Disability Living Allowance

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 9th March 2011 Westminster Hall

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to speak in this debate, and I congratulate the hon. Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) on securing it. I wish to declare an interest—I am chairman of two domiciliary care service companies. They are not in receipt of disability living allowance, but they deal with adjacent issues. I welcome the debate. In particular, I welcome the Minister to her place.

The fundamental question that went through my mind when the announcement was made was what it said about our attitude towards the decency with which we allow people to lead their lives. What does it say about how we are prepared to protect the most vulnerable in our community at this difficult time, with the significant financial challenges inherited by the Government? That was made real for me by the visits of constituents; families who care for their sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, cousins and uncles, and who have to create that sense of independence every day for their loved ones in care homes.

In particular, it is my pleasure to recognise the campaigning work of Mr and Mrs Ogaza from my constituency—Mrs Ogaza is here today—on behalf of not only their son Paul, but other families. I thank the Minister for taking the time to meet me not once but twice—the second time to listen to Mrs Ogaza—and for her visit to a care home in Shefford, near my constituency. That is emblematic of how much she is trying to reach out and listen, and to understand this complex area. Indeed, that complexity is at the root of the Government’s attempts to deal with the question of decency. There is nothing decent about the system that is in place if it provides a patchwork of services for recipients in different parts of the country. There is nothing decent about a system that does not ask our care home providers tough questions to ensure that they are actually providing the services that we would like.

[Guy Opperman]

Is not the biggest test for the future to have a road map where things are clearly signposted and understood? Whatever the reason for the system being in the state that it is in, comprehension and utilisation would then be much clearer.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend is absolutely correct. He echoes a point that was made by my hon. Friends the Members for Banbury (Tony Baldry) and for Loughborough (Nicky Morgan). This is an opportunity to provide a clear map of the requirements and also to identify, not in a naming and shaming way but in a positive way, what local authorities and care homes should provide and where evidence shows that they are falling short.

I believe that this is the second debate on disability living allowance that the hon. Member for Arfon has secured. Is that correct?

[Hywel Williams]

No.

[Richard Fuller]

I am sorry. It is the second debate that I have attended on the subject. It shows how important it is to hon. Members that we get the correct answers. This debate is a bit more heartening in that it is not focused so much on cuts. The Minister needs to lay this to rest: the changes are not being made to reduce funding but to ensure that the funding that is available is directed in a way that gives clarity to families and the recipients of care in various care homes. It is extremely important that that message is made clear. [Interruption.] If hon. Members disagree, we need to continue to bring that to the Minister’s attention. I fundamentally do not believe that that is the intent of the policy, and I look forward to listening to those who think differently.

I should like to thank the 27 charities—the number is growing—that have provided information to other hon. Members and to me in their reports, “Don’t Limit Mobility”, and, more recently, “DLA mobility: sorting the facts from the fiction”. A number of them are in an expert position because they also operate care homes. I would be interested to hear from the Minister how many of them have come forward with examples from their own experience of the uniformity of provision across their network of homes. Has she received such representations or evidence from them about whether they experience differences in the various local authority areas in which they operate? That would be a useful body of evidence, and it behoves the charities to provide such information to the Minister, so that we can have a clearer picture.

In their reports, the charities provide some information about the rationales for the changes. I admit that several have been presented over the months, but I should like to pick up on two that are particularly pertinent and germane. I thought that the first one they listed was very interesting:

“The responsibility for mobility/transport costs should be met by the care home provider”.

What struck me in the evidence that the charities provided was that they saw a lack of clarity in what has been provided. They stated:

“Related legislation and guidance make no specific reference to mobility… While guidance places a responsibility…it contains nothing about how this is paid for… This guidance is not contract terms… the guidance does not provide a legal requirement.”

That points to the comments that were made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury and others about the need for clarity and a road map.

[Mr Steve Brine (Winchester) (Con)]

I would echo my hon. Friend’s comments about the Minister. She has gone far out of her way to reach out to colleagues across the House, and I pay credit to her for that.

My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury spoke about contracts and specifics being written down. The Winchester and District Mencap Society has made the point to me many times that the mobility component is not necessarily used just for appointments at doctors or care homes, or for visits to friends or the hairdresser. Sometimes, for their own physical and mental health, people use it to get away from those with whom they live. Is not the key point that if we reform the system and move to personal independence payments, we will put power in the hands of disabled people who are individuals in their own right? They do not want the Government or the House to prescribe how they do everything, or how and where they spend their money.

[Richard Fuller]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. However, there are also requirements on the part of the Government to provide some guidance and clarity. If we can get clear evidence of the original intent—the changes are required because of differences in provision—people could move forward more confidently, empowered to exercise their rights. We are going through a process that we have not yet completed.

The second rationale that I wish to discuss—I will not take too much of hon. Members’ time—is No. 7 on the charities’ list:

“Local authorities’ contracts with care homes should cover personal mobility needs”.

The charities’ response focuses very much on ability to pay. Local authorities do not have the money; care home providers are not in a position to pay. That comes again to my earlier point: this issue should not be driven by the need to make cost reductions, but by the need to ensure that there is clarity about what we expect to provide on both a local authority and care home basis. If insufficient money is being provided, that should be the answer. If too much money is being provided and there is a better way of getting value for money, that should be the answer. That is what we are driving for in achieving an answer.

My final point is that this is not just about mobility. The issue is independence. A personal expenditure allowance of £22 a week is not sufficient for the broad range of an individual’s requirements. That measure was not set by this Government—they inherited it. It is a little insulting to tell someone, particularly someone who is vulnerable or people who have spent much of their own lives looking after a child or a mother who is in need and thereby saving the Government so much money, that we will leave them with just £22 a week to cover the wide range of their personal expenditure.

I ask the Minister, as she looks at the mobility component, to bear in mind the broader picture of providing decency overall for people in care. She has done an excellent job in reaching out and listening to people, and I hope that she will listen to the contributions to the debate.

Disability Allowance

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Tuesday 30th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr Clarke]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Like other hon. Members, I have received a huge amount of correspondence making the point that he just raised.

In order to seek clarity, I will turn to the question put to the Prime Minister last Wednesday by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Mr Bain). He asked:

“How can he possibly justify this cruel cut of either £18.95 per week or £49.85 per week to some of the most decent people who have paid their taxes all their lives?”—[Official Report, 24 November 2010; Vol. 519, c. 264-265.]

To my complete dismay, the Prime Minister chose to trivialise his response. I say that because I had expected him to show greater sensitivity towards people with disabilities. In fact, he served as an office-bearer in the all-party group on learning disability and his input then was regarded as positive and welcome. I hope that the Prime Minister will think again.

In any event, the shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, my right hon. Friend the Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander), put the Opposition’s position beyond doubt when he said following Prime Minister’s questions:

“The Prime Minister, after a word in his ear from his Chancellor, got it flat wrong today.

He was asked about his own government’s plans to cut mobility support for people in care homes but confused it with separate reforms…But when the Chancellor went back in his Spending Review and scrapped mobility support for people in care homes, we are clear that goes too far and is a punitive measure that could leave people in care homes more isolated.”

That clarifies the Opposition’s position on the matter, but my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow East may want to add to it; I shall welcome what she has to say later. It is in complete contrast to what the coalition has said. We are calling for clarity.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is making some good points, but on the issue of clarity, will he help those of us who are perhaps not as learned as him on this topic? Is there an underlying issue that different amounts of the mobility allowance go to people who are disabled based on their route into the care home? Will he provide clarity on that?

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Maria Miller]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. This does not affect self-funders, and we will be making clearer as we get towards the Bill exactly how the measure will affect all other groups. I reiterate that it is important to get clarity in the funding streams as we move towards personalisation, which is overwhelmingly welcomed by disabled people.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

My hon. Friend makes a good point about the need for clarity and clarification as we move towards the universal benefit, but we must also consider the issue of decency. The measures that she is taking are having deleterious effects on the well-being of people in my constituency. Many of the families concerned have looked after their children for many years outside care. Will she take the opportunity to meet me so that we can discuss some of these constituency issues?

Welfare Reform

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 11th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan Smith]

Let me repeat the figures that I gave. Of all those who have been migrated through the system, about 5% have been successful in the sense that they have had their appeals upheld. There may be a slight change to that figure, because there is a backlog at the moment; we could probably make it up to 7% or 8%, but I do not think that it will get any higher than that. We should remember that all the people the hon. Lady is talking about represent the flow—that is, people who have not been in receipt of incapacity benefit until now but have been applying to come on to incapacity benefit and are being migrated through the process on to employment and support allowance or jobseeker’s allowance. The figure for those appeals is 5%, and that was part of the process that was started by the previous Government.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Many of us welcome the Secretary of State’s efforts to tackle the scourge of worklessness and to end the era in this country of indiscriminate and too often counter-productive welfare. On work capability assessment, he will know that these macro benefits are built on a series of individual assessments by a particular doctor on a particular day of a particular condition. May I press my right hon. Friend to take a personal interest to ensure that assessments of neurological disorders and mental health issues in particular are done fairly?

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend raises a very important point. I can guarantee to him that we have already been doing that, but we will continue to do so. That is why the independent panel, which includes somebody from Mind, will review it. Mr Farmer has been tasked with reviewing that generally, as well. We will constantly keep this under review and ensure that that is the case. We do not want to use this to punish people; it is about helping people, not punishing them.

Jobs and the Unemployed

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Yvette Cooper]

My hon. Friend is right. This is about investing in our future, because this is about the young people who will support us all for very many years to come. If we do not give them the start in life that they need, if we do not give them the work experience that they need to get into jobs, if we leave too many of them stuck on the dole for years, we will pay the bills that result from their being unemployed for years and we will lose their potential skills and talents that could contribute to our economy for many years to come.

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Is not the biggest burden on the young people about whom the right hon. Lady talks so eloquently the massive debts that her Government left behind? They are already shackled by the previous Government’s policies, and that will be a burden on them and their employment opportunities for the future.

[Yvette Cooper]

If those young people cannot get jobs, if they end up stuck on the dole for years—that is what happened to young people whom I left school with in the 1980s—that will devastate their entire future. They will struggle to get work for many years to come and that will push up the deficit. The hon. Gentleman seems to fail to understand that if unemployment is high, that pushes up the bills for unemployment benefits and cuts the number of people who are working in good jobs and paying their taxes, not just this year and next, but for many years to come.

[Richard Fuller]

In my constituency, the unemployment rate doubled under the last Administration. In the last 10 years, unemployment has gone up. We recognise in Bedford and Kempston that we need small businesses to create the jobs that will employ people, not just in five years’ time, but in five months’ time. The one thing that small businesses in my constituency want is to know that the Government have control over the deficit, that their taxes will be down, and that regulation will be reduced. Surely that is the way in which we can create jobs.

[Yvette Cooper]

Unfortunately for the hon. Gentleman, if we cut the deficit at the pace and scale that his party wants, that will make it harder for businesses. It will make it harder for small businesses and companies across the economy. His party’s own appointed Office for Budget Responsibility confirms that. It says that there will be fewer jobs in the economy, not just next year, but each year for the rest of this Parliament as a result of the Budget. It is hitting businesses and employers throughout the country, making it harder for them to take people on. That is the complete fallacy in the arguments of Conservative Members. They are stuck in the mentality of not just the 1980s, but the 1930s, which says that so long as the deficit is cut, things will suddenly be hunky-dory. It will not. It cuts jobs and makes it harder for people to get back into work, and it pushes up the costs of failure too. That is what is so irresponsible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Richard Fuller Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2010 Commons Chamber

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

Would my right hon. Friend agree that the right way to get people back into work is to support our thriving small business and entrepreneurial sector? One of the key measures is to see that the small business sector has access to finance—something that, under the last Government, Labour Members failed to achieve.

[Mr Duncan Smith]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. What is so often forgotten by Labour Members is the need to make sure that jobs are created by a vibrant small business sector. Of course, the first thing that would have damaged that sector would have been the rise in national insurance, which we have managed to stop as a result of our changes.