Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill

Debate between Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Wigley

Monday 23rd April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, Amendment 24B improves on the original amendment rejected by another place in that it specifies the criteria that should be taken into account when determining the client’s needs.

The proposed telephone gateway would simply not be a suitable means for many people to access legal advice. Among the groups which the amendment seeks to protect are those whose disabilities and frailties would prevent them from being able to convey their case across the telephone; those whose first language is not English; and those whose cases are so sensitive that they would be hindered in discussing the details over the phone. That could include clients who have experienced abuse, rape and those with HIV/AIDS conditions.

The Government’s proposals have no regard to the individual circumstances of individual cases. People’s dignity should not be compromised in order to make what are likely to amount to modest savings. Cases should not be unnecessarily prolonged by operators with little or no legal training. The Government should surely listen to the many voices that oppose these proposals and reform this risky scheme.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I, too, have grave doubts as to whether a telephone helpline of the kind we are talking about can be regarded as fit for purpose if the purpose is to disentangle the client’s case with empathy and give appropriate advice on it. The matter is made worse if use of the telephone gateway is to be made mandatory. There may be a place for a telephone gateway—it can have a role in filtering cases, as the Minister said—but it is surely entirely inappropriate that it is made the sole route to discriminating and informed advice.

This is not a matter of speculation for we have been here before and we know what we are talking about. I am talking about the experience that we had with the student loans company when it took over the administration of the disabled students’ allowance. This was administered by a service staffed by the kind of people who will, presumably, be staffing the telephone gateway. They proved to have little understanding of or empathy with the kind of problems disabled students have and for which they were seeking the support provided by the disabled students’ allowance. In fact they were inclined to make light of them and even suggest that the students were somehow swinging the lead or making unmeritorious excuses for financial support from the state.

Those applying for disabled students’ allowance have much in common with the kind of vulnerable people we are talking about needing help with welfare benefits cases. I would not wish to place my confidence in a service of this kind as the mandatory gateway to legal advice and I do not think the House should either.

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Wigley

Wednesday 16th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, as I was saying before I was interrupted a couple of days ago, these amendments touch on a critical consideration—namely, the need to ensure that those making assessments can identify factors that may make it difficult to engage meaningfully, fairly and objectively with the applicants: disabled people, whose condition of course fluctuates, as has been mentioned already, and for whom communication itself is often a challenge.

Nowhere is this more evident than among those whose difficulties arise from the autistic spectrum of disorders. As was pointed out by the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, on Monday, on the autistic spectrum not only are no two people the same, but the same person may exhibit different characteristics over a period of time.

The Minister will, I am sure, have noted from Monday’s debate that many of those who contributed—the noble Lords, Lord German, Lord Addington and Lord Touhig, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Howe and Lady Healy—highlighted the challenge of proper assessment in the context of autism. The noble Baroness, Lady Healy, emphasised the need for assessors to have specific training in autism, and access to expert champions. The noble Baroness, Lady Grey-Thompson, who moved the amendment, warned of the dangers of incorrect decisions where assessors base their conclusions on face-to-face interviews without professional knowledge and without experts’ evidence. Given the extent to which autism factors have run through this debate, may I urge the Minister to address the points raised in that autism context?

In particular, I urge the Minister to ensure that in dealing with problems of face-to-face assessments, safeguards be written into the Bill, so that wherever there is ample expert written evidence available, applicants do not have to go through unnecessary face-to-face assessments. The Bill should stipulate that all assessment will take into account expert reports and evidence as a first tier in that assessment process.

Secondly, there should be a requirement that those undertaking assessment have appropriate training, including in autism. This is something about which Autism Cymru, the organisation in Wales, feels particularly strongly. Also, in every assessment centre there should be available to assessors appropriate experts or champions in mental, intellectual or cognitive disabilities, including autism.

The third point I want to underline—and these have all been raised in different ways by noble Lords who have contributed to this debate—is that the Bill and regulations must specify that parents and carers are categorically allowed to support disabled individuals at every stage in the assessment process. Those without such support should be told of their rights to an independent advocate.

Finally, I turn to the position of lifelong awards in the context of Amendments 86F and 86G, to which I have added my name. The Government have said that they want all awards to be for fixed terms apart from in exceptional circumstances, and that there will be some sort of built-in review process. Surely the Minister must realise and accept that there will be people who are sadly not exceptional, whose condition is a lifelong one and for whom the worry and uncertainty of regular reviews are an unnecessary imposition, the cost of which is a waste of public money. Does not all common sense say that those with a degenerative disease, for example, should not have to face repeated assessments? In this group there are more than 300,000 adults, as I understand it, with autism, whose core condition will not change; there are some 70,000 with MS and 20,000 with Parkinson’s disease, whose condition is incurable. Retesting these people is no more than pandering to the tabloid agenda we heard about in the last sitting.

I urge the Minister to take on board these amendments and to facilitate lifelong awards where appropriate.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I have put my name to Amendment 86ZB in this group. These amendments, which would dispense with a face-to-face assessment where there is appropriate written evidence, have considerable overlap with Amendment 86ZZZV in the name of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, in the next group. So, if I may, I will say what I have to say on the matter now and spare the Committee the repetition when it comes up later especially since, with apologies to the Committee, I have to leave for the airport at 3.15 and may not be around when we come to the later discussion.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Wigley]

Before the Minister sits down, he mentioned the possibility of developing in conjunction with the National Autistic Society an initiative to augment training. Is he aware of the scheme that has been running in Wales, under the autism plan that was adopted by the Government of Wales, with training work undertaken by Autism Cymru with Careers Wales and to some extent with Jobcentre Plus itself? Last February, an online booklet was published for Careers Wales and Jobcentre Plus, and there were similar publications on autistic conditions relating to the advocacy service and GP practices. Are these the sort of initiatives that the Minister sees being developed in conjunction with the National Autistic Society?

[Lord Low of Dalston]

Before the Minister concludes, I am sorry if I was not paying attention, but I did not hear him respond to the points made about our amendment about cases where the written evidence was clear and unambiguous, where there were very high levels of need which, the nature of the impairment made clear, were unlikely to change. I heard the Minister say that the assessment process would be implemented with flexibility, but my impression was that the avoidance of a reassessment would be a pretty exceptional situation. Those of us who support Amendment 86ZB believe that cases where people's circumstances are unlikely to change and their high levels of need have been unambiguously and unequivocally evidenced are not isolated exceptions. That is a widespread and general circumstance. Can the Minister respond a bit more positively on that?

Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Low of Dalston and Lord Wigley

Monday 14th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, I realise that I should have apologised to the Committee earlier for having taken no part in the debates on this Bill heretofore, then turning up on day 13 and contributing to practically all the debates. I hope that this will be regarded as making up for lost time rather than trespassing on the good will of the Committee. I would have been here for day 11 when contributory ESA was discussed at considerable length, but unfortunately I was away last week and therefore not able to do that, however keen I was to do so. However, I hope that I will be able to make up for lost time on that when we come to Report. There was certainly a lot to get one’s teeth into in the report of the debate on contributory ESA held on day 11, which I have already begun to study with care, but it is quite technical so it will need more study—I can see another weekend or two going on that.

I turn to the matter in hand. I certainly want to support the amendment moved by my noble friend Lady Campbell. People vary in the extent to which they regard the social model of disability as another holy grail of disability policy and in the extent to which they regard the barriers erected by society as opposed to medical factors as accounting for the bulk of a disabled person’s difficulties. I confess that I am inclined to allocate a bit more significance than some to the so-called medical factors—those to do with the individual and their impairment. But this amendment is moved in impeccably moderate terms. Its purpose is simply to ensure that the assessment process for PIP takes into account the full range of factors—social, practical and environmental as well as medical—that disabled people face. No one could possibly disagree with that, and I am sure that the Minister will tell us that he does not either.

In introducing PIP, the Government have stated their commitment to support disabled people to overcome the barriers they face in order to lead full and independent lives. If that is the case, the assessment should assess the full picture of the barriers that disabled people face in their everyday lives, and putting this amendment in the Bill would help to ensure that the assessment process took that form.

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I regard this as one of the most important amendments we are considering because of the importance of the message it carries. If we were alive then, most of us remember where we were when President Kennedy was shot, or when 9/11 occurred. I remember exactly where I was when I first came across the social definition of disability. I was in Sweden, it was 30 years ago this year, and it was the International Year of Disabled Persons. I was in the process of trying to get a disabled person’s Act on to the statute book in the House of Commons. With the support of a number of people here, we were successful. In fact, the noble Lord, Lord Low, gave me a considerable amount of help outside the Chamber at the time.

The definition was put to me in these terms, which I still carry in my mind. Handicap is the relationship between a disabled person and his or her physical, social or psychological environment. By medical intervention, we may or may not be able to do something about the basic disability, but our ability to amend and adjust the environment can prevent disability becoming a handicap. In those terms, it is glaringly clear where responsibility lies to minimise the degree of handicap that people, for various unfortunate reasons, whether accidental or congenital, have to face as the consequence of disability. It is the responsibility of any Government in any civilised country to have that at the core of their approach to disability politics.

I am not certain of the extent to which the words in the amendment will change the thrust of policy, but I am certain that the commitment to this approach must be central. If we have that commitment at the heart of our thinking, other decisions in this Committee and in later stages will work out for the benefit of disabled people.