Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Main Page: Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Labour - Life peer)Personal Independence Payments
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question. The consultation period for the health and disability Green Paper, to which I referred, has now run out and we are looking at the results. Through that, the department conducted extensive stakeholder engagement and talked to people with mental health problems and their carers about how we could do more to help them when they were being assessed, particularly for PIP. Interestingly, people with mental health problems are the largest group of people who now receive PIP.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
Does the Minister not find it embarrassing, treating some of the most disadvantaged people in society in such a penny-pinching, niggling way when consultants are paid over £1,000 a day for work on a test and trace scheme which is not even working?
Baroness Scott of Bybrook (Con)
No, my Lords, those are two separate things. What we should be doing is looking after disabled people in the best way we can. We are looking after more disabled people and getting more disabled people into work, which is where they would like to be, supported by the Government. We are doing the best we can, but we will never be complacent and will continue to do more.