House of Commons Hansard Debates for 7 Feb 1991

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thought that the whole thrust of Government thinking in recent years had been to move away from the cause or origin towards what the impact would be.

The amendment seeks to ensure that people in both categories have an equal chance of getting the higher rate. At one time, severely mentally handicapped people who could walk, but not with intention and not without control, could get the higher rate. There was then a sequence of case law, challenges, appeals and disputes, and the Department challenged certain rulings. Eventually, mentally handicapped people who used to get the benefit found themselves not getting it.

I am told by the Spastics Society that, during his time as Minister with responsibility for disabled people, the Prime Minister approved the extension subject to verification by the then Department of Health and Social Security of the estimate of the small numbers likely to benefit. The Minister will probably recall that time, and there is probably some record of it in the Department. The Government have never produced any evidence against the low estimate made by the Spastics Society, by Mencap and by others in the Mobility Allowance Campaign. The creation of a far lower rate of mobility component, apparently with that small group of claimants in mind--perhaps the Minister will clarify that--is a backward step in Government thinking compared with what the Prime Minister said a few years ago. It is not the advance that the Government make it out to be. These people do not have less severe difficulties, but different ones. The new lower-rate component should be reserved for people with genuinely less severe disabilities.

The Government have consistently argued that the extension would bring in too many people and would cost too much, despite ample evidence to the contrary. In Committee, the Minister quoted the figures provided by the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys, which suggested that 150,000 adults and children have severe behavioural problems and would, therefore, be likely to qualify for the DLA mobility component on those grounds. The Government are trying to shock us by using such huge figures. The Minister has used the figures as a bludgeon to clobber the case for helping the far smaller group of the severely mentally handicapped and those who suffer behavioural problems who should be entitled to the higher rate of mobility allowance.

The Government have never been able to refute the estimate of 8,000 to 9,000 potentially successful claimants made by Mencap and by the Mobility Allowance Campaign. The Spastics Society says that it considers that this figure, based on two research projects, which happen to have been undertaken in Wales, and on the analysis of the 1971 White Paper, which is entitled "Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped", is the most reliable that we have. That is the belief of most of the disablement organisations.

The Government have overestimated the number of potentially successful claimants before. Their estimate of the number of blind-deaf people who would qualify for mobility allowance was about seven times the number who got it. The Spastics Society considered the 150,000 to be a gross and totally misleading estimate. The Minister has, either accidentially or deliberately, confused the two needy groups.

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The Minister sent me a letter because in Committee I said that the argument seemed to be at cross purposes with ours. The Minister appeared to acknowledge that when he said :

"If I may tackle head-on' the point you made in Committee about the startling discrepancy between our figures and those produced by Mencap you were right to say we are talking at cross purposes. Their estimate of numbers derives from the 1971 paper Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped'. That paper, based on three fairly small scale local surveys, was concerned specifically with estimating the numbers of severely mentally handicapped people. My estimate is of people with mental handicap or illness, resulting in behaviour disorder of a type which necessitates physical guidance when walking. These are two different issues."

Indeed, they may be two different issues and that is why we need the amendment.

In referring to that small group, Mencap is talking about people with severe mental handicap who need physical control. The Minister is talking about people with mental handicap--he does not refer to "severe" mental handicap--and people with mental illness who need guidance. He does not use the word "control". Those are two separate groups. Given proper treatment and support, people with a mental illness can be cured ; people with a mental handicap cannot. That is one example of the differentiation.

There are two groups. One is a fairly large group of about 150,000 people who need help. The Minister has used the additional cost that they face as one of the justifications in defining the group. The smaller group of 9,000 or 10,000 to whom Mencap has referred and whom the 1971 survey revealed certainly need the top level of mobility allowance.

Challenges face families whose members suffer a mental handicap and who have behavioural problems, to the extent that they cannot be controlled without physical control and who cannot go anywhere because they may go off in the wrong direction. They may be able to walk, but it is not a meaningful activity for them. The support that those families need is as great as the support that is needed by a family with a member who cannot physically walk. Such families equally need taxis to take them around. They cannot take the disabled member of the family on the bus or on the train without having somebody to be a minder--at the best. Sometimes it is not practically possible to do that.

We have two groups. Both are needy, but the Bill has failed to address itself to the long-running argument, which we put to the Minister and to his predecessors, about the needs of severely mentally handicapped people with profound behavioural problems. The smaller group, which contains far fewer than 150,000 people, undoubtedly needs a high level of assistance.

In formulating his letter, the Minister has recognised that there are two different arguments. If he is honest with the House, he will say tonight that the Bill meets one argument, but not the other. I hope that, if not tonight at a later stage, he can give an undertaking to produce a further amendment that will meet the justifiable needs of the small group of 9,000 or 10,000 profoundly mentally handicapped people with behavioural problems who should be getting mobility allowance at the higher rate.

Mr. Hannam : I give a few words of support for the speech of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). The amendment represents part of the campaign that has

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been waged for many years by the all-party disablement group. Success was achieved for the deaf-blind with the extension of the mobility allowance to them a year or so ago. However, that left open the whole problem of those who should now be brought within the mobility allowance, especially the mentally handicapped and those who suffer from a lack of orientation when they move away from their familiar surroundings.

I support the amendments, but I pick out amendment No. 12, which deals specifically with the problem of the blind or the partially sighted. The Royal National Institute for the Blind supports the amendment as a solution to a problem that should not exist, as even my right hon. Friend the Minister would agree.

The test for the mobility component should be made more effective for blind and partially sighted people who lose their independent mobility if they try to walk on unfamiliar terrain. Amendment No. 12 would ensure that those who are unable to orientate outside their normal surroundings would be able to claim the new mobility component.

As drafted, the Bill is far from clear on that point. I do not believe, from the statements made by the Minister in Committee, that he is opposed in principle to this group of people receiving the benefit. The simple remedy is to get the correct formulation of the criteria to ensure that this group--I refer particularly to the blind and partially sighted--is covered. If the Bill could be amended in the way that amendment 12 suggests, it would include a new definition which would resolve a problem which it is generally agreed should not exist.

7 pm

Mr. Ashley : The House will have been moved and impressed by the speech of the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley), who spoke from direct personal experience. I support him and the group of amendments because they address some serious problems concerning disabled people, especially those mentally handicapped people who are discriminated against. The nub of the problem is that we discriminate against the mentally handicapped. The physically disabled and the deaf-blind, but not the mentally handicapped, are eligible for mobility allowance. As chairman of the all-party disablement group, I was delighted with the success of the campaign which the group, including the hon. Member for Exeter (Mr. Hannam), launched on behalf of deaf-blind people. But by eliminating one anomaly, we created another, and we must deal with it. We believe that we are being logical and reasonable in urging the Minister to examine the new anomaly of the failure to cope with the problems of severely mentally handicapped people.

We tend to assume that the mobility needs of mentally handicapped people are inevitably less than those of other disabled people, but such an assumption is nonsense. Their mobility needs are just as great, and the pressure on parents is phenomenal. I need not add, in that context, to the remarks of the hon. Member for Caernarfon. In Committee, the Minister said that the new lower rate was intended for those who could use public transport. I do not believe that anyone assumes that severely mentally handicapped people can use public transport. I have not had as many dealings with mentally disabled people as with the physically disabled, but I know of a case in my

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constituency, a boy aged 15, which came into this category. I was surprised when his father brought him to my advice bureau. The boy was fighting, battling, scratching himself and trying to throw himself through the window and door. The battle to restrain that young boy, who was gravely mentally handicapped, was enormous. He could not be left alone. We must provide for people of that type, a small group who are severely mentally handicapped.

I am referring not to people who need only guidance, but to severely mentally handicapped people. I hope that the Minister will heed what was said by the hon. Member for Caernarfon in an eloquent speech, by the hon. Member for Exeter and by myself. Something must be done for this group of people, and I believe that the Minister will do his best.

Mr. Harry Barnes (Derbyshire, North-East) : Amendment No. 24, which stands in my name, asks for automatic mobility allowance, or for what is now the mobility component to be made available automatically to double amputees.

The Minister may say in response that what I seek is unnecessary because in the offing are regulations which will cover this group of people. I take it that the regulations will be made under the Bill. The Secretary of State said in an uprating statement on 24 October 1990 that the provision would be effective from April 1991. Why should that be done by way of regulation? If such a provision is necessary, why not say so on the face of the Bill and allow for it in the primary legislation?

It is vital to discuss the issue of automatic mobility allowance for double amputees in the current circumstances, when we face a serious land battle in the Gulf, resulting in greater numbers of unfortunate people begining to enter the category of which I am speaking.

Several cases of double amputees have been highlighted recently. I am sure that those cases have had an impact on the Department and have put pressure on Ministers to introduce the suggested new regulations. Among the cases that have been highlighted are those of Sergeant Andrew Mudd and Mrs. Sandra Stone.

A constituent of mine, Melvyn Wall, of Delves road, Killamarsh, north Derbyshire, had a foot amputated initially. Shortly afterwards he needed one leg amputated below the knee, and then a second leg amputated below the knee. From January 1988 he was in receipt of mobility allowance. That lasted until January 1990, at which date he was subject to the normal tests for mobility allowance, having by that time been supplied with artificial legs. The mobility allowance was withdrawn, although there have been a number of appeals in the case.

I can best make the case by allowing the amputees to speak for themselves. For example, Melvyn Wall was reported in The Star , a Sheffield newspaper, on 13 January 1990 as having said :

"I don't understand why they give you false legs if they don't want you to walk with them."

In another article in the same paper, on 2 May 1990, he was reported as having said :

"I can't walk any further than a few yards in the heat we are having at the moment before it gets too much for me, so I just don't know how they can say I am fit enough to walk."

I imagine that in the present bad weather he is having even more difficulty in moving about. If he was tested in the

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conditions that we have today rather than in the heat of last year, a different verdict might have been presented by the doctors.

Mr. Scott : I accept that in the past there have been difficulties with some of the assessments, not least because the doctor who examines a patient can take only a snapshot of what the patient can do on a certain day. We are moving much more to

self-assessment--perhaps with a general practitioner, a carer or a physiotherapist to support the patient's description of his condition-- because we want to get away from the state of affairs which the hon. Gentleman described and make it easier for people to claim for their overall position rather than for what they can do on a particular day.

Mr. Barnes : That is admirable and I agree that there should be a self-assessment provision which can be checked by others rather than having an unfortunate snapshot. Melvyn Wall was moved by the district council from a house on a hillside, where it was difficult for him to move about, to a single bungalow pensioner's accommodation with a bus stop at the end of the street and opposite a newsagent and food shop. He could then wait until the shop was empty to go out and do his shopping because he experienced great difficulty if he had to stand and wait in a queue. He was the type of person who would try hard to overcome the difficulties with which he was faced. It seemed that he was then penalised for making progress.

I hope that we are moving away from penalising people in that way, and that there will be categories so that people such as double amputees, who permanently require assistance, will be granted mobility allowances.

I shall conclude with a slightly longer quotation from a letter from Ken Hewitt, secretary of the Sheffield Area Limbless Association. I might give slightly different nuances to the points made in his letter, but it expresses the feelings of someone who has lost limbs and describes the problems faced by his association's member, Melvyn Wall. The letter that he wrote to the Daily Express , which had previously given much publicity to the staff-sergeant Mudd case, states :

"Our member Mr. Melvyn Wall, was adjudged able to walk without sufficient difficulty' therefore the Allowance could not be paid and the application must therefore fail, this being written on the form received informing him of the decision. Two questions must arise from that. Firstly, the adjudicators are mostly people not having suffered amputation, and with due respect to their professional skill and integrity, there is no possible way they are able to judge what being without legs actually means. It is our view that observing the condition can in no way qualify anyone to appreciate what it actually means in terms of living'. The psychological trauma of the loss is sufficiently damaging without the problems arising from actually being in that condition, and the two together create a situation that simply cannot be imagined by anyone not experiencing it themselves. Secondly, what is sufficient difficulty' and by what yardstick is it measured. Does the simple fact that someone has decided, against all the odds, that they will walk again, overcoming the pain, difficulty, and problems it may mean, to be as others, a standing upright, walking upright, human being, not count for anything, taking into account where they started from. The fact that that same person could have simply sat and accepted, and chose not to, that that was their life from now on, vegetating in a chair and no one blaming them for so doing, and therefore being given the allowance at a cost to the Exchequer surely has to play some part in this if only to ensure concentration on amputation instead of what they have achieved in spite of it. That their personal guts, pride,

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and will to succeed should be rewarded by having the allowance taken away is ridiculous and a slur on our compassion as a nation." I appreciate that there is a mood in the House in response to those feelings and sentiments. Why cannot we cover the subject in the Bill rather than in regulations?

7.15 pm

Mr. Allen : I thank those right hon. and hon. Members who so generously welcomed me to the Dispatch Box this afternoon, and particularly the Minister of State for paying a brief but welcome tribute to my cricketing ability. I am here as the balance to the hard-headed and tough approach of my hon. Friends the Members for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) and for Birmingham, Ladywood (Ms. Short). I am the smoothie, the "poor man's Nick Scott" of the Labour team. Unless our good humour continues, I may be forced to reveal the number of runs that the Minister scored in that self- same cricket match. I give him due warning about that.

Mr. Ashley : Tell us now.

Mr. Allen : It will be all the sweeter for having waited. I also thank the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security for her welcome. She said that she and I may have some confrontations--I hope not. Yesterday, we spoke on television together about cold-weather payments. As both of us were kept in ignorance of the Prime Minister's intentions today, we would do better to work as a partnership, not to be confrontational, because then we may progress further.

I am pleased to support the amendment of someone who is my hon. Friend on this issue, and I hope many others--the Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley). We have drawn sympathy from an unexpected source referred to by the hon. Member for Caernarfon--the former Minister for Social Security and Disabled People, now the Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major). An authoritative source, the Spastics Society, stated :

"In his time as Minister for Social Security and the Disabled, John Major, himself, approved this extension subject to verification by the DHSS of the estimate of the small numbers likely to benefit." We must refer to the numbers game later. Apparently, that statement was made to the all-party disablement group on 24 March 1987. Today, I wrote to the Prime Minister to ask about the watch he was now keeping on that pledge and what progress he felt had been made on it in the intervening three years. I await his reply to that--as I awaited his reply to my question on cold-weather payments-- with great interest.

If carried, amendment No. 14 would mean that the upper rate of the mobility component of the disability living allowance would be paid to a person who cannot walk to an intended destination without control. "Control" is the operative word in those circumstances. The word is not "guidance" or "supervision", for which I believe the Bill concedes the lower rate, subject to interpretation by the relevant organisations, but "control".

To win the intellectual argument for the amendment, if not to win the vote in the Lobbies, we must answer two key questions. First, can the need for control justify a higher rate of mobility allowance? Secondly, if it can justify the

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higher rate, how should we seek to reassure the Government that it will not hurt them in public expenditure terms by as much as they fear?

Being the gentle member of the triplets--although I see that we are now joined by our fourth member--and being the one to take the softly, softly approach, it is my intention to try to win over the Government with that argument and reassure them rather than bludgeon them with too many facts and statistics. I want to reassure them that the higher rate will not prove as painful as they fear. I hope that the Minister of State will listen to my arguments with an open mind. The argument that someone needing control, with all the implications of severe behavioural difficulties, has been put far more eloquently than I dare to try. It has been made by the hon. Members for Caernarfon and for Exeter (Mr. Hannam) and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) and others with far more experience, sometimes personal experience, of such matters. The case has also been expertly made by noble Lords in the other place.

Lord Allen of Abbeydale--to the best of my knowledge, no relation--talked some sense, from great experience, when speaking about one individual. He described the case of a man of 19 who was severely mentally handicapped. He suffered from asthma and epilepsy and tended to run out into the road without being able to hear people calling him back. He often needed two people to manage him out of doors, and he was likely either to sit down and refuse to move or to grab at passers-by.

Lord Allen of Abbeydale also referred to cases of other people who were likely to lie down screaming, to rush out into the middle of traffic or to attack fellow passengers. In the words of my hon. Friend the Member for Caernarfon, such people need control, not guidance. That is the crux of the argument in trying to convince the Government that such people must be on the appropriate level of mobility allowance.

The central point at issue is less about the principle, which in a slightly more open atmosphere we could all agree on, than about the numbers involved. Those numbers obviously have fantastic consequences for public expenditure. I do not lightly dismiss that. The numbers game is central to the argument. Let us try to determine the real figure. Mencap states that a 1971 White Paper, "Better Services for the Mentally Handicapped", takes the view that 8,000 to 9,000 people fall into this category, which includes many people who are aggressive, destructive or over-active, and those who inflict self-injury.

In the past, the Government have estimated that as many as 250,000 people are involved, but they now seem to have settled on 150,000 as being in the B1, B2 and B3 categories, which the Government take as implying the need for some sort of control. It is difficult to bridge the gap between 8,000 or 9,000 and 150,000 who could potentially claim the benefit. Put in crude terms, if the Government's fears about the number are justified, it would cost an extra £150 million to upgrade those people from lower to upper grades. If Mencap is correct, it would cost the Government just £8 million.

It is a difficult decision, one of many difficult decisions facing the Secretary of State and his team. I understand the Government's caution, but I hope that, in getting sucked

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into this numbers game, the Minister of State will entertain other considerations in trying to arrive at an accurate figure. First, the Government can take some heart from their poor record in forecasting the number of people who may take up or be entitled to benefit. As has been said, the deaf-blind who may qualify for the higher rate of mobility allowance have been overestimated by Government forecasters by 700 per cent. That may not necessarily be appropriate to the matter that we are debating, but it merits some caution about stating that 150,000 people would automatically receive this benefit.

Secondly, let us look more closely at the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys data and analyse whether 150,000 people would take up the benefit. The OPCS figure includes those who are already outside the qualifying age limits. It includes those who are already receiving mobility allowance, due perhaps to physical disability, and many people whose behaviour does not cause mobility problems and those who would not claim. It also includes those who, for one reason or another, may not ultimately be deemed suitable for an award by the relevant authority. While the Government are right to err on the side of caution, they are wrong to overestimate, double-count and exaggerate.

If the Government cannot accept the amendment, they should consider two reasonable, and hopefully inexpensive, steps to help to facilitate examination of this important question in another place. First, they should publish all the unpublished evidence, statistics and assumptions, so that further representations can be made to enable people to arrive at an accurate and agreed figure. Let us see whether the various interested bodies, including the Spastics Society, Mencap and the Government, can reach a consensus.

The Minister of State wrote a long letter to each member of the Committee. I accept that in all good faith the Minister is seeking some middle ground, so that everyone can agree upon a number and make some progress. Will he therefore ensure that all data and assumptions are made available for all interested people who wish to help him in his difficult task?

Will the Government undertake that, if such a reconciliation is impossible because people are determined to stick to their own interpretation of figures--I hope that that will not be the case--they will seek to establish an immediate and urgent independent study? That study would determine the real number at the earliest possible moment, and that will give us common ground on which to take these matters forward. Those are modest requests, and I hope that the Minister of State can accept them and produce some extremely advantageous life enhancement for those whom the debate is about. Finally, amendment No. 12 is about being able to walk to an intended destination, and it includes a qualification about unfamiliar terrain. That is obviously relevant to blind people. While people may be capable of walking, that ability can be rendered totally useless unless they can reach their required destination. The classic example was given by my right hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), who said that a blind person seeking to post a letter in the letter box at the end of the road can often do so by habit or memory. That

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blind person seeking to post the letter in the next letter box in the district has great difficulty, because, although he is physically capable of walking, he cannot surmount the obstacles of unfamiliar terrain.

It is vital for the judgment about a person's mobility to be tested on unfamiliar terrain, so that independent walking ability rather than walking from memory is tested. That is the objective of amendment No. 12, and the RNIB understands that the Government are not opposed to that objective. Accepting the amendment would easily clarify the matter. I hope that the Minister of State will feel able to accept it. If he is unable to accept the amendment tabled by the members of the all-party disability group, I hope that he will take away the two issues that I left on the table and try to ensure that we talk about the real needs of the people I spoke about, rather than about the impractical problem of the numbers game. Let us try to resolve that in the short term, so that we can all do the long-term job for those people who depend on us.

Mr. Scott : I thank the hon. Member for Nottingham, North (Mr. Allen) and again congratulate him on the eminently reasonable way in which he has put his case. However, I cannot accept the amendments, and I hope that I can explain why.

Some play has been made in the debate with what has been called the error in calculating the number of deaf-blind people who might be entitled to benefit. That was not our calculation. We took advice from SENSE. I am convinced that the figures are right, but the difficulty at the moment is that we are not reaching the deaf-blind who should be entitled to mobility allowance in the way that we planned. We are having discussions with SENSE. We have looked at the assessment procedures for this benefit and shall launch a publicity campaign to make it much more widely known. I hope that we will be able to achieve better coverage than we have so far.

The hon. Gentleman is right to say that, in essence, what we are concerned about here is an assessment of numbers and whether it is possible to devise a way of ring-fencing the 8,000 to 9,000 people of whom Mencap spoke. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made that commitment. I inherited my job from him, although I do not intend to inherit his present job. As a slightly amusing aside in view of our cricketing analogies earlier, I remember turning up to take over his private office, and he said, "You've got a first-class private office here, Nick. They always know the test score." The staff have other qualities too, as it turned out, but that one was rather pleasant. I acknowledge that that undertaking was given, and I am on record as giving an undertaking to do my best to find a way of defining those 8,000 to 9,000 people. I have had meetings with Mencap to try to do that, and officials have tried to find a formula. I am genuinely unhappy that it has not been possible so far to define such a test. The issue will not go away, but I cannot accept the amendment tonight.

7.30 pm

Mr. Wigley : So that we can be sure what we are disagreeing about-- we may even be able to agree what we agree about--is the Minister saying that he accepts that the basis of the two figures is different ; that there is a broader figure of 150,000 which may be appropriate to the lower level of mobility allowance and a smaller figure of

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perhaps 10,000 with greater needs, and that, if it were possible to ring-fence and define those 10,000, the Government would be much more amenable and willing to act on commitments that have already been given?

Mr. Scott : I have searched anxiously for a test that would deliver the sort of result which Mencap was forecasting. It was not a cosmetic exercise. I do not want to go through all the arguments in my letter, because it has been placed in the Library and hon. Members have had a chance to read and analyse it. Questions 13 and 14 in the OPCS survey ask :

"Do you often have outbursts of temper at other people with little cause? Do you get so upset that you injure yourself or hit other people?"

The figures in that group alone came to some 40,000, which is very much in excess of the group that Mencap is talking about. I cannot recommend that the House accept the amendment. I happily admit that the 150,000 lower rate qualifiers with a need for physical control arising from mental disability include many people who are mentally ill as well. But we are still nowhere near defining the 8, 000 or 9,000 mentally handicapped people about whom Mencap is concerned.

If hon. Members wish, I am happy to go into greater detail. I will look again at the figures and arguments in my letter to see whether they need fleshing out, and whether I can give further information to those who have contributed to the debate. However, I regret that I cannot be sufficiently encouraging today to say that I am in prospect of being able to devise a test that will enable us effectively to ring-fence that group.

I can be a bit more encouraging about amendment No. 12, although I cannot accept it. I was rather hoping that I might be able to table an amendment in order to achieve the effect intended, but I do not want to do so until I am sure that I have it right and that amending the Bill is the best way to achieve our common purpose--that a person who can go by himself to the local corner shop because he is familiar with the journey but needs help to go anywhere else should receive benefit. We all agree on that. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Caernarfon (Mr. Wigley) and others for pointing out by way of amendment that the Bill as it stands may not have achieved that purpose. We are studying the matter carefully. We want to devise an abstract test of what a claimant's mobility would be like when he was on unfamiliar terrain. That is not the easiest thing in the world, but we are determined to do it. I hope that, on the basis that we are determined to achieve that, it will not be necessary to press the amendment today. I hope that hon. Members will accept my undertaking that we will in due course table an amendment to bring about the desired result.

Mr. Allen : Will the Minister undertake to look again at my proposal regarding the publication of all data relating to the OPCS study? Will he also undertake to write to me after considering the proposal that there be an independent study should there be a failure to agree the numbers involved?

Mr. Scott : As I said, I shall see whether I can flesh out the arguments in my original letter. I am not sure that an independent study would necessarily be the right thing, but I am prepared to continue discussions with the disability

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organisations and have another crack at it, but I am not particularly confident about our ability to do so, because we have already tried hard.

The hon. Member for Derbyshire, North-East (Mr. Barnes) talked about safeguarding entitlement to the higher rate of mobility component for double leg amputees, which is dealt with in amendment No. 24. He acknowledged that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, in his uprating statement, announced that the regulations will be amended from April this year to put the entitlement of those people beyond doubt.

The hon. Gentleman asked why that should not be put on the face of the Bill rather than be done by regulation. There are two reasons. First, regulations would take effect in April, whereas the Bill will not receive Royal Assent until after that. Therefore, we can do things more quickly through regulations. Secondly, in general, as I have learnt to my cost in three and a half years, although we have considerably simplified the social security system, it is still enormously complex. If provisions are seen to have faults, it is easier to adjust them by secondary rather than primary legislation. I hope for those reasons, particularly because we can move more speedily on double leg amputees than would otherwise be the case, that hon. Members will feel that that is the right way to proceed.

Mr. Wigley : I am grateful to the Minister for his response, particularly for his acknowledgement of the case put forward in amendment No. 12 and that he is actively looking at ways forward, possibly by way of an amendment in another place or any other way which can be devised. I am sure that the right hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, South (Mr. Ashley) in whose name that amendment stands, and all of us in the all-party disablement group, are glad to hear that. We are also glad to hear his commitment in relation to other amendments.

The Minister seemed to accept the general thrust of the argument regarding the 10,000 severely mentally handicapped with acute behavioural problems, but at the end of his comments he dealt with the figures in a way that could be misleading. He referred to questions 13 and 14 in the survey :

"Do you often have outbursts of temper at other people with little cause? Do you get so upset that you injure yourself or hit other people?"

In his letter, he says that the figure for that group alone is about 40,000. He compared that figure with Mencap's figure of 10,000.

But those two groups are not comparable. The group defined by questions 13 and 14 is much broader. It may well come to 40,000, but if the Minister thinks about the matter, I think that he will concede that there is a smaller group, whether it be 8,000, 10,000 or 12,000, which can be defined in terms of the IQ test of 50--an accepted definition for severe mental handicap--and in terms of behavioural problems. Let us say that we do not argue as to a group of between 40,000 and 150,000 on the one hand, and a group of 10,000 on the other, and that we accept the Minister's comments, which provided a ray of hope. If we can ring-fence those 10,000 people, there may be a basis for action.

The Minister spoke of the commitment made by the right hon. Member for Huntingdon (Mr. Major) in the all-party group, and added that he himself had given a similar assurance. I believe that I was at one of the meetings at which the Minister did so. We can welcome the

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low disability allowance for people who otherwise would not receive anything, and I am certain that the 150,000 beneficiaries involved will be glad to receive it. However, there remains the problem of defining and ring-fencing the smaller number involved.

Mr. Scott : That smaller group must be stipulated in such a way that the definition can be applied by adjudication officers throughout the country. It may be that the hon. Gentleman and I could, with help, define the individuals concerned. However, it will be a more complicated exercise to devise terms that local offices can effectively implement.

Mr. Wigley : The Minister and I both know where the group starts, but we are not sure where it ends--and that could be the difficulty for local offices. The challenge before us is to draw up a workable definition that is as watertight as it can be, although there is usually some blurring around the edges. If that can be done, and if the Government can retain the will that they had in 1987 to devise a solution, that will provide a chink of light. On that basis, I am happy to withdraw the amendment, in the conviction that we shall return to it. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment. Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Mr. Michael Meacher (Oldham, West) : I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 6, leave out lines 32 to 46.

This amendment is central to the Bill, because it aims to extend entitlement to all components of the disability living allowance to those who become eligible after the age of 65. In other words, it will remove the age bar at the crucial threshold of 65.

Under the Bill, those who become disabled after 65 will be entitled to the existing attendance allowance, but will receive no help with the costs of mobility. Nor will they qualify for the lower £10 rate of the attendance component. The Bill as drafted will not only reinforce a number of existing anomalies, but introduce new ones. A person who becomes disabled, for example, at age 63 could be entitled to £26.25p mobility component, plus the £10 care component--which he or she would retain for life. However, a person who happened to suffer a road accident at age 66, and who had identical care and mobility needs, would receive nothing. How can the Government justify that inequality?

It was argued repeatedly by Ministers in Committee that the OPCS survey showed that almost 70 per cent. of disabled adults are over the age of 60, and that the severity of disability increases in line with age. Almost half those having the most severe disabilities are aged over 75, yet the Bill would exclude the very people who need help most. Those over 65 are already unfairly excluded from receiving mobility allowance, and the Bill will further discriminate against older people with disabilities by denying them the new lower rate of DLA.

7.45 pm

It is pure hypocrisy to introduce a disability Bill and then deliberately exclude the group within the population containing 70 per cent. of that legislation's potential beneficiaries. The Government claim that they cannot afford to include that additional category. The Under-Secretary of State said that it would cost £2 billion to

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extend mobility allowance to the over-65s, but there are good reasons for thinking that that figure is grossly exaggerated. I do not expect the hon. Lady to describe the precise method of calculation, although perhaps she will, but the figure of £2 billion seems to presume that well over half those aged 65 with moderate or severe disabilities would qualify. Considering how difficult it is to become eligible for benefit, that assumption is wildly excessive. The cost of removing the age bar, as the amendment suggests, would be far less than the Government pretend. I suppose that one must be realistic and not expect the Government to take the leap all in one, but the absence of any phasing- in provision is something that we strongly deplore.

The Government also like to argue that disablement is an integral part of the aging process, that older people with disabilities such as impairment of their sight or hearing are not really disabled because those conditions are just a part of growing old and therefore do not need to be addressed. I remind the House that the OPCS survey found that only 35 per cent.-- slightly more than one in three--of people over 60 were disabled. Therefore, the majority of pensioners are free from disability--and those conditions that afflict the remainder cannot be dismissed as the natural consequences of old age.

Also in Committee, the Under-Secretary of State argued that the average income and expenditure of disabled persons is not much different from those of the non-disabled, and the OPCS survey was called in evidence in that regard. The Government argued that there was little need to help disabled pensioners meet the costs of their condition. That is a fallacy. People cannot spend what they do not have, and older disabled people on low incomes struggling to meet normal living expenses may not have the money to buy

disability-related items. That is far and away the most likely explanation for the small difference in income between disabled and non-disabled pensioners.

Ministers resorted to yet more casuistry in Committee, when they asserted that pensioners had enjoyed large increases in average incomes, and that it is better to target the young disabled person, who has not had the chance to build up savings and a pension. Again, most disabled persons are to be found among older pensioners, who have also been excluded from the state earnings-related pension scheme and from the gradual build-up of occupational and personal pensions. That group is clearly in need of extra help, which has not been enjoyed by some pensioners over the past decade.

The majority of pensioners are on very low incomes. Any right hon. or hon. Member who tried to live on a pensioner's average income would rapidly discover the truth of that. Most pensioners rely on state benefits for at least three quarters of their income. It is impossible for older people to meet adequately the extra costs of disability on top of normal basic living expenses with such extremely low incomes. It is not true to say that disabled pensioners have higher incomes than younger disabled people, despite what the Minister said in Committee. The OPCS survey found the reverse. The income of a disabled single pensioner was 12 per cent. less than that of a younger disabled person. That is another reason why older disabled people need help.

The last argument that Ministers used in Committee was the most disreputable of all. They said that the over-65s will be no worse off than they are at present. But

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