House of Commons Hansard Debates for 20 Jul 1993

Ms Eagle : What about low wages?

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Mr. Michael Morris) : Order. The hon. Member for Wallasey (Ms Eagle) must either try to catch my eye to make a speech or remain quiet.

Mr. Lilley : Unemployment is falling, and as the economic recovery gains momentum we can expect it to fall further. In addition to the cyclical movement, however, there has been a longer-term trend in the length of time that people spend on unemployment benefit. Until the mid- 1980s we were paying unemployed people to spend longer and longer on benefit. Arrangements for paying benefit had been divorced from job search. Rules requiring people to look for and accept available work had been enforced with declining vigour. Between the early 1970s and the mid-1980s the number of people referred for refusing available work and then denied benefit had declined by about 50 per cent.

Starting with the restart programme in 1986, however, successful policies have been introduced to keep unemployed people in touch with the world of work. During the 1980s the Government also sought to lighten the obligations imposed on employers. It was felt that, rather than protecting jobs, such burdens discouraged employers from taking on extra staff. As a result of those changes, Britain has had markedly greater success in generating private sector jobs in the 1980s upswing than previously or on the continent, and we are the only European Community country in which unemployment has fallen in recent months.

I am astonished that the Labour party should want to put that success at risk by imposing the social chapter on the United Kingdom. It is even more astonishing--but not surprising--that the Liberals, who have one representative in the Chamber, should join them, given that the Liberal leader has roundly denounced the contents of the social chapter root and branch.

We have shown the value of easing burdens on employers, of freeing up the labour market and of making unemployment benefits conditional, while providing active help to people to return to work. In doing so, we were acting in the spirit of Beveridge, because he foresaw making receipt of benefit

"subject to the requirement of attendance at a work or training centre after a limited period of unemployment".

The second clear conclusion from the document that I have published is that the expected growth in spending to the end of the century will not be due to the growing number of pensioners. The hon. Member for Garscadden was correct about that. Indeed, there is not expected to be any increase in the number of pensioners this century. There will be an increase in the second and third decades of the next century, which will obviously influence our decision on equalising the state pension age. That was what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister referred to in Tokyo.

Claims that the Government are forecasting an increase in the number of pensions, and that consequently we shall target benefits to pensioners, are unfounded and are

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demonstrated to be so by the document that I published. I know that that will probably disappoint the Opposition and particularly the Liberal party, in their campaigning in Christchurch, but they cannot say that the document suggests that we shall focus adversely on pensioners in any way as a result of the review that I have initiated.

The Government have always attached the highest priority to improving the position of pensioners. Our policies have been outstandingly successful and we are determined to build on our achievements. First, we recently channelled to the least well-off pensioners an extra £1 billion over and above annual inflation increases since 1989. That included a £2 a week increase for single pensioners and £3 for a couple, above inflation, last October. This April, poorer pensioners gained a further £2.90 a week for a couple from abolition of any liability to the council tax.

Secondly, we have protected pensioners' savings by tackling inflation, which is now running at 1.2 per cent. a year, whereas we uprated benefits by three times that amount in April. Thirdly, we have kept interest rates above the level of inflation, so that pensioners get a real return on their savings--not a bogus income while their capital was being wiped out, as happened under the last Labour Government. Finally, we have encouraged individual provision for retirement, over and above that provided by the state. About 70 per cent. of new pensioners now have occupational pensions and nearly 80 per cent. have additional income from savings and investments. New figures published today show the cumulative success of those policies in improving incomes in pensioner households. Average incomes in 1990-91 were about 42 per cent. higher than in 1979, after allowing for inflation, and incomes after housing costs were worth more than half as much again as they were in 1979--about 54 per cent. more in real terms.

The analysis that I have published shows that the growth in social security provision between now and the end of the century will come primarily from three main sources : invalidity and related benefits, expenditure on lone parents and housing benefit. Opposition Members may not like those facts to be spelt out but a sensible debate must focus on the facts, and those sources are where the growth is coming from.

The number of people receiving invalidity benefit has grown from 600,000 in 1979 to 1.5 million now and will have trebled by 1995-96. Yet the nation's health has been improving during that period. I challenge the hon. Member for Garscadden to clarify his remarks and tell the House whether he believes that we should ignore or accept that--or will he and the Commission on Social Justice review the future of that benefit?

Mr. Dewar : I made it clear that we want to build hope and incentives into the lives of those trapped on invalidity benefit and that we do not want abuse of the system once we have decided what the eligibility principle should be. That includes single parents as well. Has the Minister recently re-read the evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee by Sir Michael Partridge, his permanent secretary, which made it clear that he believed that there

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was a strong link between the level of unemployment and the number of people on invalidity benefit? Is he now repudiating Sir Michael's opinions at that time?

Mr. Lilley : We have spelt out clearly the relationship between invalidity benefit and cyclical forces in the very document whose publication the hon. Member welcomed--obviously Sir Michael Partridge had his input into it--but he has not answered my question. We all want to improve and lighten the lives of those on invalidity benefit. but does he believe that the present tests are acceptable, or would he review them and consider reforming them?

People are not trapped on invalidity benefit ; they are meant to be on it because they are incapable of working. That is the basic criterion laid down by Parliament, and if the hon. Member does not agree with that--

Mr. Dewar : I certainly agree. I am genuinely open to correction, but my understanding is that the outstanding feature is not the number of people who have gone on to invalidity benefit but the length of time that they have remained on it. Of course I accept that invalidity benefit is for those people who are unfit to work and are genuinely ill, and no one would object to that. I object to rewriting the rulebook, not because of any wish to deal with genuine social and personal problems but simply because the Chief Secretary tells the Secretary of State for Social Security what he must do.

Mr. Lilley : The hon. Member continues to wriggle. The number of people on that benefit will have trebled from 600,000 to 1.8 million by 1995-96. I know of no other reason for examining whether it is being applied in quite the right way.

It is right to consider whether we can develop a more objective test of medical incapacity for work. I recognise that any objective measure is bound to be controversial. Wherever the threshold is set, it will be possible to highlight difficult cases that fall just short of it. However, it is implicit in any test, including the present one, with which Opposition Members seem to be satisfied, that some people will be found to be capable of work while others will be found to be incapable. It is surely better to have as objective a test as possible rather than to rely on an element of subjective assessment.

Mr. Rowe : Is not one of the problems with invalidity benefit that some people on it have convinced themselves that they are incapable of improvement ? They need to be given the opportunity to test themselves in some way without losing their eligibility for benefit. When challenged with work that they can manage, many people find themselves getting better physically and mentally.

Mr. Lilley : My hon. Friend has hit on what may be a genuine problem in some cases. We want to encourage disabled people who can return to work to do so. That is why we established disability working allowance. We are keen to see how that benefit develops as the economy recovers and work opportunities increase. It is reasonable for disabled people to receive extra help to enable them to compete effectively in the marketplace.

As I have said, it is right to develop, if we can, an objective medical test. I certainly do not blame doctors for the apparent inadequacy of the present system of invalidity benefit. The rules are complex and doctors often feel themselves placed in an invidious position. Since we began tightening the way in which the current rules are

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administered, 300 doctors have contacted us to express their support for changes. It was not the Government but the magazine Monitor , which goes to 35,000 general practitioners, which carried out a survey of doctors, two thirds of whom said that they had given claimants sick notes knowing them to be capable of work. Hon. Members may rest assured that any proposals that we develop will be brought before the House for consideration.

It was also right to raise the issue of lone parenthood. For too long it had been deemed politically incorrect even to discuss the facts, let alone to reaffirm the value to children of being brought up by two committed parents. The number of lone parents rose from 570,000 in 1971 to 1.3 million in 1991, and 1 million of them depend on benefit. Fewer than one in four of them receive a penny of regular maintenance from the absent parent.

Total benefit expenditure on lone parents and their childen has trebled since 1979 to £6.6 billion. The hon. Member for Garscadden and his hon. Friends have tried to close the shutters on debate by condemning anyone who mentions lone parents of advocating "Victorian morality and bully boy tactics".

Those are the words that the hon. Gentleman used when my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Wales and I raised the issue. That is nonsense.

We know perfectly well what a raw deal many lone mothers get. They are in that position through no desire of their own. They have perhaps been deserted by their husbands ; they have been subjected sometimes to violence ; and they are struggling to bring up their children without any support from the father. That is why we set up the Child Support Agency, which is dedicated to securing payment of maintenance from the absent parent. That objective has received widespread support from the general public, from lone mothers and from responsible absent parents. I remind the hon. Member for Garscadden that he has also supported it, although grudgingly.

Mr. Dewar : It seems that I cannot do anything right. I feel like one of the victims of society. The right hon. Gentleman knows that I have always defended, sometimes under some pressure, the principle that a parent ought to contribute to the maintenance of his or her child. I am listening with interest and with some sympathy to this latest, and perhaps uncharacteristic, passage from the right hon. Gentleman. Does he agree that it is important, for the family's benefit and especially for the benefit of children, that some sort of disregard of income support is considered for single parents?

Mr. Lilley : The hon. Gentleman has just demonstrated what I meant when I spoke about sanctimonious humbug. His assumption that no one else has any regard for the difficulties faced by people such as lone parents is offensive, and most people would find it hypocritical.

Mr. Dewar : What is the benefit to the family?

Mr. Lilley : The benefit is that maintenance payments are portable and help the mother to go back into work, which is what the hon. Gentleman said he wanted. It is right that in the first instance payment for supporting a child should be made by both parents. The taxpayer should step in only if the parents do not have the means to support their child. To suggest that such help should be additional is extremely perverse.

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Mr. Dewar : I should like to be quite clear on this important statement by the Secretary of State. He says that it is perverse to suggest that we should follow the example of Australia and some other countries in which there is some gain for the lone parent on benefit. At the moment, for 70 per cent. of those on income support, there is a straight pound-for- pound clawback. Is the Minister ruling out any change to that? If he is, he will increase the difficulties surrounding the system, which in principle is right. However, many of us have grave reservations about its practical impact.

Mr. Lilley : It is right that in the first instance the parent and not the taxpayer should pay. To suggest that both should offer support and that it should be cumulative will not go down well with those who have written to me in droves and who overwhelmingly support what we are doing. The hon. Gentleman always tries to criticise and is muted in his praise of the system because the Labour party conference voted overwhelmingly against the Child Support Agency. The Opposition would prefer mothers to be dependent on the state and the responsibility of fathers to be taken over by the state. The hon. Gentleman would do better to condemn his party rather than trying to use moral blackmail on those who raise the issue while we are trying to be constructive about it.

Mr. Barry Jones (Alyn and Deeside) : Will the Minister please give way?

Mr. Lilley : I will, but for the last time.

Mr. Jones : The right hon. Gentleman seemed to be glancingly critical when he spoke about the Secretary of State for Wales. Notwithstanding his response on that matter, does he accept that the Secretary of State for Wales caused a great deal of anger by his now famous speech about a housing estate in Cardiff? People of all parties in that part of Wales were greatly offended by the ill-informed and rather arrogant way in which his right hon. Friend sought to deal with the problem. Will the Secretary of State say specifically whether he intended to criticise his right hon. Friend?

Mr. Lilley : I intended quite the reverse. I associated my right hon. Friend and myself with our common attitude to the problem, which is to recognise that there are different categories of lone parents. As my right hon. Friend said in his speech, many such parents did not bring their circumstances on themselves and their situation often reflects discredit on their husbands or partners. It is to my right hon. Friend's credit that he helped to raise the issue. I suspect that the overwhelming response in his mailbag, as it certainly was in mine, was to welcome the fact that the issue has been raised and that it is no longer treated as taboo.

The growth in lone parenthood is not primarily the result of more generous social security benefits. The ratio of benefit relative to earnings has not risen markedly in recent decades. More significant factors are likely to be the availability of housing. The hon. Member for Brightside has called for positive housing policies that do not encourage the beliposition is perfectly clear.

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Mr. Lilley : No doubt the hon. Gentleman's remarks will be obfuscating.

Mr. Dewar : I find the personal remarks that the Secretary of State makes rather unfortunate ; however, I shall take them up on another occasion, because he has raised an important point.

There has to be housing for families who find themselves without a roof. I would strongly object to the removal from the priority list, under the homeless persons legislation, of a family with a child simply because it happened to be a single-parent family, rather than what we all consider desirable--a two-parent family. The housing situation has to deal with social realities. [ Hon. Members :-- "Wriggling."] I am not wriggling out of anything, I am answering a question.

I do not believe that, in saying that I am giving any positive encouragement or assuming that anyone would take it as encouragement to have children--although there appears to be a mythical band of people who look at our convoluted housing allocation systems of our country and say, "We must have a child to get another 20 points on the list." It is a destructive myth.

Mr. Lilley : I was correct in saying that the hon. Gentleman's clear statement of his position would be followed by obfuscation, which left it totally unclear.

The hon. Gentleman singularly failed to endorse the remarks of his hon. Friend the Member for Brightside that the present system encourages the belief that the only way to a home is to have a baby. If people do not respond to that encouragement, it is not clear why it is a matter of importance. The hon. Gentleman suggests that the present system has no influence on behaviour, and I suspect that he is dissociating himself from the comments of the hon. Member for Brightside--however, they will have to continue that debate among themselves.

It is also important to recognise that economic and social forces play a part, as do changes in divorce laws and changing attitudes in society towards the family, personal responsibilities, adoption and the claiming of benefits. Consequently, growth in lone parenthood is not likely to be checked primarily by changes in the benefits system. Changes in attitudes will be far more important and there is a distinct limit to what Government can do in achieving that. Governments can give money ; only parents can give love and commitment to their children.

Mr. Matthew Taylor (Truro) : The Minister is making an important point and there is no real disagreement with the concern that he expresses, but he has to make an important decision on how it is tackled. He stressed his concern that people feel they are likely to get social housing provision only if they have a child. That is inevitable so long as the system can provide only for those with children ; it wants to put a roof over the heads of children who are protected by the system. Either that protection has to be taken away or social housing provision has to be extended to provide for people without children. Which option is the Minister suggesting we should take?

Mr. Lilley : There is not necessarily always a choice. Local authorities are constrained by the law and it is only right that the review should take into account suggestions,

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such as that from the hon. Gentleman, that the law be reviewed. If he has any specific proposals, we will be happy to consider them during the review.

The third main area of growth is housing benefit.

Mr. Thurnham : I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way. I wonder whether he had time to see an article in The Times in the form of a memorandum to him asking him to visit Wisconsin to see the developments in social security systems there. It was suggested that grandparents contributed to the upkeep of children of single parents where the father and mother were not able to pay for it themselves. Would he consider the Child Support Agency looking to the four grandparents to contribute if the absent parent was unable to contribute?

Mr. Lilley : I did not see the article, although any invitation to visit Wisconsin in the coming recess will be looked at favourably. I shall rush back and read it with interest.

Mr. Graham : Will the Minister give way on that point?

Mr. Lilley : No, I have given way to the hon. Gentleman already. The third main area of growth is housing benefit. This is partly the result of growing numbers claiming and partly the result of the switch from subsidising bricks and mortar to subsidising people. There is little doubt also that it has been particularly prone to fraud. Until recently, housing authorities had little incentive to discover fraud. Indeed, they faced a disincentive. Councils were reimbursed by central Government for 100 per cent. of the value of housing benefit properly paid out, but if the benefit was found to have been wrongly disbursed, the council was reimbursed only a fraction. Consequently, they had no incentive to discover abuses. Since April we have altered all that. Councils are now fully reimbursed for housing benefit paid out before uncovering a fraud ; moreover, they are allowed to keep a share of the savings which result from identifying and stopping a fraud.

Last year, I set a target of £500 million for fraud identified and stopped by the Benefits Agency. I am happy to say that that target has been surpassed. This year, I have set a target for the Benefits Agency and local housing authorities combined to identify and save nearly £1 billion of fraud. I believe that that can be achieved. It is vital to do so, since every pound stolen from the social security system is a pound less for those in real need.

At the end of the day, the best adjunct to any social security system is a vibrant, free-enterprise economy creating jobs, wealth and opportunities for people to save.

Since we left the exchange rate mechanism, we have been better placed than any other European Community country to grow again. We have the lowest interest rates in the European Community, the lowest inflation rate for a generation and a competitive exchange rate. As a result, the European Commission forecasts that the United Kingdom will be the fastest growing economy in the Community over the next two years.

The Opposition parties refuse to recognise that growth will be undermined if we fail to tackle the deficit and if social security is allowed to outstrip the nation's ability to pay.

As the hon. Member for Dagenham has admitted, the Labour party has

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"nothing to say across the whole range of macro-economic policy, on exchange rates, interest rates, fiscal policy, demand management and public spending."

That must a fortiori include social security spending.

Mr. Dewar : Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Lilley : No.

In conclusion, it is time for the Opposition to acknowledge that informed debate must now take the place of their party political point scoring. There is an urgent need

"for a public debate on the left about which objectives a welfare state should pursue. That is a task that the left has conspicuously failed to address."

Those were not my words ; they were the words of the hon. Member for Birkenhead and, I suspect, show greater wisdom than the reactions from the Opposition Front Bench today. Even they should now recognise that reforms of our welfare state are essential, above all in the interests of those who most depend upon it.

All parties have a responsibility to help to ensure that our social security system in future is fair, secure and sustainable. All will bring forward ideas based on their own priorities. The Government's priorities are to guarantee the position of the most vulnerable, to reduce dependency, to encourage self-reliance, to boost savings and to give people greater control over their own resources. We welcome new thoughts and new ideas and we welcome constructive debate. One day, I hope, we will also welcome those on the Labour Front Bench to participation in it.

5.17 pm

Mr. Alfred Morris (Manchester, Wythenshawe) : Seasoned observers of our proceedings will note that this debate takes place in the tiny allocation of parliamentary time the Opposition are allowed and that it would not be taking place at all but for the successful advocacy of my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Garscadden (Mr. Dewar) and for Redcar (Ms Mowlam).

The Secretary of State may pretend to welcome the debate. Indeed he has described himself today as "delighted", but it is to my two hon. Friends and my right hon. and learned Friend the Leader of the Opposition that we owe this timely opportunity to debate the Government's social policies and the now rampant and still increasing public concern about them.

The right hon. Member may also want to pretend that his speech was a worthy reply to the powerful case for the motion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden in opening the debate, but he can realistically so pretend only to himself.

The Secretary of State persists in saying that we must not criticise the Government's review of public expenditure because Labour has set up the Commission on Social Justice. That is nonsense. Labour's commission is about modernising, not dismantling the welfare state. Our purpose is to perfect and put forward policies for the 21st century, not to return to those of the 19th century. The Government's review is happening in secret ; the work of our Commission on Social Justice is happening in public.

At last year's election, the British people were systematically deceived by Ministers about their intentions, which is why there is such widespread bitterness

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against the Government now. When the Prime Minister was asked, 10 days before the election, whether there would be spending cuts if he won, he said :

"I see no reason to do that at all If we were going to cut public expenditure, we would have done it before and I don't believe it is economically right. I have said that in the past and there is no need to do it whatsoever. So you can rule out any expectation of that." Only after the election did Ministers find that there were what they now call "deep structural problems" with Government spending. Suddenly there were too many old people, too many disabled people, too many single mothers, too many homeless people of whose existence the Government were previously unaware. The truth is that social security expenditure has ballooned, not because of deep structural problems with Government spending, but because their economic policies so disastrously failed.

In May 1979, when the Conservative party took office, just over 1 million people were unemployed. Now there are 2.9 million, and every unemployed person costs each of those still in work £9,000 a year. In 1979, 4.4 million people were dependent on supplementary benefit, or what is now called income support. Today, as my hon. Friend the Member for Garscadden said, the figure is an estimated 10.3 million. Other increases in the social security budget are due to expenditure being transferred to that budget. For example, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Raynsford) knows so well, and as the Minister has acknowledged, housing subsidy cuts mean higher rents, higher housing benefit payments and a switch in expenditure from the Department of the Environment to the Department of Social Security. Another example is that changing from child tax allowance to child benefit means not only more tax revenue for the Exchequer, but an increase in the social security budget. Thus, Ministers themselves are responsible for the ballooning of that budget.

I turn now to issues of particular concern to long-term sick, severely disabled and other vulnerable people. First, there is the recent decision of the Independent Living (1993) Fund no longer to help people with terminal illnesses. Today's debate is the first opportunity that this House has had to debate that deeply shocking decision. Ministers knew of the independent living fund decision and that it was due to inadequate funding by the Government, but made no oral comment to the House. When challenged about the decision, the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People referred in a written response to the need to target the fund's resources "on the most severely disabled people in order to allow them to live as full a life as possible in the community, rather than on terminally ill people".--[ Official Report, 17 June 1993 ; Vol. 226, c. 720. ]

Pauline Thompson, director of the Disablement Income Group--DIG--than whom, as the Minister knows, no one is more qualified to comment on the cold inhumanity of the independent living fund decision, condemns it as "obscene". She states :

"It is difficult to imagine a more severely disabling situation than that of someone who needs intensive personal care and who is also dying. Yet by distinguishing between disability and terminal illness it is now being suggested that they are mutually exclusive." Like everyone else who has seen the Minister's comment, Pauline Thompson is amazed by his suggestion that a person can be severely disabled or terminally ill, but not both.

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Nick Partridge, chief executive of the Terrence Higgins Trust, whose work assists a great many people who are terminally ill, speaks of his deep concern that those

"in the most pressing need of help from the fund are to be excluded in order to save money."

He adds :

"This will remove choice, create hardship, fear and insecurity for the most vulnerable group of people--those who are severely disabled and terminally ill."

The Secretary of State was urged urgently to intervene to protect the interests of terminally ill people, but he has not done so. I challenge him now to defend in the House a policy condemned everywhere as heartless, for which ultimately he and no one else is responsible. The reason for disqualifying the terminally ill from help is that the independent living fund has insufficient money to go on helping them ; but it is the Minister who determines its budget and I ask him now to explain what possible justification there can be for targeting the terminally ill for that unkindest cut of all. The second issue that I want to raise is the Government's clear determination to cut spending on invalidity benefit, a subject on which the Secretary of State has said a great deal today. Anyone who has read the right hon. Gentleman's letter about that to the Prime Minister, sent to the press "by mistake" on 10 June, will be in no doubt that, for many recipients of invalidity benefit, the autumn this year will be a season of cuts and ministerial ruthlessness. It is claimed that huge numbers of recipients are "swinging the lead", but those who make that claim should study a recent analysis by Richard Berthoud of the Policy Studies Unit. He reports : "The increase has not been caused by excessive ease of entry into the system, but by difficulty of exit. What is perceived as a problem for the Government (increased costs) may actually be a problem for the claimants (inability to find work)."

As the Disability Benefits Consortium points out, a humane and effective way of decreasing expenditure on invalidity benefit is to improve the employment opportunities of disabled people. As of now, they are stuck at the back of the longest queue in Britain--the queue for jobs. Only 31 per cent. of disabled people are in employment. There is blatant discrimination against them by many employers, and the Government's own record as an employer of disabled people is heavily and justifiably criticised.

Far from giving disabled people more help to achieve the independence and dignity of becoming taxpayers, the Secretary of State for Employment has now announced changes to the special employment schemes for disabled people that will impose, for the first time, an obligation on employers to pay 50 per cent. of the cost of any special equipment that a disabled employee needs to do her or his job.

People with disabilities point out that this will reduce their employment prospects even further and make them even more dependent on invalidity benefit ; yet the Government are hell-bent on reducing the availability of the benefit and subjecting it to tax. That would be an increase in taxation, of course, not a cut in public spending, and if increases in direct taxation are to be one of the means of reducing the Government's huge budget

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deficit, what possible justification can there be for starting with people who are chronically sick and disabled? Whatever happened to social fairness?

Ministers say that they are determined not to "burden" top taxpayers with high income tax, yet they have no objection to taxing invalidity benefit ; nor do they hesitate to make Britain's pensioners pay value added tax on domestic fuel. All of us can see the hardship that that will inflict on pensioners. Forcing elderly people to skimp on heating can be dangerous as well as cruel, and no one can doubt that this is what the new policy will mean. Fewer people have yet to see that the new tax is also a threat to the health and even to the survival of many babies. At a recent meeting in Manchester, Ruth Ashton of the Royal College of Midwives made it clear that new babies in the first few months of life could be put at mortal risk by the new policy. She told the meeting that the babies of parents struggling to pay heating bills will be exposed to a fatal condition--neonatal hypothermia--if their homes are inadequately heated.

The midwives that Ruth Ashton addressed are planning a national campaign to inform the British people of that threat to the lives of the children of poor families. I ask the Secretary of State to say how he will respond to that campaign and if he will meet the Disability Benefits Consortium to discuss its anxiety and concern about the right hon. Gentleman's intended cuts in invalidity benefit as they will affect disabled people.

Finally, I refer to mounting criticisms of the Government's much-heralded "new" policy for community care and, in particular, the recent findings of the Alzheimer's Disease Society, of which I am a vice-president. On 5 July, the society published a report, "Deprivation and Dementia", based on a wide -ranging survey of carers. It revealed that 41 per cent. of carers have to draw on their private savings and assets, take out loans or sell property to meet the cost of caring. It revealed also that 42 per cent. of carers need more professional help or respite care.

"Deprivation and Dementia" bears deeply disturbing testimony to the hardship inflicted on carers of people with dementia by a community care policy that is now shown to be failing carers and those for whom they care alike. For tens of thousands of carers, the reward for caring is penury as their savings disappear, their property is sold, and they have to go into often heavy, long-term debt. The report shouts the need for less ministerial sloganising about community care and for more adequate practical and financial support for Britain's carers.

There is no public saving in denying carers the help that they need, and to refuse them the right help at the right time is self-defeating. If carers can no longer cope, those whom they look after have to go into institutional care at far greater cost to the taxpayer. Not infrequently, the carer also must go into care. But to date, the Government have offered no meaningful response to the Alzheimer's Disease Society's report.

In fact, the plight of carers is more serious now than before the survey on which the report was based. I give just one example. The Independent Living (1993) Fund, as well as excluding from help people who are terminally ill, has perversely decided that everyone over the age of 65 will be ineligible for help. That, too, is a shocking decision, and one on which the Secretary of State should comment before this debate concludes.

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Each of the specific issues that I have raised concerns demonstrable social unfairness by a Government who have lost not only the confidence of the electorate but all credibility. They demean not only themselves but this House by persisting with policies that cause anguish and anger among more and more of those who elected them to power only 15 months ago.

5.34 pm

Mr. Peter Thurnham (Bolton, North-East) : I was surprised that the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris) began by criticising the Government's arrangements for the independent living fund, which my right hon. Friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People introduced in June 1988. It was criticised then by Opposition Members and others for being unworkable, privatising provision for the disabled, and moving away from legal entitlement to discretionary help. In fact, the scheme has been outstandingly successful, helping 22,000 people at a cost of £97 million. To criticise the Government's arrangements for ensuring continuity comes poorly from the Opposition after they criticised the fund's establishment. It would be kinder if the right hon. Gentleman gave more credit to the Government for that scheme.

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