Lord German
Main Page: Lord German (Liberal Democrat - Life peer)Department Debates - View all Lord German's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
(11 years ago)
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Lord Freud
My Lords, we are looking to protect people in difficult circumstances by looking to the local authorities to apply the discretionary housing payments, which have gone up enormously. Overall, they are running at £150 million this year, and at £360 million for the SRS. Our expectation is that these hard cases will be looked after locally.
Lord German
My Lords, as my noble friend the Minister has just explained, there are a large number of exemptions which are made through local authority discretion. The Government have, however, insisted on a certain number of exemptions, and one of the most welcome is the recent exemption given to a disabled child who was unable to share a bedroom. Will the Minister extend that commitment to include a disabled adult who is unable to share a bedroom, and so put this matter beyond doubt, rather than leave it to the discretion of local authorities?
Lord Freud
My Lords, we are looking for local authorities to deal with this matter with adults. We think that there is a difference between disabled children and disabled adults in that disabled children cannot know whether they pose a risk to themselves or to another child whereas adults and couples are able to exercise choice in how they run their lives.