Social Security (Disability Living Allowance, Attendance Allowance and Carer’s Allowance) (Amendment) Regulations 2013

Lord Freud Excerpts

Monday 24th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sherlock]

My Lords, I should begin by acknowledging all the work done by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, in bringing to the attention of the House, not just today but repeatedly, the concerns of people who are in receipt of mobility payments and who are worried about the effect of these changes and the way they are being implemented.

This debate this evening has made very clear just how important Motability cars and other mobility schemes are to so many disabled people. I was very moved by the account just given by the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, who explained so well the consequences for so many people; of how important it has been to have access to these cars and the fears that would accompany their departure.

The scheme, as Motability itself puts it, gives disabled people,

“the freedom to get to work or college, meet up with friends, enjoy a day trip out with their families, attend a medical appointment, or go shopping; to enjoy the independence that so many of us take for granted.”.

Yes, quite so. One of the things that we have struggled to get to tonight is the game of numbers—a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Alton, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, my noble friend Lady Hollis and others. It has proved very difficult to get a clear picture of just how many people will be affected by these changes since the Government have so far been unable to give us precise figures for those who might lose their cars or adapted vehicles. My noble friend Lady Hollis offered up 180,000. In the absence of anything from the Government, I suggest we all adopt that figure tonight. If the Minister will not accept that, please could he give us his own figure?

In past debates, the Minister has contended that because the decision to lease a vehicle is an individual one and the contract between the individual and Motability is a private one, it is not a matter for the Government. In response to that, first, the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, made the very interesting point that if direct payments are made, the Government must know that information. Even if they do not, irrespective of the fact that a number of people will choose no longer to lease a vehicle, a number will automatically lose theirs simply by virtue of the fact that they will no longer be entitled to the enhanced rate when they transfer to PIP. The Government surely must have at least an estimate of what those numbers will be. Could they please share those numbers with us? Could the Minister tell us his best estimate tonight?

Secondly, if the Government intend to press ahead in the way they have announced, those affected will clearly need to make plans about how to manage the effects of the changes. What are the Government doing to publicise the changes and inform people who will be affected? The noble Lord, Lord Alton, and my noble friend Lady Hollis asked what transitional arrangements would be put in place for people losing their cars. The Government have told the House previously that they were in discussions with Motability but could not then give further detail. The noble Lord, Lord Freud, has said previously that he had sympathy with the concerns of the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and he was keen to find a way of supporting people during the transitional period. In the debate on 13 February, the noble Lord, Lord Freud, said in response to my noble friend Lord McKenzie of Luton:

“We are actively exploring what extra support we can give to disabled people to ensure that they can still get to work. We are looking at whether we can use access to work as that particular vehicle. We want to ensure that mobility support remains in place during any transition between the Motability scheme and access to work”.—[Official Report, 13/2/13; col. 740.]

What is the position on Access to Work, an issue also raised by my noble friend Lady Wilkins? Will it be possible to use Access to Work for this? What will happen with transitions? Will the sums of money available be enough to deal with the kinds of things described by my noble friend? Where have the Minister’s conversations got to? Also, where have his discussions with Motability reached? Will he provide more information as to what transitional measures might be put in place? In particular, what opportunities will be given to claimants to either buy or continue to lease adapted vehicles, and at what price? Will he clarify the position of in-patients in hospitals? That point was raised by the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, and others.

This would also be a good time for the Minister to give the House some more information about the new consultation on PIP criteria and how that will link in with the inception of this new scheme—a point made by many noble Lords, understandably. It might help if the House understood more of the Government’s thinking on questions such as the 20/50 rule and the issues on which other campaigners have been pushing the Government to consult. How will this affect people in receipt of the higher rate of DLA who use Motability cars? What advice would he give them at this stage, looking ahead and trying to plan?

There is then the question of geography, raised by the noble Lord, Lord Wigley, and that of people in rural areas, raised by my noble friend Lady Hollis and the noble Baroness, Lady Masham. Have the Government done any assessment of the variable impact around the country? Can we even have a sense of impact by region, or the difference between urban and rural impact? I am sure that the Government would not have made a change on this scale without having considered that. Will the Minister share that with us?

Finally, at the risk of running slightly wide of the Motion, has the Minister given any thought to the context in which these changes are taking place? We know that support for disabled people wanting to move into work has been in trouble. The Work Programme is struggling generally and is clearly failing to help disabled people into work. The latest report from the Employment Related Services Association suggests that the numbers of people on ESA getting a job start as a result of referral to the Work Programme are terribly low: just 6% of referrals in the ESA flow payment group had a job start, 5% of those in the ESA volunteers group, and just 2% of referrals in the ESA ex-IB group. Given that, will the Minister take this opportunity to give the House some reassurance that the Government are concentrating in a cohesive and integrated way on the kind of support needed to help disabled people into work and to support them when they are there?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)]

My Lords, I have some difficulty in framing this answer because the debate was very wide but the regulations we are discussing are actually extremely narrow. What we are actually discussing is bringing the treatment of patients in hospital into line between those who receive Motability and those who stop receiving it after a certain period. There was an exemption for the Motability element and we are just bringing the two into line. I acknowledge that there has been a very wide debate on the whole area but we are talking about something that is actually much narrower. I hope noble Lords will understand as I try to juggle the two. I will try to deal with some of the wider issues but I will deal with the actual issue first.

I will set a little bit of context by saying that even in these hard economic times this Government continue to spend around £50 billion a year on disabled people and services to enable those who face the greatest barriers to participate fully in society. That figure compares well internationally. We spend almost double the OECD average as a percentage of GDP—2.4% against the OECD average of 1.3%. Only two out of the 34 OECD countries spend more. Through the reforms of DLA and the introduction of PIP, we will make sure that the billions we spend provide more targeted support to those who need it most. Three million people will continue to get DLA or PIP and half a million will actually get more under the new system.

While I am on figures, to answer the question from the noble Lord, Lord Alton, about the money flow to Motability, £1.6 billion went through to it in terms of transfer of benefit. My noble friend Lady Thomas asked what happens to the transfer. Clearly we recognise that some people will lose out but we have sought to ensure that those who lose out are those whose disabilities have the least impact on their participation in society. On our sampling of this, many people—more than half a million—will be winners under PIP.

The UK has a proud history in furthering the rights of disabled people and we want to ensure that all people are treated fairly. The provisions under debate, which also apply to claimants of PIP, are a case in hand. They ensure that everyone receiving the mobility component of DLA or PIP in the future will be subject to the same payment rules, whether or not they have a Motability vehicle. The history of this was that when the mobility component of DLA stopped being paid to hospital in-patients in 1996, transitional provisions were built in, including a measure which allowed for payments to continue in order to cover the costs of the lease on a Motability vehicle. These arrangements represented a reasonable adjustment at the time for those in-patients who were committed to a mobility contract when the rules changed. However, noble Lords must understand that any lease held by someone in 1996 will have now long expired and these arrangements are past their sell-by date for the users affected at the time.

In response to the question from the noble and learned Lord, Lord Hardie, about consultation, we clearly signalled our intention to implement this change in our consultation on the detailed design of our reforms to DLA. In that consultation we made clear that this change was not intended to penalise Motability users but to introduce fairness between how we treat those who chose to take out a lease with Motability—some 600,000 people—and the vast, or substantial, majority who do not, which is 1.1 million people.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

The Minister knows what the figures were in the past; why can he not project them forward? I am relying on memory now, of debates we had 18 months ago, but am I not right in thinking that he told us at the time that something like 29% of those in receipt of higher rate mobility turned it into a Motability vehicle. If that figure is correct, which I believe it to be, then he can surely extrapolate that to the numbers of gross losers coming down from high rate DLA mobility, which I understand, again relying on memory, was 600,000. Therefore, 29% of 600,000 brings me to my 180,000 figure. What is wrong with that figure?

[Lord Freud]

The reason that it is wrong is that we do not know that the Motability figure lines up at that same percentage into the mobility. That is the reason. As a rule of thumb, it is one way of going, but we actually do not know whether or not the kind of people who will maintain their higher rate mobility will be the ones with Motability. That is the issue.

One of the questions that the noble Baroness was particularly concerned about in this area was the heavily adapted cars, and I think she described it as the foolishness of moving a heavily adapted car back. I emphasise that only 2% of Motability cars are heavily adapted, so this is a much smaller problem; most are just standard cars.

[Baroness Hollis of Heigham]

I was a patron—or something or other—of Motability, and that is certainly not my experience. They may be standard cars but they have been adapted to make them comfortable. Even people who drove ordinary cars beforehand transferred to a Motability car in order to get the adaptations and so on which made it comfortable as well as possible for them to drive. Obviously I am in no position to argue with his 2% figure, but I suspect from my own experience that another 20%, 30% or 40% will be using a Motability car which, to some extent or other, has been personalised or tailored for their use.

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, I do not think we have time to debate what heavily adapted comprises. However, the figure for cars heavily adapted for a disabled person is 2%. Clearly, we all personalise cars to some extent. I can let the noble Baroness have some more information on that to the extent that I have it, but that is the figure that I have. I confirm that the noble Lord, Lord Sterling, is looking carefully at how Motability can help to mitigate the impact for those who may be affected by the move to PIP.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

Before the Minister leaves that point, will he tell us a little bit more about what he is doing to create joint transitional arrangements, if that is what they are to be, with Motability, and when they will published? When will opportunities occur for people to be consulted and to respond to the consultation?

[Lord Freud]

My Lords, we are working with Motability currently on what the arrangements might be. I have no information at this stage on where we are with those discussions between the department and Motability, but clearly we are in discussions. I am not informed as to when I can update the House on that matter.

On the judicial review, as noble Lords have seen, there is a consultation on the 20 metre/50 metre issue. I can assure my noble friend Lady Thomas that this is a genuine consultation which we are entering with an open mind and we will be looking to hear the views of individuals and organisations. Once that consultation is closed, we will publish our response, including how we intend to act.

The noble Lord, Lord Alton, referred to changes to Atos’s supply chain since the tendering stage of the PIP. I assure noble Lords that the department’s decision to award the contract was not based on the mention of any particular organisation in the bids to deliver the PIP. It is usual for there to be changes between contract award and delivery. Indeed, we expect Atos’s use of supply chain sites to rise and fall in line with referral numbers. The department made a change to the reassessment timetable after Atos submitted its tender, which means that there will be significantly fewer assessments in 2013-14 than it had originally planned. However, it is important to note that Atos has kept the department informed about changes and we are confident that Atos and its partners are able to deliver successfully.

The noble Lord asked about the £391 million that the Government are said to have given Atos over three years. I do not have that information to hand but I will write to him on that matter.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. He will recall that I also asked him specifically whether the 60 minutes’ travelling distance which Atos had said would be the maximum that people would have to travel to an assessment centre will be maintained or whether it will now be extended to 90 minutes, as has been alleged. Will the total number of assessment centres be reduced from the number I cited earlier to just a handful?

[Lord Freud]

I remind noble Lords that Atos tendered for four of the contract areas and received two, so it is not surprising that the 22 sites it was looking at have been reduced, given that it has a smaller number of contract areas. My information is that the 22 figure has gone down to 14. I will add to my letter any information I have on travel times estimates.

In summary, this issue is about balance and fairness—fairness to those who have a Motability vehicle and to the substantial majority of mobility component recipients who do not. However, this is fairness tempered with appropriate mechanisms to ensure that the impact on existing and future users of the scheme is minimised. Specific transitional arrangements are in place for those directly impacted when the measure was introduced and there will remain appropriate and generous provisions in the future. I commend the hospital in-patient arrangements to the House and trust that they have reassured the noble Lord, Lord Alton, and that as a consequence he will not press the Motion.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool]

My Lords, as always, I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which he answered the questions that were put to him, although I think he would be the first to agree that a number of questions raised during the debate remain unanswered. However, he will also understand that, although the measures may be narrow, parliamentarians have to take their chances. If they can find a hook on which to hang their coat, they are obliged to do so. That is surely part of our role as scrutineers. Your Lordships will be glad to know that I do not intend to drag this out although there is no time limit. Even though this is a dinner hour debate, we could have gone on for much longer. I think those taking part in the following debate will recognise that we have been pretty disciplined in the way that we have gone about this.

The issues that we have covered range from the disproportionalilty in the way that these changes will affect rural areas and poorer areas and concerns about the statistics that have still not been shared with us. We do not know the number of people who will be impacted by these changes and the cost of the vehicles, which was a point made by the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins. Will it cost between £8,000 and £12,000 for someone to purchase one of these vehicles—a vehicle that had been made available to them previously by an Act of Parliament? It was an Act of Parliament that laid down the criteria under which people qualified. Surely we are guilty of behaving without due concern for the effect of the changes that we have put in place.

I repeat what I said in our deliberations earlier this year. It is our duty to understand the impact of the decisions we make. The Minister has just said that we cannot reliably estimate the impact; we do not know. That is not a good position for us to be in. Decisions will affect the mobility and independence of people with disabilities. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, put it very well when she said that you turn a person from being independent to being dependent when you take such decisions.

Just as we found a way of encouraging the Minister to come to the House this evening, I know that I and other Members of your Lordships’ House will look for other ways of holding the Government to account to ensure that we mitigate the worst effects of these changes. On the basis of the reply that has now been given, I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.