Welfare Reform Bill

Debate between Lord Newton of Braintree and Baroness Turner of Camden

Monday 14th November 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I, too, support these amendments. I also do so with some humility because I have become mildly disabled in recent years and I can understand how many disabled people feel that the life-changing effect of disability is not always fully appreciated. Your life changes completely in all sorts of ways. You wonder whether you can accept an invitation. How will I get there? Will I be able to get back? What will it be like when I get there? Will I have to stand up?

This is with relatively mild disability—for people who have greater suffering it is much worse. I suppose it is one of the reasons I have received more articles and letters on this bit of the Bill than any other section. I recently had a letter from Scope, which is in support of these amendments, of course; it urges that they should be fully supported. It points out that a social-model-based assessment is required and a great deal more attention needs to be paid to the life-changing aspect of disability.

I thank the noble Lords who have brought this before us because it is quite important. If one is able-bodied, one does not realise exactly what it means to have no real mobility. It really is totally life-changing and I do not really think in setting the new arrangements in relation to the PIP this is entirely appreciated by the Government.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, perhaps I may intervene briefly in view of the fact that I arrived at exactly the moment the noble Lord, Lord Low, was making kindly references to me in his speech, although he will probably not have recognised it until a bit later. I was told subsequently by the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell of Surbiton, that she has also referred to me in reasonably friendly terms and I am duly grateful for that and also for what I understand were friendly references made towards the back end of last week by the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and possibly also again by the noble Baroness, Lady Lister.

If you wonder why I have not been here it is not just because I am so busy but because I was frightened off by the phalanx of female Peers that fell on me the last time I was here for some entirely innocent remark. It has taken me a long while—believe it if you will—to regain my self-confidence. However, I am here and since I have not heard all the debate I am not going to attempt to comment in detail. Also, it would look a bit odd for me to defend the name or the precise detail of it or anything else that I and the late Nick Scott—who played a seminal part in all this and should be remembered in this context—put in place 22 years or so ago.

It is important to recognise from what has been said, even while I have been here, that it has captured the support of disabled people as a phrase, a concept and a purpose, and it would be a huge shame if—I gather that the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, has used this phrase—we landed up throwing the baby out with the bathwater and losing some of what was gained with DLA, even if it is obviously right that at this stage, 20-plus years on, it should be reviewed and refreshed.

All my instinctive sympathy says that if this nomenclature is what disabled people themselves would like, are comfortable with and feel reflects their needs, I cannot see why we should die in a ditch to change it. That is my position, and I will leave it there with the Minister. I am looking forward to his usual—what was the word used about the noble Earl, Lord Howe, in the papers yesterday: silky?—silky and constructive reply.

Public Bodies Bill [HL]

Debate between Lord Newton of Braintree and Baroness Turner of Camden

Monday 7th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden]

My Lords, I support my noble friend. I spent part of my previous career sitting on various quangos, some of which are included in the Bill. I must say that I thought that the quango-sitting that I did was very useful, that our contribution was a good one and so on. I would like to think that they would not simply be closed down and consigned to what the noble Lord, Lord Elton, described as the “bonfire of the quangos” without adequate examination by Parliament. That is exactly what my noble friend is suggesting: before the quangos are dispensed with, there should be a thorough examination, Parliament should determine whether or not they were valuable or useful and should continue to operate and, unless that happened, the quangos should continue to operate. Perhaps they would do so in a different form but the functions would not be dropped; there would be some provision for the functions that they had carried out to be performed in future. I hope that my noble friend’s arguments will attract support from the Government. The amendment seems to be very reasonable, proposing that Parliament must have the final say. That is very important, and I hope that the Government will be prepared to accept it.

[Lord Newton of Braintree]

My Lords, I am not sure I have any brownie points left in the bank after various earlier exchanges but I hope I have a few. I express my sympathy with the general thrust of the point that was made very well by the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, and which has just been supported. I imagine it will be further supported by the noble Baroness, Lady Hayter.

There is, as I have said on several occasions in the House, a complete lack of intellectual coherence in the approach that is being adopted towards different bodies, particularly in respect of those parts of the Bill relating to the Ministry of Justice. I will not go on again now—although I will later—about the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, which I formerly chaired. However, we have a curious situation in which the AJTC is in—and for the moment stays in—Schedule 1 but the other two justice councils, which were in Schedule 7, have been cast out. The Civil Justice Council’s terms of reference were those on which those of the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council were modelled. Nobody has explained why what is right for the Civil Justice Council is wrong for the Administrative Justice and Tribunals Council, with which it overlaps. Picking up the fundamental thrust of what the noble Lord, Lord Whitty, said, there is a case for a coherent explanation, across the board, of what the Government are doing. I hope we may get at least some assurance on that in the course of my noble friend’s response.