Welfare Reform Bill

Lord McAvoy Excerpts

Monday 21st November 2011 Grand Committee

[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I support the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, in his amendment. I respect the view of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, on ME, and I also thank the Minister for his recent letter to me that clarifies a lot about the department’s stance on ME. I am very grateful for what he has done.

However, there are serious cases of ME where people are just not going to get better. In the House the other day during our consideration of the Health and Social Care Bill, I described a young lady who has had ME since she was 15 and who is now 30 and is not going to get any better. There are a lot of people like that. She is suffering terrible stress with worrying about what is going to happen with her personal independence payments, and that is not helping her condition. In cases like that, where it is pretty obvious that the person is not going to get better—unless there is a miracle of medical science, when of course it should be reviewed whether the person’s health can be improved, which would be all well and good—such patients should not be subjected to the stresses of a medical examination.

[Lord McAvoy]

My Lords, I would like to follow the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, that medical science might come up with a cure, but I am puzzled as to why that is problem. Surely when the facts change, the law would be changed; I do not see any great problem with changing the law.

[Lord McKenzie of Luton]

My Lords, we have a degree of sympathy with the amendment moved by my noble friend Lord Touhig and spoken to by the noble Countess, Lady Mar, and the noble Lord, Lord Wigley. As I understand it, it goes with the grain of what the Government are seeking to do. When we debated similar issues last week, I thought the term “exceptional circumstances” was somewhat broader than a strict reading of it might lead one to conclude. Therefore, I ask the Minister to expand on that when dealing with this amendment and to say whether he accepts the proposition that there will be those with long-term degenerative conditions that are unlikely to improve.

The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, makes the reasonable point that we never know if there might be medical scientific breakthroughs, but, as my noble friend said, these matters could always be revisited. It seems to be important to try to give some comfort to people whose condition is sadly not going to improve. What is the purpose of bringing them in simply to pile stress on to their lives and use resources that could be deployed elsewhere?