resources in FYE 2022 compared to 19% in low income”.

That is quite a big gap by anybody’s measure.

However, the only commitment on this matter I could find in the action plan was action 30, which says that the disability unit

“will continue to engage across Government to highlight concerns related to disabled people and the cost of living, sharing insights from the Disability Action Plan consultation findings, stakeholder engagement and our broader disabled people’s experience panels”.

Does the Minister think that is enough on the single biggest issue facing so many disabled people right now?

There is also nothing in the plan on another challenge which is actually caused by the Government itself—the fact that our current social security system puts disabled people through multiple upsetting and dehumanising assessments. Too often, they are denied their legal entitlements unless they have the strength and support to go through the appeals process.

Let us look at the figures. Claimants who are turned down for PIP are not allowed to appeal until they have first been through the mandatory reconsideration of their claim by DWP officials, which, as of last October, was taking an average of 36 days. Last year, only 11% of claimants were successful. They are forced to go through this extra gateway and only 11% get through it. Only then can they go to a tribunal. But if they go to a tribunal, nearly 80% are awarded their enhancement. At this point, normally the Minister will say, “Ah, yes, but it is all new information”. In fact, in 2023, 55% of cases that had their decision overturned after a tribunal hearing listed

“Reached a different conclusion on substantially the same facts”


as the summary reason for the change in decision. Why is there nothing in the action plan about ensuring that DWP gets more decisions right first time?

Without addressing the fundamental problems, the actions today risk feeling like tinkering around the edges. Despite all the consultation, there is not enough action to deal with the major challenges faced by disabled people today. I think the Minister probably knows this, because the action plan says, at paragraph 4.2, that:

“Many respondents criticised the short-term focus of the plan, highlighting the need for longer term action”.


Does the Minister think the Government responded sufficiently to that critique? I look forward to his reply.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as vice-president of the Local Government Association. In that capacity, I am currently chairing the LGA disability forum for council officers and for members.

I am grateful to follow on from the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, partly because she summarises the issues about benefits so well. It also means that I do not have to say them again, because I completely agree with her concerns and her questions.

I am going to pick three or four things from the areas for action that give me real cause for concern that this new plan does not recognise the mess that the Government have got themselves into in the past. I want to start with the support for disabled people who want to be elected to public office. It says on page 15 of the Disability Action Plan that the coalition Government

“provided some financial support in the past, such as the Access to Elected Office Fund, which ran between 2012 and 2015”.

I wonder why it stopped in 2015. Who cancelled it? It was created by my noble friend Lady Featherstone when she was a Minister in the other place. It was cut the moment that we left government. The onus was put on political parties to provide it. That may be fine if you are the Conservative Party with millions and millions of pounds, but small parties do not have the capacity to fund the sort of things that are needed, such as BSL interpreters for a candidate. As far as I am aware, there has never been either a Member of Parliament or a Peer who uses BSL as their first language. That is because the barrier to get them into Parliament is too high for them to bear on their own. Action 2 in the Disability Action Plan states that the

“DU will develop and publish new guidance by summer”,

but until then the current arrangement will continue—so great words, but no change really.

The second action is another that has been raised in your Lordships’ House on a number of occasions: disabled people’s needs in emergency and resilience planning. About a year ago, when we were concerned about energy prices and the shortage of energy as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, I asked a Minister in the then BEIS to look at how we could ensure that significant power outages did not hurt the people who relied entirely on emergency support when the power went out for more than an hour or two once their own batteries had gone down. People such as our own colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, would be one of those affected.

The plan says:

“Government departments already consider disabled people’s needs in emergency and resilience planning, in line with the Public Sector Equality Duty”.


On 16 January, however, the Department for Health and Social Care—which, somehow, in the game of “Don’t sit down last,” ended up taking on responsibility from BEIS for the negotiations with the energy companies on what to do in power outages—wrote to John Pring of Disability News Service saying:

“We have concluded that, due to the specificity of individual needs and circumstances, individuals and their care teams are best placed to develop plans for how they can prepare for and respond to loss of power to their home”.

That is not government departments working together; it is worse than that. A year on, there is now no way that any disabled person who relies on power can go to anybody in government to say, “My energy company is not helping me”. My baby granddaughter, who was on a ventilator for the first three years of her life, had one such power outage in her area. Had she not been in a carrycot and been able to be brought out of the outage—which adults cannot do—she would have hit very serious problems, so, for me, this is a very personal matter.

The plan says that the Government were learning from previous events such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Grenfell Tower fire. I remind the House that we still do not have PEEPs post-Grenfell fire, which is a very serious issue if you are in a wheelchair and are trying to get down even five flights of stairs—let me put it more bluntly: even one flight of stairs. I am afraid that the actions on that are unworkable.

The section on families in which someone is disabled says the right words, but this Government have consistently starved local government of funding for children’s services, including for education, health and care plans. As a result, schools and the local authorities have zero money to be able to provide, which is why many children are not able to access the help that they are entitled to under the law.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, mentioned issues relating to assistance dogs. Dr Amy Kavanagh, who is a blind activist, said today on social media:

“We don’t need to define assistance dogs. The law does this already. I would welcome an ADA ‘legal questions you can ask’ model. Is the dog supporting a disability?”—


what on earth does that mean? She continues:

“What tasks does the dog perform?”


Frankly, once somebody has an assistance dog, it should not be necessary for a taxi driver to say, “What task does your dog perform?” That is the point at which there is a problem, and the answer is very simple: it is illegal to stop it. Yes, the Government are right: we need to make sure that more businesses know what they are doing.

Katie Pennick, from Transport for All, said that there is:

“Nothing on transport, nothing on housing, nothing on social care, nothing on PIP, nothing on hate crime, nothing on urban planning, nothing on healthcare, nothing nothing nothing…”


Rachel Charlton-Dailey said that, this week:

“Many disabled people are once again missing out on the gov cost of living payment … those on personal independence payment (PIP) or its predecessor disability living allowance (DLA) have received … £300, while those on benefits such as universal credit, child tax credits and employment support allowance will have got £900”.


That is discrimination against disabled people who, as we have heard, have much higher energy costs.

I will not repeat the data mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, but I want to mention one final thing about the two Bills that are cited in the plan: the British Sign Language Act 2022 and the Down Syndrome Act 2022. When the Down Syndrome Act went through your Lordships’ House, we were promised that other genetic conditions would be looked at. Nobody understood why just one condition got the support. Nothing to date has happened. Worse than that, no funding has been allocated whatever, even under the terms of the Down Syndrome Act. It feels like everything else that I covered so far: warm words but no actual benefits to disabled people.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Sherlock and Lady Brinton, for responding to the Disability Action Plan. I appreciate that the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, said that there were some positives in it, but I acknowledge that the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, is not in that position. I hope that in answering all, or nearly all, of the questions that they have raised, I can change her mind, but I am not sure that I will be able to.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, spoke about our track record. I want to give her a very brief potted history of what has happened here and where we have got to. I hope that will help to provide some perspective for the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton. As the noble Baronesses will know, the Government published a draft plan for consultation over the summer so that disabled people, disabled people’s organisations and other interested parties had the opportunity to have their say. The consultation was open for 12 weeks and we received more than 1,300 written responses. In addition to that, we held a series of 25 events during the consultation period, with more than 130 attendees, including experts from a range of sectors. Jumping forward, on 5 February 2024, the Government published the Disability Action Plan.

The Disability Action Plan complements the long-term vision set out in the cross-government national disability strategy. They will be taken forward in parallel, sharing the Government’s commitment to improving the daily lives of disabled people in the here and now and in the years to come. It is the short term and the long term. Significant work is already being taken forward by individual government departments in areas that disabled people have told us are a priority. This includes reforms to employment and welfare via DWP’s Transforming Support: The Health and Disability White Paper and strategies to address health and social care via DHSC’s People at the Heart of Care White Paper.

These long-term reform efforts are already under way, so I make the point that there is some good work under way; it is not just that we have been waiting for those consultations. I will also say that this Government are aware that there are many suggested areas where people highlighted that the consultation was not within the scope of the action plan, and therefore that they had not been included in it. That does not mean that work has not been happening in these areas. It is important to remember that the action plan is only one pillar among many pillars of work being taken forward by this Government to improve the daily lives of disabled people. The plan also sits alongside the national disability strategy and other long-term work across government supporting disabled people, including support with the cost of living, which I will come to in a moment, through Help for Households, as well as the SEND and alternative provision improvement plans.

That takes me neatly on to the cost of living, which was raised with some passion by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. We have committed to continue working across government to highlight disabled people’s concerns, experiences and insights on this topic. That includes sharing findings from this consultation and from disabled people’s experience panels. This work is in addition to broader work across government to support the people most significantly impacted by the rising cost of living.

Both noble Baronesses will know about the statistics, but they are worth repeating. In doing so, I for one understand that there are severe hardships around; I will not cover over those. Taken together, support for households to help with the high costs of living is worth £104 billion over 2022-23 to 2024-25. Over 8 million UK households on eligible means-tested benefits will receive up to three additional cost of living payments, totalling up to £900. The noble Baronesses will know that, from yesterday, the final payment will be paid at £299. I do not think that it is worth rehearsing now all the other aspects, because the noble Baronesses will be well aware of them. But perhaps it will be helpful for me to say that we really are aware of the pressures, particularly for disabled groups.

I will address the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, on the work capability assessment reforms. We are committed to ensuring that our welfare system encourages and supports people into work, while providing a vital safety net for those who need it most. As she will know, from 2025 we will reform the work capability assessment to reflect new flexibilities in the labour market and greater employment opportunities for disabled people and people with health conditions, while maintaining protections for those with the most significant health conditions. Our expanded employment and health offer will provide integrated and tailored support for disabled people to support them and help move claimants closer to work.

I will go a little further: the work capability assessment reforms are not about sanctioning people or forcing them into work where it is not appropriate. I reassure both noble Baronesses that we will continue to protect those with the most severe conditions, while ensuring that those who can work are supported in doing so. In the future, removing the WCA will reduce the number of assessments that people need to take to access benefits, give people the confidence to try work and—this is a very important point—enable us to provide more personalised support so they will meet a real human being.

The noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock, asked about PIP and whether there was a place for vulnerable PIP claimants. The answer is yes. We have some extremely vulnerable customers, which is why we provide additional support during the claims process, if required. This support can include help with filling in the form or questionnaire, and additional protections for failing to return the questionnaire or for failing to attend an assessment. Before attending a face-to-face, telephone or video consultation, claimants are given the opportunity to alert their assessment provider to any additional requirements they may have, and the providers will meet any such reasonable requests. Again, it is important to get the message across that, for the most vulnerable, we really are there to hold their hand and make sure that the process is made easier for them.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised an interesting point about the areas we are focusing on to encourage more disabled people to stand for election. We do think this is incredibly important—as are the points that she raised. The new fund will be launched in 2025, following the design and development work informed by and through engagement with disabled people. This will ensure a long-term solution that meets users’ needs, learning lessons from previous elected office funds.

The noble Baroness made a point about timing. She will know—and said, I think—that, in the meantime, the disability unit will develop and publish new guidance by summer 2024. Yes, those are words, but there are also actions. I am making the point that this needs to be done over the long term. It is very important that political parties and elected public bodies can best support disabled candidates, drawing lessons from the Local Government Association’s work and other sources. That will help to improve support in the short term, while we establish—I make this emphasis again—a new long-term approach.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about addressing the question of public health and emergency planning information—which is another important point. The Minister for Disabled People, Health and Work will lead a discussion with the ministerial disability champions on the importance of accessible communications, with a particular focus on improving accessible communications and information regarding resilience and emergencies. That is just one action among a series of actions being taken to improve the accessibility of government communications.

I have just a few more points to make, including on families, which was a subject raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sherlock. Yes, families are important. The disability unit will explore and develop a new accessible online information hub for families with disabled members. That work complements work led by the DfE to roll out family hubs. The DU will work with partners to develop new products addressing specific issues experienced by families with disabled members. I cannot quite recall the noble Baroness’s precise question, but I reassure her that this is important; it is a key area. She may want more action, so I will read Hansard and write to her if there is more that we can say on that.

Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, raised a point about assistance dogs. Our focus is on all assistance dogs, but we are seeking to build on the excellent work of Guide Dogs UK. I attended a reception it led the other day. Its “Open Doors” campaign seeks the fullest possible access to public places for people with guide dogs. Progress on educating the business sector on the law and the negative impact that access refusals can have on people’s confidence and ability to live an independent life will have a positive impact on all assistance dog users.

Health and Disability White Paper

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 20th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Viscount Younger of Leckie) (Con)]

I will attempt to answer the noble Baroness’s questions. However, I start by saying that, as she will know, these reforms are the biggest undertaken in a decade and have been years in the making, with our initial paper having gone out for a consultation in 2021.

The main answer is that we are very much focused on ensuring that more people are supported into the workforce so that they can enjoy the positive impacts of work, through a more simplified system. I turn to improving our services, which is probably at the heart of the noble Baroness’s question, in focusing on PIP. Putting aside the delays, which I realise we are making progress on, employment and health discussions, which are being tested at the moment, are led by healthcare professionals and focus on how we can help people to overcome their barriers to moving towards work. Furthermore, we have the enhanced support service and the severe disability group for those with the most severe health conditions, and we are developing the skills of our assessors to match people’s primary health conditions. These are game-changers and mark a significant change from the current system.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

The Minister said that this White Paper has taken a long time to get here, but the rollout will not start until 2026-27, so I really hope that the Minister will provide assurance that a lot of the concerns raised by the disabled community will be addressed before it starts to roll out. Plenty of people would fall through the cracks—they are currently not receiving PIP but they are going through the WCA process—so what happens to them? The Chancellor said, with a great flourish, that sanctions will be “applied more rigorously” to people without a health condition, but many disabled people do not have a health condition, so what happens to them? The current level of sanctions causes distress and worse: the Government know that Jodey Whiting killed herself after her benefits were wrongly cut off, and the DWP was found guilty of five serious failings in her case. What will the Government do to ensure that benefits are not cut off from disabled and vulnerable people?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I will quickly pick up on the noble Baroness’s point about the Jodey Whiting case. Our sincere condolences remain with Ms Whiting’s family. The department is ready to assist the coroner with their investigation, but, as the noble Baroness will expect, I am not able to comment on active legal proceedings.

On the noble Baroness’s point about timings, we are deliberately rolling out this new definitive programme over a number of years, which will allow us to look at those who might fall through the cracks, as she put it. There is a lot of work to be done between now and 2027-28. The main thing is that we are investing in employment support for disabled people and people with health conditions, and we are stepping up our work-coach support across the country. That perhaps plays into another question: this takes time to put into place, but we are already recruiting for new work coaches, we are extending the work and health programme, and we are rolling out our new in-work progression offer to help people in work on universal credit.

Employment: Disabled People

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 6th March 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Lord is right. This is why we have the disability action plan, which, as I said to the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, is distinct from the strategy. A new disability action plan will be consulted on and published this year. It will set out the action that the Government will take this year and in 2024 to improve disabled people’s lives. The noble Lord is right that ensuring that the voice of disabled people is properly heard is a priority for the Government. We will run a fully accessible public consultation on the plan this year.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, on 12 January, the Disability News Service reported that neither the Secretary of State, Mel Stride, nor Tom Pursglove, the Minister for Disabled People, had signed up to become members of Disability Confident, unlike many previous Ministers. On 23 January, Mel Stride said that

“we have to ensure that employers see disabled people with eyes wide open—their abilities and the contribution they can make. That is why we promote Disability Confident”.—[Official Report, Commons, 23/1/23; col. 735.]

Have the Secretary of State and the Minister for Disabled People now signed up to Disability Confident?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I can certainly confirm that a whole range of departments have signed up to this, including the Department for Work and Pensions. Although I cannot answer the noble Baroness’s question in terms of the individuals concerned, the department at least has signed up.

Disabled People: Impact from Policies and Spending Cuts

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 21st February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I reassure the noble Baroness that we understand that people across the UK, including those who are disabled, are worried about the cost of living—she mentioned housing and other matters. She will know that we have provided £37 billion-worth of cost of living support in this financial year, including a cost of living payment of £150 for the disabled. We have provided up to £650 for low-income households and £300 for pension households —both of these groups have large numbers of disabled people.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, other noble Lords have spoken about some of the problems inside DWP. I will ask about PIP and applicants who have been disallowed it because they “didn’t return the form”. In 2017, 7,500 claimants were disallowed but, by last year, that had risen to over 42,000. The problem is that, even though many of these people were marked as vulnerable, some have died: Laura Winham starved to death, and it took three years for her body to be found—she was not the only person. What systems is DWP putting in place to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable disabled people?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

The noble Baroness is right to raise PIP. We are targeting support at those with the greatest needs, as she raised. PIP exempts a household from the benefits cap and is uprated by CPI, and it is payable regardless of a person’s employment status. On her particular points, I am pleased to say that we continue to see an improvement in the way that we look at and pay PIP, and particularly in the clearance times—the noble Baroness will know that there have been some delays. I will write to her on her specific question about the content. As I say, the delays are very much a priority for my department at the moment.

Bereavement Benefits (Remedial) Order 2022

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2023 Grand Committee

[Lord Jones (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for the context in which he placed the order, which was so persuasively itemised, and the department for the detail given in the Explanatory Memorandum. It is a warm-hearted and welcome measure, and it is good to see the Committee populated by caring colleagues.

In relation to paragraph 7.10 of the Explanatory Memorandum, is it possible to give an estimate of the number of retrospective payments now available to our fellow citizens through the measure? Has work been done on such figures? Is there a global figure? Is there any information on the likely typical average amount of retrospective money that might be paid out? Does the department know that sort of figure for that sort of person? Indeed, are there any statistics that might be given to make this welcome measure easier to assess by number and amount?

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I too start by thanking the Minister for his helpful explanation. I apologise for not being able to attend the briefing, but Monday mornings are a problem.

On balance, we on these Benches are as pleased as other speakers that this has now come to fruition. We are grateful for the work that the previous Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, did on this. The example given by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman, was extremely helpful, and the points raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, and the noble Lords, Lord Jones and Lord Davies, on some of the other implications, such as tax, are very interesting.

I am sorry that I will now get into some really difficult areas; I hope the Minister will bear with me. I appreciate that I am creating a scenario to which there may not be a speedy response, and I am more than happy to have a written reply. I am particularly interested in paragraphs 7.23 to 7.25 of the Explanatory Memorandum, which set out the determining hierarchy should there appear to be more than one claimant. It is very helpful.

In his introduction, the Minister talked about polyamory, but there are other circumstances as well, such as where people with caring responsibilities live under the same roof, which might include familial members who are not actually spouses but, in the event of the death of the parent—for this purpose I am assuming it is a sole parent who is dying—there are others who will take over responsibility for the children. I know that there has been some concern over multiple claims, and paragraphs 7.23 to 7.25 helpfully set out the priority order.

For me, the issue is much more about the JCHR’s proposal that this benefit should be identified as belonging to children. I am not sure it said it should be paid directly to the children, but because much of it is determined on the age of the children it is clearly designed to support extra costs for somebody with children who has lost a partner. For me, that is important, because I want to raise the issue of kinship carers.

I make a full declaration: I think that my husband and I counted as kinship carers 20 years ago when we became foster parents and then guardians, approved by the family courts, for our best friend. When she died, her children joined us. We had to navigate all the systems in place at that time, which included going to the family court and getting the residency order. That enabled us to claim child benefit for the children. I know that is now means tested, but I am talking about eligibility for child benefit.

The organisation Kinship consistently reports that family members who take on responsibility for children after a partner either has been unable to look after them or has died, as in this circumstance, have ended up having to leave their jobs, not being entitled to benefits and finding every barrier put in their way because they are not typical family carers. Even though they may have had to go through the fostering approval process, as we did, because the courts need to be satisfied that they are capable of looking after and taking responsibility for the children, they are not entitled to foster payments because they are regarded as kinship carers.

The “Emmerdale” actor Jay Kontzle, who was raised by his grandparents after his mother died when he was four, recently said he saw at first hand the way it affected their lives. His grandmother had to stop work and they both had to take on the very difficult task of looking after their orphaned grandchild. It is helpful that he has done that. Kinship surveys have shown that 45% of carers give up jobs and have found repeatedly that they were not eligible for support.

I am remembering my schoolgirl Latin. There is a word, “num”, which notoriously requires a negative answer. I think I expect a negative answer, but there is a real injustice here for this group of kinship carers, whose identification is confirmed by the courts and other benefits but who would not be eligible under these arrangements unless they were living in the same house. How long do they need to live in the house? I wonder whether the Minister can look at this. It may be that this is one of those special cases where there is nobody else who would obviously qualify but where it is needed, for the children and the life changes they will face, for the kinship carers to be considered eligible.

[Baroness Sherlock (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his introduction to this remedial order and all noble Lords who have spoken. I always think that any debate that starts, “Let me give some context from 1925” is never going to be speedy, but let us work through what we have heard today.

Before I start, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Hayman. It is always lovely to find that somebody who writes to a Member of the House of Lords is listened to, the issue is taken up and something happens. I congratulate her on her perseverance, as well as the former Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Stedman-Scott, on her willingness to listen.

I would be very interested to hear answers to a number of the questions that have come up. Obviously, I am glad the Government are stepping forward to take the appropriate response to fulfil their legal obligations. We would not want in any way to stand in the way of this, but there are some important questions still to be asked about how it will work in practice, as my noble friend Lord Davies said.

First there is the question of how DWP will make decisions on whether someone was cohabiting with a partner who has died and therefore is eligible for support. As we have heard, DWP has established practices to decide whether someone is cohabiting. Many years ago, I ran a charity working with single parents, and the rumour mill was alive that the “two toothbrushes test” was the one deployed. Whether or not this was ever the case, the assumption is that in plenty of cases there was no formal evidence, such as a shared rent book or shared bills, yet people were held to be cohabiting when in fact they were being given benefits as a single parent.

There is no question that the DWP has ways of determining this. The noble Baroness, Lady Altmann, pointed out that it has always been able to do so. Indeed, ironically, widowed parent’s allowance was not given to someone who was cohabiting, but you lost it if you started cohabiting after you were bereaved. There obviously must have been some means for making this assessment.

My noble friend Lord Davies asked a really good question: will the criteria be the same for this as for other tests that are applied? If the Government could explain that, it would be really helpful. I would be very interested in the answer to the question raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, about the hierarchy and the breadth to which that is accepted.

The next thing I found myself wrestling with is the fact that WPA is an “overlapping benefit”, in the jargon, so presumably there will be some people who claimed another contributory benefit because, at the time, they were deemed not to be eligible for widowed parent’s allowance, yet they should have been and had they been entitled to WPA they might have been better off. Can the Minister tell us whether the previous benefit payment is off-set against the backdated WPA where this happens? If so, over what period are the payments?

As we have heard, the order has retrospective effect to the date of the McLaughlin judgment in 2018. My noble friend Lord Jones asked some very good questions about how many people will be affected and the global sum involved. To take that on a stage, can the Minister tell us the most that any one person could be due in backdated benefits? I want to know because of the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann: if the sum is large enough for someone on modest means, they might want to husband it quite carefully, but if that is the case, they might have some left over when they go into the next financial year because it has been disregarded for only 12 months. If so, they could find themselves penalised and given less in means-tested benefits in the following year because they had this capital sum available. Will they be told that? How will they be warned that this could happen? The other side of the coin—the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann—is: if they decide to spend it all in the first 12 months, is there any danger that it then gets treated as notional capital because the rules on deprivation of capital hove into view? If the Minister could reassure us, that would be helpful.

The next question is on tax credits. I confess that I am quite confused on this. I was trying to listen to what the Minister said, but I did not quite catch it. Tax credits do not treat capital in the way universal credit does, so I am still not clear as to how any backdated lump-sum payment for WPA will be treated for those on tax credits. I think I heard the Minister say that a backdated payment will be assessed in the year of payment, not the year of entitlement. Can he confirm that? Could he possibly confirm to me now, before I carry on asking questions, whether that lump sum is treated as capital or as income for tax credit purposes? Maybe he could nod if it is capital or if it is income—I am trying to avoid having to intervene to ask the question again when he responds. If it is treated as capital and it is all treated in the year of payment, then it is disregarded and we do not have a problem; if it is treated as income, we do. In which case, can he explain what happens? What is it set against? Is it just the tax credit entitlement in year? Is there any effect from previous years? If this is the case, I assume there is no question of going back and reopening finalised previous tax credit awards. Is there any implication for previous years’ tax credit awards that are not yet “finalised”, in the jargon? Could that happen in any way?

Finally on this point, there is the question of the benefit cap. WPA and BSP both count towards the benefit cap, so it is obviously possible to imagine that a lump sum might take somebody over the benefit cap threshold when an annual entitlement would not have. Will this be affected by the benefit cap, or will the cap be applied retrospectively to previous years by attributing the relevant WPA to each year? What will happen there?

On the money front, there is the question of taxation. As we have heard, BSP is not taxable but WPA is, and in the year of entitlement rather than the year of payment. Therefore, if a lump sum is paid for backdated entitlement, tax is likely to be due on that. Like others, I read the very interesting briefing from the Low Incomes Tax Reform Group. It pointed out that the plan seems to be to pay lump sums gross rather than net of tax, so the obligation then rests on the claimant to pay the backdated tax. I think I heard the Minister say that the Government will flag these cases up to HMRC so that it knows to make an assessment for tax, and I think he said they will flag it up to the claimant so that they know the tax will be payable. Could he clarify that last point in particular? Will they be told what is payable and which tax year it applies to? Many of those people will not have an accountant or any way of understanding this, but they need to know how much of this lump sum to keep to give to the taxman down the line, rather than spending it and then finding themselves even worse off.

Biocidal Products (Health and Safety) (Amendment) Regulations 2022

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2022 Grand Committee

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Baroness Stedman-Scott) (Con)]

My Lords, this draft statutory instrument was laid before Parliament on 18 October. It makes a technical change only and there are no policy changes. It relates to biocidal products, which are used to control harmful organisms and include disinfectants, insecticides and rodenticides. These products have important roles in protecting human health and critical infrastructure and it is therefore essential to society that legal supply of these products is not disrupted.

Although biocidal products are critical to society, they can pose risks to human health, animal health and the environment if used incorrectly. Therefore, to allow a biocidal product on to the GB market, a two-step authorisation process is in place. First, the active substances used in biocidal products must be approved. Approval involves a rigorous scientific evaluation to ensure safety and efficacy—a process which takes one to two years and costs approximately £180,000. If an active substance is approved, applications can be made to authorise biocidal products containing that substance.

This evaluation looks at the safety and efficacy of the formulation, a process which takes about a year and costs approximately £25,000. As noble Lords will understand, the applications are large dossiers of scientific data and require complex evaluation and assessment by a range of specialist scientific disciplines to ensure that there is no danger to human health, animal health or the environment.

The HSE operates a cost-recovery model so applicants bear the full cost of processing applications. Biocidal products are regulated under the Great Britain biocidal products regulation, which was retained following EU exit. The authorisation process in Great Britain is similar to that in the EU, except where references to the EU arrangements were replaced by domestic arrangements.

Also retained in the legislation are the legal deadlines by which applications should be processed. These legal deadlines were in place to ensure consistency across the EU over how long was given to process applications and to provide transparency to applicants. While the UK was still in the EU, a steady stream of applications was processed across EU member states although, even at that time, deadlines were often missed.

In preparation to meet our ambition for the HSE to become a world-class standalone chemicals regulator following the UK’s departure from the EU, significant investment has been made to increase the HSE’s capacity and capability and to embed new processes and procedures. Through a major transformation programme, the HSE’s headcount for its chemicals regulation division has increased by around 40%, with continued ongoing significant investment in people and IT.

As part of the EU exit preparations, transitional arrangements were put in place to ensure a smooth transition for business to the new domestic systems. These arrangements required businesses which had applications in process at the end of the implementation period to resubmit them to the HSE by deadlines in 2021 if they wanted to retain access to the GB market. Under these arrangements, biocidal products already on the GB market could continue to be made available until their application was processed. It was unknown at the time how many resubmissions would be made by applicants to access the GB market until the deadlines had passed.

However, I am pleased to report that over 70% of biocides applications seeking access to the UK market under the previous EU system have been resubmitted to GB. This clearly shows that industry has faith in the GB market and the HSE as the regulator but generates a greater workload than was originally anticipated. As a result, it is not possible to process the large one-off influx of biocidal product authorisation applications within the legal deadlines in place.

This issue has been compounded by the HSE’s loss of access to EU databases holding historical reports which contain scientific information relevant to processing these applications. A resolution should be in place by the time this information is required to process the applications. The HSE will also consider what future digital solutions may be required once a resolution has been implemented; however, the issue has caused some further delays in processing applications. Because these issues have arisen directly from the EU exit, the legal deadlines in the Great Britain biocidal products regulation amount to deficiencies in retained EU law. Therefore, the appropriate course of action available to the HSE is to make amendments through the statutory instrument under the powers to remedy deficiencies in the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018. The changes proposed by this statutory instrument are straightforward: the legal deadlines in place to process biocidal product authorisation applications will be temporarily extended by an additional five years. The period of five years has been derived from resource modelling from the transformation programme I referred to earlier. It represents the amount of time that the HSE forecasts it will take to address the backlog and to return to a position where applications can be processed within the original legal deadlines. I trust that it is understood that processing applications is not a rubber-stamping exercise and that it requires highly trained staff who simply cannot be brought in in large numbers at short notice.

The amendment to these legal deadlines should have no impact on businesses, and an extension of the deadlines themselves does not provide any additional cost to the applicant. Instead, this statutory instrument provides legal certainty that where biocidal products are on the GB market awaiting the outcome of their application they can remain there, which may not otherwise be the case had the legal deadlines been missed. This, in turn, also ensures that there is no disruption to the legal supply of essential biocidal products while the backlog of applications is cleared. A small number of new biocidal products authorisation applications will also be affected by this instrument. However, these applications will be prioritised to ensure that where businesses are waiting for authorisations before they can supply their products, they will not experience any delays.

Finally, this statutory instrument also adds an additional transitional measure which was an oversight in the previous EU exit statutory instruments. This allows a type of biocidal product authorisation application called “same product applications” to transition to GB and be treated in the same way as other applications. This also does not have any impact on businesses and is a technical correction to ensure that the biocide regime is now fully functioning as intended. I can confirm that consent to make this statutory instrument has been obtained from Ministers in the Scottish and Welsh Governments, in line with normal conventions. The regulation of biocides in Northern Ireland follows separate arrangements under the Northern Ireland protocol and is not affected by this instrument.

I hope that colleagues of all parties will join me in supporting the draft regulations, which I commend to the Committee.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and civil servants for the details in the Explanatory Memorandum. I also put on record from these Benches that we too are pleased that arrangements have been made with devolved states; there have been two or three incidents recently where trying to box and cox between those in time to get things out has been problematic, but if that has been able to happen, that is fine.

I should say from these Benches that we do not have a problem with the content of the SI; that is absolutely fine. I just say that, helpfully, the Secondary Legislation Scrutiny Committee, in its 16th report for this parliamentary year, noted in paragraph 4 that

“the Explanatory Memorandum does not indicate what progress the HSE has made in the last three years in reducing the backlog, or whether HSE is building up its own database to prevent”

the problems. I therefore want to ask two questions arising from that. The Minister referred to improvements and understanding that there were pressures so, first, it would be helpful to know whether there is a specific figure available for that backlog and how it is has been reduced. Or is it in fact worsening—which I suspect may be the case—or is it static, having worsened before it came down? On the issue of the Government not being able to access the EU databases now, is there a timescale for the alternative arrangements? That will obviously also help to speed things up.

In reading the Explanatory Memorandum, I have to offer an award to the author in that it is beautifully written and one has to look quite hard to see the problem underlying why we are asked to make this technical SI arrangement. It would be fair to say that the sentence in paragraph 3.1:

“This instrument is formally prospective but will have some retrospective effect”—


in other words—

“this temporary future change will have some effect on past arrangements”,

is glorious and worthy of “Yes Minister”. But I understand the problem. Civil servants are helpfully trying to cover Ministers’ embarrassments, which I will come on to in a minute.

I note that there is a temporary extension for a period of five years to legal deadlines. I particularly turn to paragraph 7.8 in the Explanatory Memorandum, which refers to the “temporary backlog of applications”, and paragraph 7.9, which says that the Health and Safety Executive

“will not be able to meet the legal deadlines”.

The Minister said that the Government intend for us to have a world-class chemicals industry, with world-class safety arrangements. However, the arrangements that were put in place as a result of Brexit and the transitional period mean that a very large number of organisations have had to resubmit applications. I thought it was interesting in the context of Prime Minister Truss—one Prime Minister ago—vowing to scrap remaining EU laws by the end of 2023, that many people said would risk a bonfire of rights. However, it has also created, and will create, an enormous backlog of work for the Civil Service and government agencies. The scale and complexity of the task ahead will be difficult in the context of Civil Service cuts. Can the Minister say how her department and the agencies that report to her—in this instance, I obviously refer specifically to the Health and Safety Executive—will be protected from the proposed Civil Service cuts in order to deliver the extended timescale that is now listed in this particular SI?

This is not just the past Premier’s ambition: about 10 days ago, the Daily Express had a headline

“Brexit bonfire of EU laws set to go ahead with no delay as PM confirms date for axing”


the EU legislation. Can the Minister help to explain how not just this one statutory instrument, but the many thousands of statutory instruments can be in a bonfire by the end of 2023 when we are here today talking about the practical effects on one government agency—the Health and Safety Executive—to make it workable to catch up on the backlog? That is before this Government have even redefined the datasets they were using with the EU to make this job possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

I thank the noble Baronesses, Lady Brinton and Lady Sherlock, for their contributions. I shall try to answer those questions. If there are some that I cannot answer, I shall write and clarify at a later point.

First, the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, asked about the backlog in the past three years. It is important to clarify that the HSE has been working on the backlog of biocidal product applications for only around a year. Three years is a misleading timeframe, because it fails to account for the EU exit implementation period and, after that, the time given to industry applicants to resubmit their applications to the HSE. In this year, the HSE has added the details of all resubmitted applications and associated data into their systems and initiated work on around 20% of these. This is in line with plans to clear the backlog of applications. The HSE’s operational planning assumptions are that it will commence 50 applications per year over the coming years, which means that, by the end of the five-year period, it anticipates having completed the roughly 200 applications received after the transition period or be on track to complete them with the normal timeframes in the legislation. After that, the HSE will return to operating within the existing deadlines so that the deadline extension can lapse.

The noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, also asked a question about having lost access to the EU databases. The EU databases contain certain historical information from the EU regime, which it would be too costly to recreate in Great Britain. Therefore, at the same time, the HSE is exploring options for how it can best operate the GB regime, on the assumption that this information will remain unavailable. Working on this is at an advanced stage, and appropriate solutions will be implemented as soon as they are fully developed and tested. I do not know how we would plan to communicate that once it is done, but I shall write to noble Lords.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

I am very grateful for the Minister’s response, but can I decode it as saying that the HSE is having to start again from scratch? It is not quite clear; I understand the part about not being able to use the EU databases, but do I understand that what is happening in the background is that we have had to start again completely from scratch with a completely blank sheet of paper?

Work Capability Assessment

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I refute the allegation that this is a deeply discredited system. The Department for Work and Pensions takes the death of any claimant very seriously. Where it is made aware that a person has died and it is suggested that that is associated in any way with the department’s activity, a review will be undertaken to identify any lessons that can be learned. It is important to make it very clear that in a case of suicide, a mandatory internal assessment review is undertaken. All these reports will be kept for six years from the date of the final report.

In October 2015, we moved from peer reviews to an internal review process, which is what I meant to call it in the first place. That process means that we hold more information, including all emails relating to the case, the original commission, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal process review. That relates to the death of any individual who has been in receipt of any benefit—not necessarily just the work capability assessment but any benefit at all.

It is important to make the point that we retain that information for six years. Some of it is highly confidential. What we do not retain for more than one year is the day-to-day business on emails which is where requests come in and out about who is asking for what information. That is in line with normal practice. We retain that information for only one year. Complex issues are involved in the decision-making for this, however, and we examine those issues with great care, also taking into account letters from the coroners’ courts. Once again, the department takes the death of any claimant seriously and always conducts an investigation into the circumstances.

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, despite what the Minister said, if all that information is available, why do families not get to see those reports? Take, for example, the Justice for Jodey Whiting campaign. She died in February 2017. She took her own life 15 days after her disability benefits were stopped for missing a work capability assessment, when she was already seriously ill. Her family have repeatedly asked for that review and have never had permission to see it. Three disabled members of staff at the DWP wrote a safeguarding report, which was magically lost in the system. I understand that that was also not passed to the investigators.

The DWP changes its story every time. In May 2018, it claimed that it had no record of the reports or whether it shared vital documents linking fitness to work with the death of benefit claimants. Most extraordinarily, it recently said that the independent reviewers did not ask for documents. How on earth can they ask for documents that they do not know exist? I echo the call for an inquiry, but I want to add another couple of questions.

The Minister’s department claims that it does not hold information on claimants who have lost their lives. On the issue of the length of time for which certain documents are kept, surely there must be a full review of all documents and for how long they are held. Either it is incompetence or, more alarmingly, it is a cover-up. Will the Minister ensure that there is a proper, independent investigation specifically into those missing documents? Why were those documents hidden from the independent reviewer? It is just not good enough to say that they were not asked for, when the independent reviewers did not know about them. Finally, what scrutiny has the department given the private sector contractors, Maximus, Capita and Atos, carrying out the WCA and their record-keeping and passing on of information to assist the DWP when it gets requests from campaigners such as John Pring at Disability News Service, who has campaigned tirelessly for two years on this matter?

[Baroness Buscombe]

My Lords, I cannot respond to the specific case that the noble Baroness mentioned, but I will write to her. I can only repeat what I have already said. This is not a question of keeping information from individuals. As I said in the Statement, the reviews that we carry out—84 since 2015—contain extremely personal information. It would not be appropriate to declare which individual cases were shared with the reviewers on this occasion. We instituted a change in October 2015 when we moved from peer reviews to the internal review process to ensure that we can hold more information, including all emails relating to the case, the original commission, the final report and any recommendations resulting from the internal review process. In line with the department’s document retention policy, any records of whether peer reviews and coroners’ reports since 2010 were either requested by or shared with the independent reviewers of the work capability assessment do not exist. As I said, we keep the information for six years from the date of the final report in the case of the reports and active emails—the day-to-day business of the department—for only one year.

I stress, however, that we take this situation and this issue very seriously. I do not accept that the department has in any way sought to withhold information for any ulterior motive. The department works hard to do the right thing. If one looked across the private and public sectors, one would see that the period for which we hold information of this kind is absolutely in line with normal practice.

Disabled People

Baroness Brinton Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Brinton (LD)]

My Lords, it is a real honour to be able to speak after the new right reverend—and right honourable, for she is also a privy counsellor—Prelate the Bishop of London following her powerful maiden speech, in which she demonstrated her extraordinary life dedicated to Christ since her teens. We in this House note that she joins us as the third most senior cleric in the Church of England and the first woman in this role, after a meteoric rise from 2015 when she was made the Bishop of Crediton. She and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester were the first two women to be ordained as bishops in Canterbury Cathedral, and weeks later she was the first woman in the Church of England to lead an ordination service.

We have heard this afternoon of the impressive breadth of her experience beyond her priestly ministry and, indeed, of her many firsts in the Church. Bishop Sarah began her nursing career just over the river at St Thomas’ and around the corner at Westminster Hospital. It culminated in her appointment as Chief Nursing Officer and director of patient experience for England in 1999. It is worthy of note that she was the youngest woman to hold that position. Her passion for putting the patient first transformed nursing, perhaps most memorably through the new role of matron.

In her recent enthronement sermon at St Paul’s Cathedral, Bishop Sarah remarked that 150 years ago that week suffragettes had placed a bomb under the seat in which she had just been enthroned as the first woman to be Bishop of London. She said—I hope she will allow me to quote her—

“Let me reassure you, I do not come carrying bombs—or perhaps not literal ones, anyway. But I am aware that, as the first woman Bishop of London, I am necessarily subversive, and it’s a necessity I intend to embrace”.


This House and its predecessor, the King’s council of barons and bishops, have seen subversive bishops before, and I know that in welcoming the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of London to your Lordships’ House we see before us a woman who will not be afraid to tackle difficult issues and who will speak truth to her faith and to power.

I thank and congratulate my colleague and noble friend Lady Thomas on securing this debate. Like her and the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, I was a member of the Lords Equality Act 2010 and Disability Committee. Today, in the brief time that is left available, I want to focus on the availability of short-term care and social support for disabled children in our country today. We have already heard from the noble Lord, Lord Patel, about the issues facing children’s hospices, so I shall not repeat those points. However, I want to highlight the Disabled Children’s Partnership’s survey of parents, which found that 64.9% of family members surveyed thought that the quality of social care services had worsened over the past few years; that over three-quarters of family members thought that the quality of health services had worsened over the past few years; and that nearly half said they knew there were plans to reduce social care for children in their area.

Some 49,000 babies, children and young people with life-limiting or life-threatening conditions need palliative care from the point at which their conditions are diagnosed or recognised—which is often, but not always, at birth—until the end of their lives. Parents usually provide the bulk of the round-the-clock care that these often seriously ill children need at home. It is crucial that they are able to access care and support throughout the trajectory of that child’s illness.

Most disabled children receive no regular support at all from outside their close family and friends, and the number who receive social care services—and the number of hours of support per week—is reducing. Yesterday, local councils warned of further cuts to come, and evidence gathered by the Local Government Association shows that local authorities are overspending their children’s social care budgets by £600 million. Can a national inquiry looking at the children’s palliative care strategy, including short breaks, and a family- centred and holistic approach to health and social care interventions, be established very soon? The Government need to issue joint guidance on short breaks to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Secretary of State for Education, and they need to make sure that funding matches the increased demand for children’s palliative care and that direction is given on commissioning responsibilities. It is vital that services—such as those at Nascot Lawn, which I have spoken about in your Lordships’ House many times, and which sadly is going to close—are not closed over the head of the services that these children need.

My grand-daughter has various life-limiting illnesses, and she regards them as special. Aged two, she talks about her feeding tube as her “special tube”. If disabled children can see the specialness and normality of their lives, it is up to us as a country to ensure that we provide the special support that they need to live their lives to the full.