House of Commons Hansard Debates for 21 Nov 1990

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I give a warm welcome to the provision which allows a disabled person to try out a job for up to two years before losing the right to return to the full benefit level that he or she received before commencing work. I hope that there will be no attempt by employers to pay low wages to disabled people because such people will be eligible for the disabled working allowance. It is not unknown for some employers to make disabled persons feel that it is a great favour for them to be allowed to work in their firms and that, by implication, they should expect lower wages. What a great insult that is to the many disabled people who are an example to other workers in dedication, hard work, common sense and excellent time keeping. I am concerned about the means-tested nature of the disability working allowance for disabled people who are anxious to work. The DWA must create the right circumstances to provide sufficient extra finance to cover travelling to work, working clothes, meals at work, savings, building up a pension and, I hope, an increased income when all those things have been looked after. When work-related expenses are taken into account, the disabled person must believe that it is an advantage, not a disadvantage, to take up employment.

I ask the Minister to reconsider the £8,000 capital limit. If we wish to encourage the disabled to save, it is a mistake to impose a capital limit of £8,000. It would surely be fairer to increase that figure, or even to disregard all capital. Situations can arise, through accidents or terrorist action, which make citizens, through no fault of their own, disabled for life. Sadly, we have many such cases in Northern Ireland. Let us not add insult to injury for those unfortunate people. Let us show our compassion by disregarding sums of money awarded to them which, if the truth were known, they would gladly give away if they could only return to their former way of life.

It is disappointing that the Bill will not apply equally to all citizens, regardless of age. Surely those over 65 ought to be treated in the same way as all other citizens. I ask the Minister to ensure that local offices are fully aware during the implementation of the measure that the disablement working allowance cannot be applied for until a person has a job. At that point, disablement benefit ceases. While the claim is being processed, therefore, no benefit is payable. I urge the Minister to ensure that all local offices process such claims as speedily as possible.

I have mentioned the various improvements that we should like to be made to the Bill. I hope that in Committee the Minister will be persuaded to consider constructive suggestions which I know would improve the lot of many disabled people.

6.57 pm

Mr. Allen McKay (Barnsley, West and Penistone) : My speech will be brief because I hope that the contents of the Bill will be fully explored in Committee. The fact that we do not intend to divide the House suggests that we believe that the Bill contains some good things. However, it does not go far enough. The Minister could reply that that is always our argument, but if we did not put forward that argument continually no improvement would be made to social security and welfare benefits.

The point has already been made that the £10 allowance is inadequate. If hon. Members think about the things on which they spend £10, they will realise how insignificant a sum it is in terms of additional social security benefits. I do

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not believe that the allowance will be successful in encouraging people to return to work. Nevertheless, it is a step in the right direction. One only has to think of mobility costs. It costs £2 per day in bus fares to travel into town from where I live. If disabled people are able to travel to work, most will do so by bus. They will need help to get to town, but many will try to do so if they believe that they can succeed.

The Bill places more pressure on DSS staff. I have received nothing but help and co-operation from the office with which I have dealt since becoming a Member of Parliament and I am conscious of the pressures under which it works. During the recess, I took the opportunity of visiting the office. I informed the manager of my visit, not as a Member of Parliament but as a member of the public, with some of my constituents, to see what happens. I was appalled at the indignity that claimants suffer and the long waiting time. I was even more appalled at the pressures on the people behind the counter. If our constituents who, through no fault of their own, depend on benefits are to be dealt with in a proper and dignified manner, the system should enable the people behind the counter to provide such a service.

We shall explore the Bill further in Committee. It is a step in the right direction, but certain parts of it need amending and some benefits need increasing. I hope that when it emerges from Committee it will be a better Bill.

7.1 pm

Mr. Paul Flynn (Newport, West) : The hon. Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) ended his speech on a poetic note, referring to a wave coming in on the top of a tide. That metaphor is perhaps more helpful to Labour Members, as the present tide has defied the laws of nature and taken eleven and a half years to come in, whereas normally tides come in twice a day. Tides often have another unfortunate effect--they not only come in but go out, leaving a mudscape that is unsightly and ugly.

We must consider what is behind the Bill. One hates to be accused of being churlish, but much of it is cosmetic and its main effect is to recycle money. The hon. Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham), like many other hon. Members who have participated in the debate, has made a distinguished contribution and has a deep commitment to the needs of disabled people. Unfortunately, as he confessed, he was in some difficulty because he was expecting to speak tomorrow and had to rely on a handout from the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation for most of his speech. He unfairly attacked my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) for referring to the finances of the Bill, which are absolutely crucial. Our 6.5 million disabled people have been waiting a long time for a Bill that is radical, progressive and fundamental. Those people, who have been short-changed by life or cheated by nature, have a right to expect something far better than the Bill. Without question, there are improvements in the Bill. Hon. Members have complained about how disabled benefits have worked, but some of the Bill's provisions will be effective.

There are two parts to any Bill--first, the philosophy of whether it will work and whether it is the right thing to do and, secondly, how it underpins measures and the generosity behind it. We hear daily from Conservative Members about the improving prosperity of our society,

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but what share of that is going to disabled people? The Bill paints a different picture. It is a means of recycling money. All disabled people have a complex income structure from multiple sources, but the Bill attempts to rob Peter to pay Peter.

"The Way Ahead" was part of the Government's much trumpeted process of targeting. The Government are brilliant at targeting income tax handouts on the best off, but the improvements in benefits for disabled people will be financed from existing benefits. That must be understood. Projecting forward is the only sensible way of gauging their benefits. These are wedge -shaped cuts. The point of the wedge is felt immediately and, although it may be thin and slight, it expands over the years and an enormous amount of money is involved. If we are to make a sensible judgment, we must consider the other changes that the Government have made, often to little known benefits of which people are unaware. A Bill of this kind is heralded with much publicity and adjectival assault from the Government, but what effect have their other little cuts had? The disability working allowance is expected to be self-financing. The total cost of the allowance will be covered by the loss of other benefits paid to disabled people. From the Government's point of view, it is even better than that because the Government will profit from the additional £10 million income tax that recipients are expected to pay.

The disability living allowance will involve an estimated additional cost of £120 million in 1992-93--not a huge sum of public expenditure-- rising to £240 million by 1993-94. After the first few years, that additional cost will be more than outweighed by the savings resulting from the other proposals in "The Way Ahead". The biggest cut, which was made in the Social Security Act 1990, is the abolition of the earnings-related element of invalidity benefit. That is a bit of a mouthful and is little understood, but it is a vital lifeline to many disabled people. The earnings-related element was introduced by the Labour Government's Social Security Pensions Act 1975, which had all-party support but was savagely cut by the Social Security Act 1986, the effects of which were expected to save about £400 million per year by 2013 and £1 billion by 2003-- far more than the amount needed to cover the entire cost of this Bill. According to Government figures in parliamentary answers, the abolition of what remained of the earnings-related invalidity benefit is expected to save a further £1.3 billion net by 2025-26. The second major cut made by the Social Security Act 1990 as part of "The Way Ahead" package was the abolition of reduced earnings allowance for the victims of industrial injuries and diseases. Again, this was the culmination of a series of salami cuts in that benefit over the years. The abolition of what remained is expected to cut a further £130 million by 2001-02.

Much play was made of the changes in the disregard to help disabled people back to work. The Bill may have that effect, but another Bill which is to be brought before us next week cuts statutory sick pay and shifts the burden to employers. That must be a disincentive for employers to employ disabled people and will have a further balancing effect on any benefit from the changes in disregard.

The Government are entitled to argue, as I am sure that they will, that the money has to come from somewhere, but

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there are far better ways of obtaining it. The lady who was Prime Minister at 3.30 pm--so far as I know, she is still Prime Minister ; I would not want my remark to cause alarm among Conservative Members--explained how the Government would make changes in terms of the waste of money on armaments in past 40 years. Despite the Gulf crisis and other dangers in the world, the peace dividend will result in major savings. Surely, therefore, the worst possible way to raise money to improve conditions for people with disabilities is the way that has been used by the Government, whereby benefits to which those people were already entitled have been taken away. That is like providing a starving child with a meal by taking away his shirt, or mending the walls of a house by taking stones from its foundations. The disability groups and the bodies which represent them will judge the Bill and the Government's record as unhelpful and ungenerous. 7.10 pm

Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe) : The Government's case in promoting the Bill, even before it appeared, has been an inverted pyramid of ministerial claims that rest on but a pinhead of fact. The pyramid was tottering to destruction long before today, as Ministers' claims for their proposals were scrutinised and rejected by all the major organisations of and for disabled people. In the words of the briefing for this debate from the House of Commons Library, their reaction is one of "extreme anger and disappointment".

The Secretary of State in his speech talked about the "cliff edge". In doing so, he reminded me that Peter Large of the Disablement Income Group-- than whom no one in the voluntary sector is more widely respected in this House--described "The Way Ahead", the policy paper on which the Bill is founded, as

"nothing but a narrowing stony ledge".

As for the Government's claims about bringing some coherence into cash provision for disabled people, he comments,

"the future promises to be a worrying mess" ;

and he concludes that ministerial

" talk about a more coherent system is a sign of delirium." My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher), in opening the debate from this side of the House, comprehensively demolished the Secretary of State's case for regarding the Bill, in any meaningful sense, as a bright new way ahead for Britain's 6.5 million people with disabilities. What they and their organisations seek, and the Bill fails to provide, is urgent relief from the hugely increased gap in living standards that divides people with disabilities from those of most other people in Britain today. Average male earnings have increased by 20 per cent. while the present Government have been in power, yet the basic level of benefits for disabled people has risen by less than 1 per cent. Ministers can juggle the figures as much as they like, but that is the unvarnished truth about the priorities of this Government as they affect people with disabilities and others more fortunate. Let us consider the pinhead of fact in the Government's inverted pyramid. It is incontrovertibly true that, taken together, the Government's proposals as set out in the policy paper which they published in January will, as they claim, increase expenditure in the short term, but even this claim is subject to major qualification. The qualification is not mine or that of the organisations of and for disabled people, but one made by Ministers themselves in reply to

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parliamentary questions since "The Way Ahead"--heralded as a policy to take us into the next century--was published in January. What their replies to my questions and those of other right hon. and hon. Members show is that, in 10 years, the net increase in spending will be only £6 million. I leave it to any senior wranglers in the House to decide what percentage contribution that will make to narrowing the huge gap in living standards between disabled people and those in our society whose needs are much less compelling.

Yet the claims made for the Government's proposals are still uncritically accepted even by news editors of high standing. After all the dust thrown in their eyes by Whitehall's news managers, how many news editors are aware of the Government's own admission that virtually all "extra" spending on social security benefits for disabled people has been the result of more people becoming entitled to benefits, not least the attendance and mobility allowances, that were introduced before they came to power? Again, how many recipients of the "facts" churned out by the Government's news managers are aware that there were 1 million disabled losers from the so-called "reform" of social security that took effect in April 1988? Many thousands, even of the most severely disabled people, have had no increase in their incomes since that date, notwithstanding the effect of inflation over the past two and a half years. They are people who were receiving help for their additional requirements under the supplementary benefit scheme which terminated with the change to income support. The help that they have lost was for extra heating, the high laundry costs that increasing incontinence can cause, special diets and paid assistance to enable them to go on living in their own homes. I have drawn repeated attention in the past two years to the idiotic myopia in Richmond house where the Department of Health provides expensive drugs for people with AIDS, while the Department of Social Security cruelly undermines them by failing to give them enough money to afford recommended diets. The living standards of people with disabilities have also been further reduced by the poll tax. A recent survey carried out by the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation showed that nearly a quarter of the disabled respondents were over £400 a year worse off, while over half were over £300 a year worse off. Many of them are using the attendance and mobility allowances to meet the poll tax.

We have had some very well-informed speeches about the Government's record and proposals in this debate, notably from my hon. Friends the Members for Mid-Staffordshire (Mrs. Heal), for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse), for Barnsley, West and Penistone (Mr. McKay) and for Newport, West (Mr. Flynn). We had important speeches as well from the hon. Members for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price), for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and for Exeter (Mr. Hannam). Sadly, my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) has not been able to intervene in this debate, but he will soon be back--I hope tomorrow--ready as always to argue the claims of disabled people.

What emerges from the debate is that to bundle together the attendance and mobility allowances, in spite of the alterations that the Government propose, and to call the combination a new benefit is to mix truth with propaganda. The Government want to give the impression that they have now tackled the extra costs of disability.

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Their so-called disability living allowance does no such thing. It is an extension of existing allowances and the new components, set at £10 in each case, have been dismissed as "derisory" by the organisations that speak for disabled people. Even whatever meagre help with their attendance and mobility needs can be bought with £10 will be denied to the vast majority of disabled people by the age bar.

The Government argue that more pensioners are benefiting through occupational pension schemes and have higher incomes with which to meet their needs. The Social Services Committee, of which the hon. Member for Eastleigh is a distinguished member, looked at the evidence and in paragraph 29 of House of Commons Paper 646 concluded :

"The Government should not assume that disabled people over pension age have necessarily enjoyed the same income rises as other pensioners."

Indeed, common sense tells us that it is younger pensioners who have the higher incomes and older pensioners who are most disabled. Just because some people have better incomes does not remove the Government's responsibility to direct help at those most in need. If the disability living allowance lived up to its name, all would be well. It would recognise the other costs of disability, including special diets, extra heating, the need to employ domestic assistance and help with communication, of which disability organisations are constantly providing evidence but which the Government continually fail to recognise. The OPCS reports themselves reveal that, although only 18 per cent. of adults reported extra expenditure on food--OPCS 2, table 4.7--this was, at £6.20 per week, by far the single most expensive item ; and expenditure was almost identical in all severity categories--OPCS 2, table 4.9. Equally, the small number of children with digestive disorders cost their parents four times as much as others--OPCS 5, table 4.16. What does the Bill do for them? Nor does the so-called disability living allowance help disabled people with exceptionally high costs. The experience of the independent living fund has shown that there are several thousand people who need a lot of money to live independently in the community. Average payments made by the fund are £64 a week, but some payments exceed £400. The type of help now provided on a discretionary basis by the ILF should be a statutory right of disabled people.

One aspect of the allowance causes me particular concern. The House will know that I was instrumental in setting up the Motability scheme. The Bill states that, where a claimant is awarded both a mobility and an attendance component, they should be awarded for the same period. If this means that someone who would normally be awarded mobility allowance for three years or more would have the length of allowance reduced, they would no longer be able to use the Motability scheme. Will the Minister be commenting on the concern that this is causing among disabled people?

Even the most charitable person must describe the DLA as seriously flawed. It is difficult to find anything as complimentary to say about its siamese twin, the disability working allowance. This DWA bears no relation to the partial incapacity benefit for which disability organisations have campaigned for over 20 years. It bears no relation either to any of the schemes that have been operated successfully by several of our European partners--if the Prime Minister will allow the phrase--for many

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years now. The DWA is little more than family credit without the families and incorporates all the poverty and unemployment traps of that misbegotten benefit.

As the Government readily concede, the DWA is, in their colourful language, "cost-neutral". That means, of course, that it will involve no extra spending by the Government. In practice, there will be no help, and thus no incentive to leave invalidity benefits for people with capital of over £8,000--even if it comes from a compensation award--or for those whose partners are working. DWA would begin to qualify for the name of a partial incapacity benefit only if the sole income taken into account were that from the claimant's own earnings. The list of access benefits is also likely to exclude entirely many deaf or partially sighted people. Again, the need to work 16 hours will exclude many people who, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Staffordshire said, wish to build up their hours slowly, for example, after a serious accident.

Even people who do qualify will receive precious little incentive. RADAR has provided examples of how people currently claiming invalidity benefit would gain from the allowance. A single person who takes a job with net earnings of £50 a week will gain a little under £16, after taking loss in community charge benefit and housing benefit into account. A married person with earnings of £100 will gain under £20 a week. Once the costs of getting to work and other expenses are taken into account, there will be little left to provide disabled people with any improvements in their lifestyles. Moreover, both RADAR and Nicole Davoud, who, as the Minister knows, has worked long and hard over many years for a partial incapacity benefit, have pointed out that the absurdly steep taper will cause marginal tax rates of over 94 per cent. after loss of housing and community charge benefit. How can the Minister possibly defend that kind of mockery in the treatment of disabled people?

It is not in the Bill, but I understand that the additional partial incapacity test proposed by the Treasury for renewal claims refers not to earnings loss due to disability but to difficulty in finding a job. This is an incredible commentary on the abject failure of the Government's employment policies. Research and the experience of countless thousands of people with disabilities have shown that difficulty in finding work is predominantly caused by discrimination. If we cannot have a partial incapacity benefit, would it not, as the Disability Alliance has suggested, be more effective to introduce anti-discrimination legislation plus an extended linking rule for everyone?

The Prime Minister no doubt considers this to be an even more dangerous socialist policy than those espoused by the right hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine). Yet she has been hob-nobbing for the past few days with George Bush, that other notorious leftist, who signed into law this summer the Americans with Disabilities Act. That very important Act extends the hugely successful anti-discrimination legislation that the hotbed of socialism that is the United States has operated successfully over 15 years.

I recall the time, 15 years ago, when the Labour Government introduced their legislation for mobility allowance, invalid care allowance and non- contributory invalidity pension. Of course, we were criticised for not

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going far enough, but we were setting the framework on which we would build. One of my most earnest hopes was to smash the contributory principle and end the wholly unjust exclusion from benefits, as of right, of those unable to pay insurance contributions. It was an important breakthrough even to start down that road, just as we led the world on access to the built environment for disabled people.

Today, we lag behind other countries. Where might we have been now if, in the past 11 years, there had been a Government who, instead of reallocating resources from the poor to the very rich, had fulfilled their responsibilities to those most in need? Fortunately, the chances of this Government now enduring to write the regulations under the Bill are not good. In truth, as they know, their extensive research and consultation since January have resulted only in a change of names for longstanding benefits, to the bitter disappointment of everyone in the voluntary sector who knows the facts.

We have all, on both sides of the House, as the Minister must know, been flooded with angry representations about the Bill. So I give notice this evening that we shall do everything we can, from this side of the House, to improve the Bill in Committee. By common consent outside the Government, there is much to improve. In his resignation speech last week, the former deputy Prime Minister, the right hon. and learned Member for Surrey, East (Sir G. Howe), said that, in the mouth of the present Prime Minister, words have lost their meaning. This Bill does not provide for a disability living allowance properly so-called. In the words of the Disability Alliance,

"the Disability Living Allowance is clearly nothing of the kind. Why its name was changed from the original Disability Allowance is quite inexplicable. Both names are completely misleading. The new name of Disability Living Allowance if anything compounds the confusion."

Nor does the Bill provide, in any real sense, for a disability working allowance worthy of the name. We shall do our level best in Committee to improve the Bill in the direction which Britain's 6.5 million disabled people overwhelmingly now want this House urgently to proceed.

7.29 pm

The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. Nicholas Scott) : My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Sir D. Price) endehis speech with Clough's well-known words and drew attention to the improvements that have been possible in the quality of life of disabled people over recent years. Having borne my present responsibilities for three and a half years, I believe passionately that the 1990s are likely to see more substantial advances in the quality of life and opportunities for disabled people in several different areas.

Demographic pressures will compel employers to look beyond the disabilities that confront them to the abilities of so many disabled people. Improved access to homes, offices, workshops and leisure facilities will also improve dramatically. We shall also have improved and more coherent delivery of services for the disabled and technology will enable many more of them to live independently and earn their own livings.

The Government are determined to press on with all that and to encourage it to the greatest possible extent so that we can achieve that improvement in the next 10 years. There is also a role to be played in an improved, more generous and more coherent structure of benefits for

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disabled people. Contrary to the moaning minnies on the Opposition Benches, I believe that the Bill is an important step in that direction.

I recognise that the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) has a duty to oppose our legislation because that is the role of the Opposition under our constitution, but he was far less generous than I expected when he considered the Bill's provisions. His criticism of us for marketing the two new measures was blatantly absurd. He takes great pleasure in saying that most of the increase in expenditure on disabled people under this Government has come about as a result of increased take-up. We market the benefits and make people aware of them because we want people to take them up. We have also made many of those benefits more generous and flexible while we have been in office. I fully recognise that we need to market the new benefits effectively so that people take them up and benefit from them. The hon. Member for Oldham, West also said that the disabled living allowance was not simple or easy to understand. However, he apparently plans to return to a system with the complexities of additional requirements or to a points-based comprehensive disability allowance which would be immensely complex to operate and enormously dependent on medical assessments, which we are seeking to move away from. That would not begin to meet the needs of disabled people. I shall refer later to the improvements in assessment and adjudication that we have in mind, but the hon. Member for Oldham, West has it the wrong way round.

What is the philosophical approach of the hon. Member for Oldham, West to the disability working allowance? Does he want to encourage disabled people who can and wish to work to do so? We aim to do that, but the hon. Gentleman seemed to imply that we were trying to force people off invalidity benefit on to DWA. That is not true. We want disabled people to have the opportunity to achieve the dignity, independence and self-respect which comes from being able to earn one's own living.

The change in the linking rule is as important as the introduction of the allowance. I can take the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire (Mrs. Heal) with me when I say that if someone gets a job and then finds that he cannot hold it down or the employer feels that that person is not up to it, the person can retain the underlying entitlement to invalidity benefit or to severe disablement allowance. That will be an important encouragement.

The hon. Member for Oldham, West also criticised our general approach to disability and, I suppose, our generosity. I have referred to the figures before and I do not apologise for repeating them now. The last Labour Government managed, commendably, to increase expenditure for the long-term sick and disabled by £220 million per year during their period in office. We have improved that expenditure by £370 million per year during our period in office. That demonstrates our commitment to meeting the needs of the disabled.

The hon. Member for Oldham, West also used a slightly complicated phrase about unbundling which I think that I eventually grasped. The hon. Gentleman was correct to say that beneficiaries will need to know what they are receiving. The new arrangements, which bring together procedures for the care and mobility components in the new benefit, will bring to the beneficiary a single award

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notice which will make it clear exactly what the person is obtaining when the award is made. There is no great problem about that.

The hon. Gentleman was concerned that blind and partially sighted people would not get the new allowance. Many blind and partially sighted people will be getting invalidity benefit or severe disablement allowance before they start work, and registered blind people can receive the disability premium in income support, housing benefit or community charge benefit. Both those groups would satisfy the qualifying benefit test for the disability working allowance. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh referred to the momentum of progress, reinforcing Clough's words. I compliment the Select Committee on Social Services and my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh on the work that they have done in relation to disability. We consider their advice most carefully. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh mentioned his aim and that of the Select Committee to bring the severe disablement allowance up to the level of invalidity benefit. Legislation would not be necessary to achieve that. I have no objection in principle to that, but it is a matter of resources and priorities and I cannot see an early prospect of achieving it. Nevertheless, I have noted carefully what my hon. Friend said. My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh also asked us to extend the scope of invalid care allowance. I am sure that the whole question of carers will have to be addressed more carefully in future than in the past. The growing awareness of disability and care for the elderly and the role that carers play in our society is recognised in our introduction of the carer's premium in income support, through our improving disregards for carers and extending the premium for eight weeks after bereavement. Those may be small steps, but they are steps in the right direction to a wider recognition of the role that carers play.

Sir David Price : In his response to the fifth report of the Select Committee on Social Services, will my right hon. Friend bundle his views about the Government's intentions in a Green Paper? As members of the Select Committee on Social Services technically no longer exist, I am sure that our ghosts would lie happy if we felt that a full response was to come in the form of a Green Paper outlining the Government's future intentions.

Mr. Scott : I will ponder that suggestion and discuss it with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State.

My hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh also tried to persuade us to link the assessment for disability benefits to the assessment for community care. The new system will make use of any existing evidence about a disabled person's condition. We want to make the process more coherent and interrelated.

The hon. Members for Mid-Staffordshire, for Oldham, West and for Roxburgh and Berwickshire (Mr. Kirkwood) and my hon. Friend the Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) referred to a comprehensive disability benefit of one kind or another. Obviously cost is involved. One of the schemes put forward before we published "The Way Ahead" could not have been introduced for less than £3 billion per year. I must reinforce the point that I made to the hon. Member for Oldham, West. Such a benefit would inevitably be complex and it would inevitably depend heavily on medical manpower. In moving to a new system, there

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would be many losers. There would have to be a considerable period of transitional protection. The hon. Member for Oldham, West is aware of the complexities.

Mr. Kirkwood : Why should there be substantially more losers?

Mr. Scott : As we discovered when we introduced the new social security benefits, if the pattern is changed there will inevitably be many gainers, but if the cost is to be controlled at the point of change there will inevitably be losers. Our study showed that there would be a substantial number of losers and we would want to avoid that. I warn Opposition Members that if they are thinking of going down that route, if ever they have the opportunity, they should bear that point carefully in mind.

I was asked why we settled on 16 hours. We did so not least because we were persuaded in that direction by the many disability organisations which commented on our proposals in "The Way Ahead". I promise the hon. Member for Mid-Staffordshire that I understand her point about those unable to work to that extent. If they are on invalidity benefit or severe disablement allowance, they can earn up to £35 per week under the therapeutic earnings rule. Then, perhaps, by gaining experience with that opportunity, they may get beyond the 16-hour limit and be able to work to a greater extent. It is a stepped approach to encouraging people to get back into work and the therapeutic earnings provision is important.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton, North-East (Mr. Thurnham) congratulated us and recognised our efforts to improve the pattern of benefits. I think that my hon. Friend was the author of the original phrase targeted at the Opposition--that it is all very well for them to promise the earth and to deliver the International Monetary Fund. He recognises that steady improvement in meeting the needs of disabled people is being achieved in a structure within which we are playing our part in the Government's overall economic strategy. My hon. Friend mentioned the independent living fund and recognised that we have doubled provision for next year to £62 million. The arrangements for community care are planned to come into operation in April 1993. That will obviously have an impact on the caseload in terms of those helped by the independent living fund. We shall obviously have to consider what transitional arrangements to make for existing beneficiaries and perhaps a small number of new cases. In general, beyond 1993 the ILF caseload should be looking towards local authorities under the community care provisions rather than to central Government.

My hon. Friend and others mentioned the problem with Motability when mobility allowance is granted for less than three years. Well over 70 per cent. of mobility allowance awards are made for life. Clearly, there is no problem in any of their cases. If problems arise as a result of the new arrangements, I will certainly discuss them with Motability to see whether there is some practical way of overcoming them.

I was grateful for one speech from the Opposition side of the House which gave a general welcome to the proposals, but went on to raise several points which were properly recognised as being more appropriate for

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discussion in Committee. Several hon. Members seemed to volunteer to serve on the Committee, and I look forward to welcoming them aboard in due course.

I know of the problems that were raised by the hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Mr. Lofthouse) and of his devotion to the cause of miners who suffer from the three terrible respiratory diseases associated with that industry. People under retirement age could qualify for the various benefits that are available. Over retirement age, they could qualify for the care components of the new benefits. I hope that that will be of some support for them. As I have said, I know of the hon. Gentleman's long campaign and how much it is appreciated by those who suffer from those debilitating conditions.

The hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) mentioned agoraphobia. I cannot say that every person who suffers from agoraphobia would qualify for the mobility component, but that is certainly one of the groups we had in mind when we designed the extension of mobility allowance within the new benefit. I slightly disagreed with the hon. Gentleman at one point when he seemed to be suggesting that we were trying to bribe people back to work. In three and a half years of meeting and discussing with disabled people, I have found that the vast majority of them want to work. They have a driving wish to be able to earn their own living and acquire the dignity and self- respect of which I spoke earlier. The disability working allowance will be a tremendous encouragement for them to do that. The hon. Member for Antrim, South (Mr. Forsythe) referred to awards of compensation, and in the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland, with which I am familiar, to compensation perhaps for terrorist activities. If money is given to someone in compensation for a personal injury or accident, there is a simple answer --to put the money in trust as it is then not regarded as capital for the purposes of income-related benefits.

Mr. Wigley indicated assent.

Mr. Scott : The hon. Member for Caernarfon nods in agreement. I said that I wanted to make a particular point about the improvements that we plan to make in adjudication and assessment procedures. Since I have been in the Department, there has been considerable dissatisfaction with some aspects of those procedures. The new system that we intend to introduce will be more speedy and more streamlined and will provide a simple and effective service to the public. We are anxious to achieve that. There will be one claim form, one adjudication system for both components, and a significant reduction in medical examinations, thereby improving the scope for dealing with claims more speedily. A second-tier review means that dissatisfied claimants will be able to have their decisions looked at again quickly by another adjudication officer, without going straight to a tribunal with all the delays implicit in that procedure. I believe that we shall be able to reduce the medical input by making the decisions by administrative adjudication

officers--reflecting the policy intention that the important factor is not the medical condition but the effect that it has on people's care and mobility needs. We intend to place the emphasis firmly on self-assessment and on supplementary evidence from those in contact with the

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claimant, giving proper weight to the judgment of those in the best position to know the effect that a claimant's condition has on his or her life.

Mr. Allen McKay : Will more notice be taken of the general practitioner? Time and again, there is a difference of opinion between the general practitioner and the departmental officer, with a lot of controversy and in some cases loss of benefit, although some claims are later deemed to be correct.

Mr. Scott : My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made that point in his opening speech. In essence, the best that an examining medical practitioner can do is to take a snapshot of the person's condition on the day on which he sees that disabled person. Many conditions relapse or progress at different times. It is much better to rely on the evidence of someone continuously in touch with the disabled person who can give a much better and longer-term assessment of their condition and the effect on their way of life. That will be an improvement. It will also make the best use of scarce medical resources. When we need an examination or judgment of one sort or another, we shall be able to have higher standards. The system will be cost-effective. For the first time, too, we shall be introducing a system in which people with attendance needs will have independent rights of appeal. The balance of membership of the disability appeal tribunals again shifts the emphasis from medical conditions to considerations of care and mobility needs. All those matters will result in substantial improvements, and they have been warmly welcomed by many disability organisations.

The full package of measures in "The Way Ahead" and in the Bill will mean extra help for 850,000 disabled people, and £300 million added on in 1993-94 to the £8.3 billion already being spent on the long-term sick and disabled. We shall remove the rigid distinction in the present benefit structure between ability and inability to work and have a more comprehensive, generous and coherent system of disability benefits than ever before. I believe that we are laying down firm foundations for the future structure of our benefits system which will considerably benefit disabled people. The two allowances in the Bill are wholly beneficial and should be welcomed by the whole House. I commend the Bill to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time, and committed to a Standing Committee, pursuant to Standing Order No. 61 (Committal of Bills).

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DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE AND DISABILITY WORKING ALLOWANCE BILL [Money]

Queen's Recommendation having been signified --

Resolved ,

(h any increase attributable to this Act in the sums payable out of money provided by Parliament under section 70 of the Transport Act 1982 in respect of applicants for exemption from wearing seat belts.-- [Mr. Kirkhope.]

DISABILITY LIVING ALLOWANCE AND DISABILITY WORKING ALLOWANCE BILL [Ways and Means]

Resolved,

That any Act resulting from the Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Bill may make provision--

(a) amending the definition of disabled person in sections 74 and 89 of the Inheritance Tax Act 1984 ;

(b) for payments by way of adjustment to be made out of the National Insurance Fund into the Consolidated Fund in consequence of the operation of any enactment or regulations relating to disability working allowance.-- [Mr. Kirkhope.]

Column 355

Armed Forces Bill

Order for Second Reading read.

7.49 pm

The Minister of State for the Armed Forces (Mr. Archie Hamilton) : I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The main purpose of the Bill is, like its predecessors, to continue in force for a further five years the Army Act 1955, the Air Force Act 1955 and the Naval Discipline Act 1957 which together form the statutory framework for discipline in the services. Unless renewed by Act of Parliament by the end of December next year, those Acts will expire.

Clause 1, therefore, is straightforward. It provides, as I have mentioned, for the service discipline Acts to continue in force for a further year and for their renewal thereafter on an annual basis by Order in Council for a maximum of four further years.

Much of the rest of the Bill, however, contains provisions designed to bring service law closer into line with changes in civil law over the past five years in so far as it is sensible and practical to do so. Consequently the Bill covers a range of subjects and in the time available tonight I shall concentrate on its main provisions. Clauses 2 to 5 make amendments to existing provisions relating to the passing of custodial sentences on young offenders under 21 to bring service law into line with the current provisions of civil law in this area.

Under the discipline Acts a court martial and standing civilian court-- which is equivalent to a magistrates court trying civilians overseas-- already have sentencing powers in respect of young offenders which mirror the powers of civil criminal courts in this country. However, the grounds on which such courts may pass a sentence on a young offender of custody for life or make a custodial order which provides for the detention of the offender in an appropriate civil institution in the United Kingdom do not reflect changes to civil law made by the Criminal Justice Act 1988.

Consequently, clause 2 introduces new grounds which must be satisfied before a service court can impose a custodial sentence. Those are that the circumstances, including the gravity of the offence, are such that had the offender been over 21 he would have been sentenced to imprisonment and that the offender qualifies for a custodial sentence.

Further provisions made in the Criminal Justice Act 1988 require the court to record the grounds on which it believes that the offender qualifies for a custodial sentence, to announce them in open court and to explain to the offender in ordinary language why it is imposing a custodial sentence. We have similarly adopted those provisions for service courts.

Clauses 7, 8 and 9 are all concerned with extending the power of service courts and of commanding officers in the Navy in respect of personal injury cases. They introduce a new sentencing power which for some years has been available to civilian criminal courts in England and Wales and which reinforces the belief that it is right and proper that an offender should compensate his victim personally to the extent that he is able to do so.

Clauses 7 and 8 deal with the sentencing of service personnel and extend the power of courts martial and of

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