Welfare Reform Bill

Lord Dodds of Duncairn Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Dame Anne Begg]

My point is that if the Government take contributory ESA away from this group of people and then change the criteria so that they no longer qualify for DLA or the new PIP, those people will end up with no independent income at all. That is the connection. We cannot look at the Government’s proposals to remove DLA and introduce PIP in isolation, because they are putting disabled people under all sorts of other obligations. If we look at the benefits in isolation, we will get into trouble, and that is what leads to the fears of disabled people, because many of them, particularly those with more profound disabilities who are trying to live independently in the community, have complex funding packages that they have put together to make things work for them. They are dependent on the personal care element of DLA for their care and on housing benefit to pay for their rent; they are dependent on local government facility grants to adapt their houses; and they are dependent on the mobility element of DLA to provide them with transport or, for many of them, with cars through the Motability scheme. These are complex packages, and if the Government interfere with some of them the whole edifice could collapse. That helps to explain why there is so much fear among people with disabilities about what the Government are doing. They feel that the Government are not seeing the whole picture—that they are seeing different pieces of the jigsaw but not putting it together or looking at the impact that those pieces will have on individuals.

Part of the problem with universal credit and with PIP is that we do not yet know the criteria, the payments or who will qualify for what, so it is impossible for individuals to sit down with all the new regulations, which nobody has seen because they have not been published, and work things out, saying, “Right, in my condition, I know I will get that, that and that, and I can add that together and that will then tell me whether I am going to be better off or worse off under the new proposals.” It is difficult to judge the situation, because we do not have that detail.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

The hon. Lady is doing the House a great service in teasing out the complexities, and in illustrating just exactly what is and is not known. Is not that at the root of many problems? How can we proceed with these measures when our constituents have so many unanswered questions? They have asked me, but I am unable to relay with any certainty what is going to happen to them, so surely the issues that have been raised deserve full clarification. Certainly, what has been illustrated as definitely going to happen demands that the amendments be carried.

[Dame Anne Begg]

Much of Monday’s debate was about the fact that the regulations for PIP, for housing benefit and for universal credit do not exist, so it is difficult to judge exactly what will happen to individuals.

There is also a fear among disabled people, because the Government sometimes take a simplistic view of what a disability might be. Disability living allowance was quite clear, because it was to cover the extra costs of disability, but one worry is that, under the PIP proposals, aids will be taken into consideration. The implication is that, if someone has an aid, they do not have the extra costs associated with their disability—that somehow the aid will miraculously take away those costs.

It has been said—the Minister did so in front of the Work and Pensions Committee—that, if a wheelchair-using Olympic athlete has a university degree, it is reasonable to place some work obligations on them. That might be the case, but being an Olympic athlete who needs a wheelchair does not take away the need for an adapted car. They still need the car, the wider parking space, to build the ramps to get into their house, the adapted shower that the local authority’s facilities grant often does not pay for, and the adapted bathroom.

In many cases, therefore, aids and adaptations do not take away the need for extra money. In fact, people with disabilities sometimes need the extra money to run some of those aids, such as an electric wheelchair and the extra costs that that entails, or an electric buggy that gets them around the shops. Rarely are such aids supplied by the NHS or, indeed, by the local authority, and DLA was such a good benefit because people could choose how they used it in order to fulfil their needs and lead an independent life.

If disabled people have work obligations placed on them, they will need extra money for travel costs. I could be as fit as possible and have the best super-duper wheelchair in the world, but with the best will in the world I am still not going to be able to get on the underground. It just will not happen, so we need to ensure that we get PIP right, and to ensure that it enables disabled people and does not hinder them.

Disability living allowance, particularly the mobility element, acts not only as a passport but as a proxy for all sorts of other things. Local authorities and organisations such as railway companies and cinemas use an individual’s qualification for upper-rate mobility allowance as a proxy for the fact that they must be disabled and therefore qualify for a disabled railcard, a disabled cinema ticket or a blue badge—or, in my local authority, a green badge, for which we also have to pay 20 quid a year, so it is not as though we are getting it for nothing. That means that people do not have to be assessed time and again, which makes things much easier. For many people, the knowledge that they have been assessed and qualify for upper-rate mobility allowance is more valuable than the money. I would not say that the money is not important—of course it is—but access to a blue badge with reasonable ease is also incredibly valuable.