Welfare Reform and Work Bill

Debate between Baroness Campbell of Surbiton and Lord Freud

Monday 25th January 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

Yes. The Secretary of State for the DWP has no power to make referrals into the health system. That is just the way that these things are kept separate, and there is enormous sensitivity in the medical area about data and information flowing around the systems. In practical terms, that makes it impossible to join them up; it must be done in a much more subtle and clever way.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I thank the Minister for his reply to my amendment, which I shall come to in a moment. First, I thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of St Albans, the noble Baroness, Lady Doocey, and of course my noble friend Lord Low for putting their names to my amendment and believing in some of the arguments that I put forward in Committee. I would also like to thank everyone else, but they are too numerous to mention. I am thrilled to get that amount of support for the amendment.

I am fully aware of the Minister’s and the Government’s good intentions towards helping disabled people gain fulfilling employment. They were and, I believe, still are very serious about wanting to halve the disability employment gap. I welcome that, but I remember thinking the day I heard it, “My God, that’s going to take some work!” and, “Goodness me, we are really going to have to understand what lies behind the lack of mobility and movement within the unemployment field as it concerns disabled people”. I am aware that it will be tough—it will be really tough.

I hear what the Minister says about committing to making sure that disability is properly scrutinised in the annual reporting system. He will probably even get them to give a dedicated chapter to disability, but I also know that this will not do what it needs to for disabled people in really beginning to address that 30% gap.

I have been involved in writing and being part of generic reporting many times in my life. I have often been asked to do the work on disability for general reporting on health and social care. One very clear example struck me when the Minister was speaking—from when the Disability Rights Commission and the reports written by it was amalgamated into the Equality and Human Rights Commission, a lovely generic body where we would all work together on addressing the barriers that everyone faces with getting into work, housing, and so on. I am currently sitting on the post-legislative scrutiny committee on disability to see how well it is doing under the Equality Act and the commission. I have to say that we are receiving overwhelming evidence that the generic approach is simply not working. Disabled people are complex creatures; we are all so different, and all our support is different. Understanding why we are not entering the employment market will take something else—something more than a chapter in a generic report. However committed the Minister is that it should reflect the situation, I am afraid that it will not. That is why I was very keen—and I am keen—that something more should be put forward to address this intractable problem, as unemployment among disabled people is probably one of the biggest.

I am very tempted to test the House, but I am not sure that it would work—and, if it did, I am sure it would be overturned. So I am looking to the Minister to go back to the Government and to departments other than the Department for Work and Pensions, which, frankly, will write the report. Who will collaborate with the department across government? Which departments will really throw their weight behind this? I am sceptical, because they have not done very well so far on other issues. I would like the Minister to go back to the Government and say, “Okay, this will be part of the generic report, but I want it to be a substantive part, and I want more than a generic report with a chapter on disability that tells us all the things that we already know”. For that reason, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Personal Independence Payment

Debate between Baroness Campbell of Surbiton and Lord Freud

Wednesday 10th June 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

The judge found significant shortfalls in the introduction, as the noble Baroness said, and we agreed at the time that that was simply unacceptable. Noble Lords will probably remember that at the peak of the backlogs we were looking at waiting times of 30 weeks. That was in June; we set a target of less than 16 weeks, and we have now gone down to seven. On that basis we are confident about the full rollout, although we will and are doing it on a safe and controlled basis.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (CB)]

My Lords, during the general election campaign the Prime Minister stated his desire to “enhance” and “safeguard” PIP. Will the Minister say how the Government plan to fulfil that election promise to disabled people and reassure them that their payments will be protected in the Chancellor’s up-and-coming Budget?

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Freud]

To clarify matters, I said that this Government would support disabled and vulnerable people through this process.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

Protect!