Welfare Reform Bill

Baroness Campbell of Surbiton Excerpts

Monday 14th November 2011 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

86ZZZG: Clause 75, page 55, line 5, leave out “personal independence payment” and insert “disability living costs allowance”

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[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I shall speak also to the other amendments in my name in this group. First, I should like to take a moment to explain that due to the number of amendments I have tabled for this Sitting, I will not have the lung capacity to give the detailed explanation that is required for all three. I have naturally called on an Olympian to help me out with such an Olympian feat. My noble friend Lady Grey-Thompson has kindly offered her voice for this afternoon but, as permitted by the usual channels, she will also be allowed to speak separately on the amendments if she chooses.

I am really pleased to be kicking off the amendments on personal independence payments, which are known and valued as disability living allowance. I also declare an interest as a very long-term user of DLA and its predecessor, attendance allowance. This is a holy-grail area for disabled people and we should proceed with great caution. I feel an enormous sense of responsibility in proposing the first group of amendments as I know how very important this benefit is and has been to millions of disabled people in the UK.

So where better to start than with the entitlement intention, starting with its name. Naming ceremonies are very important because, as the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, rightly said on day 1 in Grand Committee,

“the name is very important because it sends a signal about what the benefit is for. I am not seriously suggesting at this stage that we change the name, because I am sure that thousands of pounds have been paid to consultants to craft the artwork around universal credit”.

However, I am suggesting a name change, even if the artwork is outstanding.

Getting the name right for a state benefit is crucial for targeting and clarity purposes. Those disabled people who need to take advantage of its intent must clearly understand what it is for and who is entitled to it. The name should also prevent any media or general public misunderstanding about its purpose. I think that we have had quite enough of that over the weekend— I certainly have.

This amendment intends to do both of those things. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, suggested:

“It … occurred to me that ‘universal credit’ does not mean anything very much”.—[Official Report, 4/10/11; col. GC 326-27.]

However, the phrase “personal independence payments” does suggest something. Unfortunately, it does not suggest what the Government intend. Indeed, the term will create greater confusion than currently exists about disability living allowance. I attempt in this amendment to explain the conundrum and the complexities of the definition and intent.

At this point, Baroness Grey-Thompson continued the speech for Baroness Campbell of Surbiton.

Changing the name of disability living allowance to personal independence payment, I am sure, was a well-intentioned idea. It may have arisen from the Government’s independent living strategy 2008 or at least the principles that underpin it. The strategy sets out the aim that policies and services should enable disabled people to have choice and control over the support that they need to go about their daily lives. It is this definition of independent living or having choice and control over support that then informed the entire strategy.

While it must have seemed logical to use the term “independence” when reforming DLA, personal independence does not mean the same as independent living. If you ask the proverbial man in the street what “independence” means, he would say that it is doing things for yourself and not having to rely on others or on the state.

[The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Baroness Fookes)]

My Lords, we have not heard the Division Bells but a Division is taking place in the Chamber. The Committee stands adjourned for 10 minutes.

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[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, my noble friend will continue.

At this point, Baroness Grey-Thompson continued the speech for Baroness Campbell of Surbiton.

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[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I cannot agree more. It has not been properly delivered. It has not been a proper gateway. It needs a new benefit and that is what we are trying to introduce.

Let me just get those figures correctly for you— it is £600 million overpayment and £190 million underpayment. I, like the noble Lord, Lord Touhig, am as concerned about the underpayment as the overpayment.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I thank the Minister and all noble Lords who have contributed to this debate. In fact, I am quite overwhelmed—I did not expect such enthusiasm for this first amendment, although it is a very important one. I have to say again that this is not about a name; it is about intent. I believed, and I stand by it, the noble Lord, Lord Newton—who is now in this Room—when he said back in 1990 that the DLA was better assistance with the extra cost of being disabled. The DLA helps deliver that cost. I think it applied then and I am sorry it applies now. There is intent and it is important to get this name right.

I am so pleased that so many noble Lords have given their personal experiences and examples of the use of the DLA and that other noble Lords have talked about their experience of understanding the needs of other disabled people who may not be in this Room, such as people with hidden impairments and mental health conditions. Yes, we must reform the DLA so it meets the extra costs of all disabled people in this country not just those with physical impairments.

I do not know what focus groups the Minister was at when the name was discussed but it certainly was not with the disabled people that I have been talking to over the last couple of months. I do not want to boast, but I know rather a lot of disabled people. I have been working alongside disabled people for 30 years and I am tapped in to some of the biggest organisations for disabled people in this country which have a long history and authority in this area. So I trump the noble Lord when it comes to knowing what disabled people think about this amendment and its intent.

I am of course pleased that we might think of looking at the name again and I am thrilled that the Minister will be going back to the Minister for Disabled People in another place to discuss this. But I have to say that I rather like the proposal of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, of the “personal disability costs payment”. I am not crazy about the word “allowance” either, so I am happy to discard it and go with what disabled people feel comfortable with. Let us remember that it is what disabled people are most comfortable with that is most important. They have suffered from the most awful six months of media vitriol on disability allowance, and I know that for most of the people who use it, it is not about them. I feel really depressed when I open the Daily Mail in my mother’s house—I want to make that point—and I have to say that I feel a bit got at. But if I feel a bit depressed, think of what it is doing to hundreds of other disabled people.

I am glad that we have kicked off with a debate about the name because it has got all of us in the Room really focused on the issue, but having heard the debate, for now I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 86ZZZG withdrawn.

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[The Countess of Mar]

My Lords, I think the noble Lord, Lord Newton, put his finger on the button in his first comments. It is people’s fear of what is going to happen when they have a medical examination. Many of them have already had experience of DWP medicals, and from the correspondence I have had they are extremely distressed about what is going to happen to them in the future. It may be that they are dramatising, in which case we would be very pleased to have our minds put at rest, but on the other hand, if we are making this 20 per cent cut in expenses, they are bound to be frightened because these are people at the bottom who are going to be chopped off, and they do not understand how the process in going to happen.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. In fact, it was down in my name, but when I saw how many amendments I was going to put down I thought I was being too greedy. My question to the Minister is very short. Has he had discussions with those in the Department of Health responsible for the prevention agenda with regard to closing the basic rate? It will have a massive impact on the prevention agenda, which is very much about giving a little bit of support and keeping people independent for a lot longer with a lot less cost for healthcare and social care services.

[Lord Low of Dalston]

My Lords, my name is on the amendment. I will very briefly make clear my support for it. Most of the things that I intended to say have been said, but I will underscore them. My first point is very much the same as that of the noble Lord, Lord Newton. The proposal to eliminate the lowest rate of DLA care when introducing the daily living component of PIP at only two levels is one of the principal causes of the fear and apprehension on the part of disabled people that we talked about when discussing the earlier amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell. As we heard, we are not talking about a small number of people but 652,000, or nearly three-quarters of a million. That is a substantial consideration of which the Government should be mindful.

My other point, which I do not think anybody has made, is that the amendment of the noble Baroness, Lady Campbell, allows the Government room in regulations to reduce the number of disabled people receiving the lowest rate of the care component while still ensuring that some of those who currently access this level of help will not be cut adrift at a stroke from support when the new benefit is introduced. Now I come to think of it, this point is the same as that made by the noble Lord, Lord Newton; it is about transition and flexibility. If the Government, for cost considerations or for any other reason, feel it imperative to push ahead in this direction, I urge them to give serious thought to the question of phasing out and showing flexibility on the precise number who will be cut adrift from the benefit at a stroke. If we need to lose some people, perhaps consideration can be given to articulating the benefit in such a way that not all 652,000 people are affected at once.

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Moved by

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

86ZZZL: Clause 76, page 55, line 18, after “condition” insert “and the social, practical and environmental barriers they face as a disabled person living with that condition”

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

My Lords, I tabled this amendment truly in the spirit of modernisation. The Minister and the Government have called for modernising this benefit and I am at one with that. The purpose of the amendment is to ensure that the assessment process used to determine eligibility for PIP will be based on the social model of disability. I was inspired to table this amendment by the document, The Future of PIP: A Social Model Based Approach. It was conducted by Scope and has sign-up from practically all the major disability organisations that you can think of.

I have therefore proposed inserting the words,

“and the social, practical and environmental barriers they face as a disabled person living with that condition”,

after,

“the person’s physical or mental condition’,

thereby changing the assessment originally proposed from purely a medical analysis of the barriers faced by the disabled person to a social model approach. This does not mean that the person’s medical condition will not be considered—quite the opposite.

The social model of disability is about recognising the,

“physical, sensory, intellectual, or psychological variations, which may cause individual functional limitation or impairments, but accepts they do not necessarily lead to disability, if society makes environmental, economic and attitudinal adjustments, which take account of and include people regardless of their individual differences (impairments)”.

That is a quote from Professor Colin Barnes, who has written some of the greatest books on the social model of disability.

This amendment therefore takes a modern approach to the assessment process required if a disabled person wishes to become eligible for PIP, or, I hope, DLCA or PIPO. I feel that the Government will want to welcome this amendment. The Minister will know that they have a robust commitment to the social model of disability by endorsing and adopting the 2005 life chances strategy when taking office. That strategy is entirely informed by the social model approach and the Government have said repeatedly that they want to help disabled people to overcome the barriers that they face to leading full and independent lives. They want to ensure that that support is focused on those with the greatest barriers and to more accurately assess who would benefit most from additional support, which is warmly welcomed. Yet despite these bold commitments, so far civil servants have largely designed a medical model test with a tweak of social model now and then that will not deliver these admirable aims. I have a sneaking feeling that the Minister will assure me and other Members of the Committee that the new draft assessment process has now been redesigned to take more account of the environmental and social barriers that get in the way of disabled people’s inclusion in society.

This is very good news and I particularly welcome the fact that the Government have at last begun the work co-productively with a small number of disabled people, and in particular members of their own advisory group on disability—Equality 2025—to redesign parts of the assessment process. However, I have very briefly read the new draft. I feel that it is only just a start and that in order to ensure the social model approach to assessment is maintained by those eventual assessors, who are unlikely to be steeped in the social model of disability, the Government really need to nail their colours to the mast. Where better than in the Bill?

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I mentioned earlier that considering these wider factors was likely to require longer, more intrusive and more expensive assessments as assessors would need to cover much more ground. They would also be more likely to require more regular reassessments as these external factors could be liable to change more often than the impact of impairments themselves. While we want to review circumstances more frequently in the new benefit, we do not want more assessments than are necessary. Considering that these factors might also lead to an increase in uncertainty around entitlement for individuals and to appeals as people might have very different views about how these external barriers affect them, we are keen to avoid this both for the stress this causes and the cost of handling appeals. Therefore, while I understand the noble Baroness’s position, we do not think that including social factors in the assessment is workable. We want it to be simple, objective and consistent. On that basis, I urge the noble Baroness to withdraw her amendment.

[Baroness Campbell of Surbiton]

I thank the Minister for his comments. I particularly thank all noble Lords who have supported the amendment and teased out some parts of it. The social model sounds so easy but once you start looking into it, it becomes more complex. If the Minister is so confident about this new middle ground called the bio-social-medical model, which I have not heard many disabled people writing songs about recently, why is it not coming up in the guidance or in the Bill? If he is so confident that the social model will be incorporated in the new assessment, why not put it in the Bill alongside the condition? Then the middle ground would be there. It informs and gives intent clearly to all those who are assessing from that legislation.

I wish I had the Minister’s faith that society and the assessors will assess from a social model perspective as well as a medical one. I do not have that faith. Most people when they meet me do not ask, “What can I do to make it easy for you to come around to my house for a gin tonight?”. They ask me what is wrong with me. I get that nearly every week. Everyone wants to know my medical condition before they invite me to their house. The noble Lord, Lord Wigley, clearly talked about that “light bulb moment” when everything became clear. I believe that by putting a social model definition in the Bill, it will help others to have that light bulb moment. I do not accept that a more social model approach or a social model-informed approach will lead to less objectivity.

The points-based descriptor approach such as the work capability assessment, which it should be noted has been continually subjected to widespread criticism and a high level of appeals overturned in favour of the claimant, has sparked off the need for a four-year review. Professor Harrington says that we must take a more holistic, social model approach to assessment. Using a points-based, tick-boxed descriptors approach will not capture enough information about the barriers and costs faced by disabled people on a daily basis.

The Government also seem to have concerns about inconsistency as an excuse to standardise disabled people’s experiences. That is precisely what we are not doing here. My alternative approach recognises the diversity of difficulties faced by disabled people. Difficulties arise from a plethora of barriers, which is why you can have two disabled people with the same condition or impairment but who face different social, practical and environmental barriers as a result of disability. Earlier today, I heard about the disability-related cost assessment of a man called Ali Kashmiri. His costs and needs are entirely different from mine, although we have exactly the same impairment and need for a wheelchair, which again shows a need for a social model approach.

I believe that the Government are working hard to make the assessment process more evenly constructed between a medical and a social model approach. However, there is work to be done and I look forward to discussing further with the Minister the new assessment criteria and to hearing the responses of other disabled people to the criteria. When we look at that, perhaps we will come back to this matter. But, for now, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 86ZZZL withdrawn.