Parliamentary Democracy in the United Kingdom

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Tuesday 25th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Jones of Moulsecoomb, for securing this debate. It is a pleasure to follow my old noble friend Lord Hannan and precede the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Lichfield. Having witnessed at first hand his practical commitment to democracy in the way he chairs the Council of Christians and Jews, I have no doubt that his contributions will strengthen your Lordships’ House.

We all know that democracy is not perfect, but it is the best imperfection we have as a bulwark against the wave of totalitarianism once again destabilising the world and causing chaos, as the current situation in Sudan demonstrates. Closer to home, I hope that when making an assessment of the strength of parliamentary democracy, my noble friend the Minister will consider how inclusive and representative our Parliament is of the diversity of the UK population, particularly with regard to the more than 14 million who have a disability. I commend my noble friend the Minister on her personal commitment to getting more disabled people into public appointments.

With little more than 1% of your Lordships’ House having long-term lived experience of disability, I suggest that all party leaders need to follow the Minister’s example and commit to addressing this damaging deficit of lived experience by sending, on merit, more disabled people to this House. I hope this call is something that all noble Lords can support as an opportunity for us to own reform of your Lordships’ House and so strengthen the vital contribution we make to robust and rigorous parliamentary scrutiny and debate.

Public Services: Workforce (Public Services Committee Report)

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Friday 16th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I join others in congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, and her Select Committee on producing the report. Its carefully considered, cross-party conclusions and recommendations surely highlight both the added value which your Lordships’ House brings to the UK’s legislative process and how much would be lost by its abolition.

Time does not allow me to address all 16 recommendations, so I shall focus on seven of them from the perspective of a person with lived experience of disability, as a service user, and as the chair of two commissions—first, the excellent Centre for Social Justice’s disability commission, which reported in 2021, and, more recently, the Institute of Directors’ commission on harnessing diverse talent for success—which recently produced separate but complementary business and policy white papers, both of which are available in the Library.

My noble friend the Minister may not have seen the white papers—I would be delighted to share them with her—but I hope that she would agree with the thrust of our conclusions, perhaps even with all our recommendations, which echo many of the points we are discussing today. Clearly, a powerful precedent has been set in the Government’s positive response to the report—but I must not get carried away. Perhaps the director-general of the IoD, Jonathan Geldart, who chose me deliberately as a person with lived experience as the IoD’s disability commission’s chair, had a premonition of what was in the report. The noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong, thanked the clerks of the Select Committee and her advisers for their help; I know that I was no less reliant on the IoD’s excellent senior policy adviser, Alexandra Hall-Chen.

I welcome this report’s focus on workforce data. This is not woke—this is pure common sense. Data underpins organisational success, whether in the public, private or voluntary sector. I urge the Government to facilitate transparent and consistent workforce data through mandatory reporting. Tom Pursglove, the new Minister for Disabled People in the other place, has recently launched an outline disability action plan. What gets measured gets done, so data will be essential to measurable, credible progress towards equality of opportunity.

I also welcome the report’s emphasis on the importance of engaging with service users and people with lived experience so that—and I hope the noble Baroness, Lady Armstrong of Hill Top, will forgive me for paraphrasing—an appreciation of such an invaluable resource is embedded within the culture of both service development and delivery. Crucially, as the report rightly makes clear, engagement must be meaningful.

I suspect that my noble friend the Minister, as a former business leader herself, completely gets this. That is also why I imagine she will understand at least the thinking behind the report’s recommendations on partnership with service users and on putting that into practice through the delivery of training and the co-production of strategies—for example, those relating to children’s and family services. I would go one step further. If Tom Pursglove wants to ensure that the disability action plan does not simply become another version of the widely derided National Disability Strategy, he could make a commitment to co-production with disabled people. That would be a very powerful message of equality and respect to send to disabled people, who too often are, sadly, shown neither by the DWP.

I conclude by welcoming the report’s final recommendation on the importance of gathering, promoting and cascading best practice on the development of leadership pipelines. Your Lordships’ House has played a pivotal role in securing anti-discrimination legislation, but disabled people and disabled young people who have benefited—for example, by going through mainstream education—now need to be able to excel so that they can realise their potential and on merit reach the top. The Government have a crucial role in facilitating this.

I thank the Public Services Committee for producing the report, and I look forward to my noble friend the Minister’s response.

House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 18th November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate my noble friend and former tutor Lord Norton of Louth on securing a Second Reading of his important Bill. In September 2021, when we debated this issue, I argued that the measures it proposes were unnecessary and I appealed to the then Prime Minister to send us more new blood that reflects the richness of the UK’s diverse talent pool. Sadly, figures from the House of Lords Library show that my faith was misplaced. Not for the first time, I stand corrected by my former tutor.

In the last two years alone, 54 peerages have been created, of which 35 were given to men and 19 to women. While I welcome all those who have been introduced, to the best of my knowledge, not one of them has lived experience of disability. That matters, because it weakens our claim to be a House of expertise and experience when there are 14 million disabled people in the UK—unless, of course, one still believes that disabled people are simply a homogeneous group to and for whom stuff is done. That was indeed once the case, but the world outside has moved on. I would like to say that we need to move with it.

In fact, since I am one of only perhaps a dozen Members with lived experience of non-age-related disability out of approaching 800 Members of your Lordships’ House, the reality is far more grave: we have an awful lot of catching up to do. This Bill, in particular Clause 7(4)—which the noble Lord, Lord Howarth of Newport, and the right reverend Prelate, who is not in his place at the moment, have mentioned—which requires the Appointments Commission have regard to the diversity of the UK population, would help to ensure that that happens.

I recently had the honour of chairing a commission for the Institute of Directors on harnessing the diverse talent in the UK for business success, looking at four protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010: disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity and gender. Its members comprised leading lights from the world of business: Dr Roger Barker, from the IoD; I Stephanie Boyce, immediate past president of the Law Society and the first woman of colour to hold that position; Virginia Clegg, senior partner, DAC Beachcroft; Paul Donovan, chief economist, UBS Global Wealth Management; David Forbes-Nixon OBE, founder and former CEO, Alcentra; Mike Howells, president, Workforce Skills, Pearson; Steve Ingham CBE, CEO of the Page Group, who uses a wheelchair full time; Matthew Layton, former global managing partner, Clifford Chance; my noble friend Lady Morrissey, chair of the Diversity Project; Dr Zara Nanu, chief executive, GapSquare; and Theresa Shearer, CEO, ENABLE. Together, we comprised a powerful line-up committed to equity, diversity and inclusion, and I am very grateful to all of them for their invaluable help. The fundamental premise of the commission is that diversity is good, and is good for business. It would be good for us too.

We say we are a House of self-regulation, but surely the more important question, which this Bill would go some way to addressing, is whether we are also a House of self-preservation. As the noble Lord, Lord McDonald of Salford, says, change is coming. Let us be the ones to shape it. I support the Bill.

House of Lords Appointments Commission

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I fear that putting the commission on a statutory basis would not conceal our Achilles heel: the fact that we are so unrepresentative as an institution, particularly on disability. The presumption of privilege that permeates how your Lordships’ House operates only, sadly, emboldens those who would deride us as a relic of a bygone age, ripe for abolition.

We know that the demographics of your Lordships’ House do not reflect the diversity of the people whom we serve. Indeed, the whole Westminster bubble is still made up of, exists and functions for non-disabled people. It is where the UK’s 14 million disabled people are always the other—for and to whom things are done.

Today, in 2021, you can be the chief executive of a hugely successful FTSE 250 company while also being a wheelchair user—yet the layout of this Chamber and that of the other place make it impossible for a wheelchair user to speak from the Dispatch Box. However inadvertent, disability discrimination is built into the very fabric and modus operandi of your Lordships’ House. It is the status quo, and it is a completely untenable situation.

I appeal to the Prime Minister to send us more new blood that reflects the richness of the UK’s diverse talent pool and to the House authorities to redouble their efforts to put our own House in order. We do not need a statutory commission to make that happen; we just need the political will.

EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Friday 8th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I am delighted that we were able to reach such a favourable agreement with the EU, and I applaud the resolve, skill and tenacity of the Prime Minister, my noble friend Lord Frost and, of course, our negotiating team. I echo the optimism expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Butler of Brockwell, in our debate on 30 December last year.

As we look beyond Brexit, and indeed beyond the EU, I hope we can agree that effective trade and co-operation have to be underpinned by values. Of course, with the welcome additional spending that the Defence Secretary recently secured, we can project enhanced military power; but surely we also want to project soft power, especially our faith in parliamentary democracy as a value-based system that delivers both stability and prosperity. The terrifying scenes from Capitol Hill are a reminder that it is not just in Hong Kong that democracy is under assault. The essence of democracy is that, as we all know, it allows for change; it allows the pendulum to swing in accordance with the people’s will as expressed through the ballot box—a fact that, in the case of our own referendum, some in the EU found almost impossible to accept.

When I think of the Muslim Uighurs butchered by the racist, criminal regime of Xi Jinping, or the brave democrats of Hong Kong, whose universal human rights are being brutally quashed by his puppet, Carrie Lam, I hope our approach to trade and co-operation will be about more than just money. In conclusion, ballot boxes, respect for universal human rights and a commitment to intersectional equality should also figure large among our exports, as the best guarantee of global stability and prosperity.

EU: Future Relationship

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd September 2020 Grand Committee

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, Germany’s Europe Minister, Michael Roth, is reported this morning as saying:

“We are really really disappointed about the results of the negotiations so far ... Please dear friends in London stop the games. Time is running out.”


Well, Herr Roth is, of course, right in this respect: the clock is ticking in the countdown to our freedom, but he is wide of the mark if he thinks the Government’s tenacity and resolve amount to games. They do not. Thankfully, the Government’s commendable approach is serious and earnest precisely because, as Herr Roth will be acutely aware, the stakes are so high.

His remarks took me back to when I was in Berlin with a parliamentary delegation shortly after the referendum. Two memories in particular stay with me. One is of a member of the UK delegation, with tears in their eyes, telling our opposite numbers in the Bundestag, “I hope you give us a good kicking, so we realise our mistake.” The other memory was of being berated by our German hosts, who said, “How could you do this to us? We thought you were our friends. How could you leave us to foot the bill?” Those are my abiding memories, and I for one am not at all surprised that Herr Roth should be so disappointed or that Germany should be so keen to punish us, as my noble friend Lady Noakes pointed out in her excellent speech. No wonder we are on the naughty step.

For Germany will pay far more. For them, and for the EU, this only underlines why it is so crucial that there must be no reward for daring to step out of line. As I said before, the stakes could not be higher. We are on the threshold of liberty, of growth and of a brighter future outside of the EU, but in co-operation with the EU, Europe and the world and they know it. They are desperate that our freedom is seen to come at a price that deters any other member state from following the courageous example of the UK.

But the EU is not Europe, and Europe is not the EU. The EU will come and go, as all empires do. Europe will remain. While the EU, as an empire that is overreaching itself, cannot afford for Brexit to succeed, Europe cannot afford for it to fail. For though I do not wish for this to happen, if the eurozone implodes, as some commentators predict, if the EU disintegrates under the weight of its own anti-democratic contradictions and if Europe breaks free from the shackles, it is vital that the UK is able to reach out and offer the steadying hand of friendship, stability and economic security that will underpin our future relationship and peace and prosperity in Europe and the wider world.

So I thank the Minister, my noble friend Lord Frost, whom I was so proud to introduce, along with my noble friend Lord Ahmad, to your Lordships’ House only recently and, above all, our brave Prime Minister for their admirable restraint and resolve. To them I say: hold firm, and the best of luck in fighting Britain’s corner in these crucial negotiations.

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Committee: 2nd sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Friday 7th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, the Burns report is a question which is not before you. This is simply not a fatal Motion. It will not stop the progress of the Bill, on which there are mixed views among us. It merely expresses the opinion that this job ought to be done by central government. With that proposition I entirely agree, for reasons which will no doubt be extended later in the debate. The question is simply whether we can say to Her Majesty’s Government with a resounding voice—in unison, I hope—that they ought to get on with this. That will then be in their ears when they come to look again at Burns.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I have neither an interest to protect nor an axe to grind but I feel we should be clear: this is not about reducing the size of your Lordships’ House. Some may say that the hereditary principle is out of date. But surely it is the politics of envy which is outdated, not the noble principle of public service, handed down through the generations. A duty to serve in your Lordships’ House should never be regarded as an anachronism.

Were this Bill to be passed, there would be no going back. That would be it. We would not be ending a chapter of our history so much as turning our back on it and on the golden thread that runs through it: continuity and the stability that flows from that. Yes, injustice did accompany excessive power and the abuse of privilege in the past. But are we seriously saying that that is happening now among the 92 noble Lords who are Members of your Lordships’ House by virtue of inheriting their title, or that it would be the case if their heirs did so?

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) (Abolition of By-Elections) Bill [HL]

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Friday 23rd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I will speak to this group, with particular reference to Amendment 25.

I am conscious that I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth; I was born with a broken leg, which is how doctors diagnosed my disability. I therefore have no more of an interest in the perpetuation of privilege than I do in the perpetuation of prejudice on the grounds of disability, for example. But surely we all have an interest in ensuring that a focus on privilege does not prejudice either the perpetuation of the noble tradition of public service or, crucially, our capacity to reform and strengthen your Lordships’ House and improve it from within.

I am struck by the simple fact that not that long ago, someone like me would have been lucky to get into a workhouse, never mind your Lordships’ House, because of my disability. Fortunately, attitudes have changed, society has evolved, and social reform achieved over many decades has enabled me to contribute to your Lordships’ House as a Member. I thank all noble Lords, past and present, for enabling that to happen, including social reformers among hereditary Peers.

I am not against reform. Indeed, it is essential, which is why I want your Lordships’ House to retain the power and the opportunity to reform itself from within. By-elections—in accordance with Amendment 25, of all Members of your Lordships’ House—give it that power because through by-elections we have the opportunity to address the point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins of Tavistock, about the representative nature of the House. We have the opportunity to change the face we present to the public. The total number of Peers—a subject some noble Lords have mentioned today—may be important to us. The fact that on paper—if not in attendance, since the average daily attendance in the 2016-17 Session was 484—we are larger than the elected House may weigh heavily on our consciences. But I would be prepared to wager that what is far more important to the person in the street in terms of the legitimacy of your Lordships’ House is that noble Lords are more representative, not necessarily politically but in terms of women, disabled people and people from black and minority-ethnic and LGBT backgrounds.

I appreciate that, as has already been touched on, as the law stands, the vast majority of titles may be inherited only by a man. I do not support that, and indeed I know that my noble friend Lord Trefgarne has, in the past, attempted to legislate on that issue. Unfortunately, we are constrained as to what we can do as a House in that area. However, we can surely do our bit on disability, because I know of at least one hereditary Peer whose ancestors served our country with distinction as Members of your Lordships’ House who would love to have the opportunity to do the same themselves by standing successfully as a candidate in a by-election of your Lordships’ House. I can think of no more powerful message to send to the public that we are both capable of and committed to making your Lordships’ House more representative than if we were to use by-elections to elect more disabled Peers to serve as Members of it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

We all value enormously the contribution which my noble friend makes to this House, and I very much support his view about improving the diversity of this House and having more disabled people in it. But surely by limiting the cohort in the way that by-elections do, he is arguing against himself.

[Lord Shinkwin]

I do not accept that point, because if one looks at the appointments to this House, one can argue that if we were all to agree today that in future by-elections we would prioritise the election of disabled hereditaries, we could make quite significant progress on improving the composition.

I will close with the following point, on which I hope we can all agree. We recently marked the centenary of women aged 30 and above being given the vote. Would it not be wonderful if, to complement our commitment to reform from within through by-elections, we also gave our support to this country’s second woman Prime Minister should the majority of people whom she recommends that Her Majesty send to your Lordships’ House be women, with a significant proportion of them from BAME backgrounds? Both measures, taken together, would do more to strengthen the legitimacy of your Lordships’ House than any reduction in our numbers, important though that is. The retention of by-elections is therefore a crucial part of the organic process of reform from within. For that reason I support Amendment 25.

[Lord Trefgarne]

My Lords, I am grateful for all the contributions we have just heard, and I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Universal Credit

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis of Heigham, for this important opportunity to focus on the sustainability of the welfare system. As a Conservative committed to social justice, I am proud that a Conservative Government have had the courage, vision and political will to introduce universal credit. This is a monumental step change which is putting our welfare system on to a sustainable footing for the future.

I come to this issue as someone who is a benefit claimant. In the past I have claimed incapacity benefit and I claim disability living allowance now to help meet the extra costs of my disability, so I declare a vested interest. Indeed, I depend on a welfare system that is sustainable. I have no vested interest in patronising either disabled or non-disabled claimants of universal credit by implying that somehow it does not really matter whether the welfare system is sustainable. The noble Lord, Lord Livermore, mentioned ideology. I do not subscribe to the ideology that digging ourselves, as a country, ever deeper into debt will somehow not have painful repercussions further down the line, especially for those who most depend on the welfare state and who can therefore least afford for it to be unsustainable.

Reforming the benefits system of the past so that it is fit for purpose for the future is a huge undertaking, as we have already heard. Indeed, how could it not be? What systemic change process does not generate situations from which we can learn? We have heard of such situations. That is why I welcome the Government’s emphasis on a gradual introduction of universal credit. It is also why I welcome their renewed efforts to make people aware that advances of universal credit are available for those who need it—either within five working days or, if a person is in immediate need, on the same day—and that the rent of people who need extra support with managing their budget can be paid directly to their landlords.

What I cannot welcome is how, in the cut and thrust of Prime Minister’s Questions recently, some on the hard left have risked exacerbating vulnerable people’s fears. Of course it is entirely legitimate to highlight individual cases, but the scaremongering that we have seen in the other place—for example, the suggestion that the universal credit inquiry line is a premium-rate number, when everyone knows that it never has been—helps no one. I thank the Government for countering the scaremongering by making it a freephone number.

A number of disability organisations contacted me rather late in the day about this debate. Time does not allow me to go into the detail, but would my noble friend the Minister be willing to meet me to discuss some of the points that they have made?

In the meantime, and in conclusion, I do not question any noble Lord’s integrity, but there is a fine balance to be struck between highlighting individual cases and misrepresenting universal credit as a whole, as has happened in the other place—as my noble friend Lord Famer highlighted earlier in this important debate. We all know that no one gains if people in real need are frightened off from making a claim when what they need to hear is reassurance that the impact of universal credit is overwhelmingly positive; that it is helping to make the welfare system sustainable for the future, for both the claimant and the taxpayer; that it is being introduced gradually and carefully over the next five years; and that prompt help for those in real difficulty is available.

Social Security (Personal Independence Payment) (Amendment) Regulations 2017

Lord Shinkwin Excerpts

Monday 27th March 2017 Lords Chamber

The system is not working as well as it could and it is time to re-evaluate it. I would like the Minister to reassure me that the chaos around the system will not be used as an excuse to potentially stop supporting disabled people through the personal independence payment. That is one worry that I really have: that it is seen as so confusing and such a disaster that some people might think it easier to stop it. That would be appalling. The personal independence payment is really important to help many disabled people to lead independent lives, and it is time it worked properly.

[Lord Shinkwin (Con)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as a recipient of the higher-rate mobility component of disability living allowance, which, as noble Lords will know, is being replaced by PIP. As someone with a severe, permanent and constant disability, I depend on DLA for my mobility because it enables me to lease a car through Motability. Indeed, it gives me great pleasure to put on record my profound personal thanks to Motability, and particularly its founder, my noble friend Lord Sterling of Plaistow, for the phenomenal difference that that organisation has made to disabled people’s lives in its first 40 years. Long may it continue.

And long may targeted support continue for those whose need is greatest for help with meeting the extra costs of living with a disability. The most help to those who need it most: that is surely a founding principle of our welfare state, and the enduring basis of public confidence in the system that underpins the public’s willingness to fund the welfare state so generously through their taxes. As the then Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, rightly said in 2012:

“One of the things about governing is it forces you to confront the inconvenient truths oppositions choose to ignore”.


One of those truths is that sustaining public trust in the welfare system is crucial to sustaining that system, which I and millions of disabled people rely on, so it is vital that the money gets spent where it is meant to and is seen to be so. I believe the taxpayer does not have a problem with someone needing assistance as a result of difficulties in navigating—for example, if they are blind. Taxpayers surely understand that conditions such as visual impairments and learning disabilities, where these are severe and enduring, are much less likely to fluctuate than, for example, psychological distress. Indeed, it makes sense that people who cannot navigate due to a visual or cognitive impairment are likely to have a higher level of need and therefore face higher costs.

Some noble Lords seem to believe that the world would be different if only their party was in power. Yet where their party is in power, running councils such as Lambeth, it is adding to the cost of living with a disability. One way in which it is doing this is by giving parking tickets to disabled people who come home late from work to find that there are no parking spaces available outside their home and therefore have to park on yellow lines. Will the council give them a designated disabled parking space outside their home, as would happen less than a mile away in Westminster? No, it is not council policy. So today, in 2017, Lambeth Council is penalising some disabled people and imposing extra costs on them for a need directly related to their being disabled. What a policy. How do I know it is doing this? Because I am the person who cannot find anywhere else to park after returning home late from your Lordships’ House, yet my request for a designated disabled parking bay has been rejected out of hand.

This is just one example of why we urgently need to join the dots on disability if more disabled people are, as we all want, to live independently and work. Until we join those dots, I cannot in all honesty justify expecting taxpayers to be even more generous in helping to meet the extra costs of living with a disability, when the state itself imposes such indefensible extra costs on disabled people. Despite my sincere and profound respect for the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell of Surbiton and Lady Thomas of Winchester, I therefore cannot support the Motions.

[Baroness Stroud (Con)]

My Lords, I have been listening to the debate and am concerned that the nature of our discussion may not reflect the actions that the Government are taking. I understand that the Government are laying these regulations in response to a court case which has broadened the eligibility criteria of the PIP assessment beyond the original intent that this House voted for, at a potential increase in cost of £3.7 billion.

I want to be clear that I am pleased to be part of this House—a House that has done so much to ensure that the rights and needs of those with disabilities are upheld. That is why I have spoken on the importance of halving the disability employment gap, and why I have supported my noble friend Lord Shinkwin’s Private Member’s Bill.

Like all of us in this Chamber, I believe that a decent society should always recognise and support those who are most vulnerable. However, I have read carefully what the Minister said in the other Place, and I do not think that this is what is at stake here. Despite the wording of this fatal Motion and Motion to Regret, it is worth reflecting on the fact that we in this country rightly spend more on supporting people who are sick and disabled than the OECD average. We rightly spend around £50 billion a year to support people with disabilities and health conditions. However, if you listened to the speeches in the Chamber this evening, you would think that these regulations were about to reverse this level of support and the protections that are in place. Will my noble friend the Minster confirm that this is not the case and that the level of support that this House legislated for will be protected?

The wording of the regret Motion tonight suggests that the regulations discriminate against people with mental health problems and could put vulnerable claimants at risk but, again, it is my understanding that the Government have laid these regulations to address the impact of the court case which broadened the eligibility of PIP beyond the original intent voted for by this House. Will the Minister confirm that this is indeed the case and that there are no further savings beyond those that were legislated for here in this House that are being sought?

Both Houses of Parliament voted for the changes from DLA to PIP, and one key reason for this was a recognition that PIP focuses support precisely on those experiencing the greatest barriers to living independently. At the core of PIP’s design is the principle that awards of the benefit should be made according to a claimant’s overall level of need, regardless of whether claimants suffer from physical or non-physical conditions, and it has been good to see that 28% of PIP recipients with a mental health condition get the enhanced-rate mobility component, compared to 10% receiving the higher-rate DLA component, and that 66% of PIP recipients with a mental health condition get the enhanced-rate daily living component, compared to 22% receiving highest-rate DLA care. It is precisely because PIP improves support to those with mental health problems, addressing a discrimination inherent in DLA, that this House supported the legislation in the first place. Will the Minster confirm that this remains not only the intent of PIP but the reality, and that the regulations restore the original intention of PIP, which was to make sure there is a sustainable benefit to provide continued support to those who face the greatest barrier, whether physical or mental, to living independent lives?