Improving Lives: Green Paper Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateLord Farmer
Main Page: Lord Farmer (Conservative - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord Farmer's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(7 years, 9 months ago)
Lords ChamberYes, some of the technologies that one sees are remarkable. The noble Lord, Lord Low, who is not in his place at the moment, demonstrates that for the blind every time he stands up—I cannot imagine how he can do it—as did one of the members of my private office, who was also blind. There are amazing technologies to help support in that case; I know that it is also true elsewhere. We want to adopt and take on new technologies. One of the interesting and heartening things with Access to Work, where we have been a little concerned about the take-up, is that we have just introduced a digital offer there and we are encouraged by the response to it. There will be other areas where we can get a lot of benefit from going with new technologies.
My Lords, as we have heard, this Green Paper is to be recommended. It will obviously need some broad support to get it through. Can my noble friend tell us what he is doing to garner broad support for these changes?
We have deliberately designed this Green Paper to ask for responses from a lot of key areas. Noble Lords may remember that when we started off on this process, it was by looking down a direct White Paper route. We have pulled back and gone for the Green Paper route, with a lot of areas for consulting. We plan to hear from and work with disabled people and people with long-term health conditions. We want to hear from employers, health and care professionals, the voluntary and community sectors and the devolved Administrations. We really want to build a consensus on what we can do and get the widest support that we possibly can for any changes.