Personal Independence Payment: Mobility Criterion

Debate between Lord Bishop of Peterborough and Baroness Doocey

Wednesday 4th May 2016 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Peterborough]

My Lords, I support the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas of Winchester, and thank her for bringing this Motion before the House. I have a simple point to make.

The tick-box approach is rarely the right one. People are individuals and wherever possible should be treated as such. While it is clear that the 20-metre rule is too restrictive, setting a replacement figure, whether the old one of 50 metres or some other, is still arbitrary and a matter of ticking boxes instead of treating people as people. The high number of successful appeals, whatever the reasons, shows that the 20-metre rule simply does not work.

If a distance has to be used to make this assessment, I would prefer, with the evidence, to return to the figure of 50 metres. But surely that is not the best way to make an assessment of the needs of a real person. We need a careful assessment by a professional, who already knows the claimant or who can take the time to get to know them, of what they really require in their context given the ups and downs of their condition, allowing for where they live, work, shop, take their recreation and meet their friends. This would mean a well-trained cadre of assessors allowed a reasonable degree of discretion and flexibility, and able to assess each claimant as an individual and allow to each the dignity and worth of a human being.

[Baroness Doocey (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Thomas of Winchester has been a tireless advocate for disabled people, using her skills, knowledge and empathy to try to influence government’s attitude to disabled people, their independence and their well-being. However, the 20-metre rule has little to do either with well-being or independence; it is a crude measure to save money. Once again, the Treasury’s guns are trained on those of working age.

Ministers must know, when they reflect privately, that it is short-sighted in the extreme to take away from disabled people who are at an age where it is hoped they could get paid work the very thing that might help get them to and from work. The Motability scheme is well known and understood by its users, and hinges on providing their independence. The Access to Work scheme is a much more limited scheme than Motability and will never be considered a substitute by the people who matter in this—the end-users. What money is saved by snatching cars away from disabled people will almost certainly be lost again in reduced tax revenues as people slip away from employment through no fault of their own. The Government have said that they are sticking with 20 metres because there is “no consensus” around an alternative distance. Other government departments use 50 metres, so it is not that there is a lack of consensus but that the DWP refuses to join the consensus.

As a former local councillor, I know only too well the problems that used to be associated with blue badge parking discs. Yet when the regulations around eligibility and enforcement were tightened up by the coalition Government, the key criterion that they chose to maintain was that a person should be unable to walk more than 50 metres. The Minister must recognise the sense of having some symmetry in the rules about who has special parking rights because of their lack of mobility and who is entitled to some help with having a car in the first instance—also because of their lack of mobility. Do the Government seriously suppose that a person capable of walking only 25 metres, for example, can access public transport with ease? The suggestion beggars belief.

The 20-metre rule is an appalling change, which will be keenly felt in the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people whom it will affect. My noble friend has given the House a clear opportunity to send a strong message to the Government that they must think again. I hope that noble Lords on all sides of the House will make sure that that message is loud and clear.