Disabled People: Personal Assistants

Baroness Watkins of Tavistock Excerpts

Wednesday 7th September 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about who should be in that room when we are talking about all these issues. Generally, across government, there are a number of joint initiatives in terms of ensuring that we hit our target of equality for disabled people, but as other noble Lords have pointed out, this issue falls between DWP and DHSC. I was surprised when I was briefed on this about where it fell. It clearly must be people in the same room.

[Baroness Watkins of Tavistock (CB)]

My Lords, it was a pleasure earlier to hear the new Health Secretary say that this is the kind of example that she would want to resolve—she did not use a particular one. Could the new integrated care boards not be the trusted sponsor for such personal assistance in each area? It would be straightforward and simple to introduce.

[Lord Kamall (Con)]

On the face of it, that sounds a very sensible suggestion, so let me take it back to the department, and if I am still here, I will respond.