Disabled Students Allowance

Paul Maynard Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Paul Maynard (Blackpool North and Cleveleys) (Con)]

For the avoidance of any doubt, I will not take any interventions to ensure that as many people speak as possible. I am pleased to speak in the debate, because I am one of the few MPs who benefited from DSA, as a student in 1994. I had some problems and I had to use a computer for part of my course. I thought I would get a laptop, but when I went to my assessment, I was given a half-screen word processor. I say that not to underpin the point that we do not need laptops any more, but to agree with the Minister that we should not gold-plate the provision. The fund is limited, and we cannot write a blank cheque for it.

I accept that, after 25 years, we have to look again at disability living allowance in particular, and I accept that public bodies have to adhere to their duties under the Equality Act 2010. However, I have concerns about the detail of the proposals. The Minister is thoughtful, good and decent, and I urge him to listen carefully to what we have to say before he places his regulations before the House.

I will try not to repeat myself too much. The report from the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign’s trailblazers team, a key member of my all-party group on young disabled people, has been mentioned. That report stresses that DSA was the area of the university experience that worked best. What concerns me most is the language of written communications from the Minister. It may seem obvious, for example, to translate the language of disability from the 2010 Act into DSA, but there are real concerns that that leaves, for example, dyslexia, dyspraxia and dyscalculia outside the remit of DSA. Will the Minister guarantee that no disability that was previously covered by DSA will be left out under the new regime?

I am also worried about the laxity of some of the language, which has caused real concern among those with the most complex disabilities. If, for example, someone requires a non-medical helper to stay with them overnight, the language is not clear enough to give that person confidence that they will be covered under DSA. That is causing a lot of anxiety.

More widely—the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) has mentioned note-takers—I am greatly worried by the idea that a course can be delivered in such a way as to allow the student to benefit from it without having to participate in the same way as the other students. I want students to be able to attend lectures, participate fully and enjoy full integration in student life. If one goal of DSA is to enable them to complete the course at the lowest possible cost, it will reduce the university experience almost to the level of a correspondence course. I am sure that that is not the Minister’s intention whatever, but that is where the language appears to be leading us.

I also stress my concerns about augmentative and assistive communications software. I urge the Minister to consult with the Communication Matters forum, which is the specialist in that regard. It is a fallacy to think that much of that technology can be used even on the most complex laptops, let alone on iPads. As technology, particularly AAC technology, advances ever faster, the computing technology required advances equally.

Finally, in the 30 seconds that remain, I draw the Minister’s attention to the document “Fulfilling Potential: making it happen”, published by the Department for Work and Pensions. Great strides have been made in increasing disabled students’ participation in higher education, but one key indicator measured in “Fulfilling Potential” is the number of students who abandon their course after one year. If that number goes up as a result of the changes, that will be a serious concern and we will need to look again at what we are doing. I urge the Minister to have regard to “Fulfilling Potential”. I will write to him with everything else that I wanted to say.