Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Wigley Excerpts

Tuesday 13th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wigley]

My Lords, I hope the Minister heard and took to heart the two immensely informed contributions from the noble Baronesses, Lady Campbell and Lady Wilkins, that we just heard. I declare an interest as vice-president of Mencap Wales. Colleagues who served in the other place at the same time as me will know of my involvement with disability issues. Those initially arose because of the disability challenges that we faced as a family. I know that many noble Lords have similar and even more far-reaching experiences at first hand, as we have just heard. In our case, it was the experience of losing two sons, Alun and Geraint, who suffered from physical and mental handicap and died at the ages of 12 and 13. I know that some noble Lords have the ongoing challenge of supporting disabled children who will probably outlive their parents with all the heartache that entails. My wife Elinor and I were spared that torment. We saw closure of the direct, day-to-day struggle of coping with disability in our household, although there is truly never such a thing as closure because the experience—the joy and sadness—of parenting a disabled, dying child never leaves you.

It is this background that affords me a little insight into the desperate concerns of disabled people and their carers at the implications of the Welfare Reform Bill. We were lucky in that both our children qualified for the highest level of the then attendance allowance and mobility allowance, and that enabled us to employ a young, full-time care assistant who lived with us as a family. Without that facility, it would not have been possible for me to undertake my work or for my wife to keep in touch with her career as a professional musician, which helped both of us to bear the pressures we were under and enabled us to give our other children, Eluned and Hywel, the support they needed. After we had lost both boys by the spring of 1985, I came to realise the enormity of the cost of coping with disability. Although we had by then naturally lost the income from the various allowances to which we were entitled, I found myself for the first time in a decade able to pay my way. That is the reality of disability. Implicit with it is a very substantial day-to-day cost in coping with its consequences. That is why so many disabled people and their carers are petrified—yes, sick with worry—about the implications of this legislation.

My direct experience is now 25 years out of date, as is, I suspect, the experience of many of us who bring experience to this Chamber, but the generality of that experience still holds true and the perspective of time reinforces the message. That is why I shall be pressing the Government in Committee concerning a number of issues relating to these questions. The danger is that the new regime of personal independence payments replacing DLA will force many unwell people to submit to the indignity of yet another examination with all the insecurity and distress that that causes. I am concerned that the Government’s target is to cut the number of DLA claimants by 20 per cent when the assessed fraud level of DLA is only 0.5 per cent.

I fear that the Bill fails to address the central problem of getting people into work; namely, the lack of available suitable jobs. Job creation is a greater problem than unwillingness to work, particularly among young jobless people, and the challenge of getting appropriate work that is just not there for disabled people. The Bill needs to be amended to ensure that claimants with dependent children will not face sanctions if they are not able to work, and there is a need to challenge the Government’s intention to limit the new ESA to just 12 months, even for people suffering from long-term or variable illness, which the Government admit will hit some 700,000 people. What will be the position of young people who have been disabled from birth since they will not qualify for the contribution-based element of ESA?

Finally, no one denies the need from time to time to review the welfare benefits system to simplify it, speed it up and make it fairer. However, what would be totally unacceptable would be for vulnerable and dependent people to bear the brunt of government spending cutbacks. There are much broader shoulders in our society who can bear that pain. In the detailed consideration of this Bill, that is the angle from which I will look at the amendments and at the future of this legislation.