Welfare

Baroness Masham of Ilton Excerpts

Monday 21st March 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, the Chancellor and the Secretary of State are saying that at the Autumn Statement we will look at the whole picture and at how the finances of the country should be organised. At that stage, there will be lots of moving parts and we will be able to see how this fits in.

[Baroness Masham of Ilton (CB)]

My Lords, I agree with the part of the Statement that says that disability is very complex. There are very many different disabilities and many of them involve extra expense, such as extra food to keep fit. I also agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, about Motability. If you live in a rural area and do not have a car, you cannot get to work and are therefore stuck. Another very important issue is the people who do the assessments, about which there has been a lot of criticism. Can the Minister arrange better training for the people doing the assessments?

[Lord Freud]

I accept that one of the issues around the disability element is that we have a fairly one-size-fits-all approach. One thing that the new Secretary of State will be very interested to hear is how best to manage the process in the light of that complexity—I know that he is very aware of it. I have tried to deal with the Motability issue. It is different people who are getting that and it is based on a better test; PIP is a better test than DLA. We are putting a lot of resource into assessments and their quality is now showing some good improvement.