Disability Allowance

Debate between Ian Swales and Tom Clarke

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clarke]

If I may say so, that is an excellent point. The plain and simple fact is that we all know in our hearts that our local authorities are under tremendous pressure. We know that they are facing cuts and difficult decisions, and unfortunately, in too many cases the result is that provision of social services and disability care does not always get the priority needed and required. There is not a shred of evidence from the local government organisations in England—or no doubt from Northern Ireland, and certainly none from the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities—that local authorities will be in a position to pick up the bill if the Government remove the money from those living in residential care. We are facing a crisis, both for local government and for disabled people.

Finally, there are many relevant organisations to which I could refer, and I apologise to those I have not mentioned this morning due to time constraints. I want to end with Parkinson’s UK:

“The Government compares this decision with the removal of the mobility component from hospital inpatients. But the two situations are very different. Hospital stays tend to be relatively short, and patients are often not in a position to make good use of the benefit. By contrast, many people live long and active lives in residential care homes.”

[Ian Swales (Redcar) (LD)]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that the issue is about not only the elderly, but young people who could be facing their whole lives in residential care? In my constituency, 25-year-old Katherine, who lives in the local Leonard Cheshire home, is devastated that she will be unable to go to the cinema or have outings with her parents and so on. Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that we need to recognise that this is not like hospital short stays at all?

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Gentleman makes his point extremely well. All the evidence of which I am aware supports precisely what he has to say.

I am acutely aware that this week marks the 40th anniversary of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970—the first legislation of its kind. I am much more comfortable and at ease with the vision outlined by my then colleague, Labour MP Alf Morris, than with the menu of cuts advocated by this coalition Government. Forty years ago, we reached out to people who were marginalised by their disability. As Alf Morris said:

“I would choose a society in which there is genuine compassion for the very sick and the disabled; where understanding is unostentatious and sincere; where needs come before means; where, if years cannot be added to the lives of the chronically sick, at least life can be added to their years; where the mobility of disabled people is restricted only by the bounds of technical progress and discovery, and where no person has cause to be ill at ease because of their disability.”—[Official Report, 5 December 1969; Vol. 792, c. 1863.]

I agree wholeheartedly with Alf, and I plead with the Government to think again.