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Mr. Tom Clarke: All hon. Members will agree that when one sits through the Committee stage of an important Bill--which is then followed by Report and Third Reading--one gets to know one's colleagues fairly well. We have great respect for the Minister, and I hope that he does not feel that that respect has been diminished, as was suggested earlier. He has a lot of qualities, but being a historian is not one of them.
The Minister began his speech by saying that the Labour party was opposed to direct payments. I challenged him then, and I challenge him again, to produce a shred of evidence that suggests that the Labour party is opposed to direct payments. I shall give him some help in his research. When he wipes his brow after the debate tonight and heads to his Department, he should ask for Hansard of 17 November 1995. At column 300, he will see what I said when winding up the debate on health, disability and care in the community:
"The Secretary of State spoke about my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition producing a mouse of a speech, which was particularly odd when considered in the light of the central issue of direct payments, which is, I understand, the flagship of the Government's care in the community policy. What we heard from
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- the Secretary of State was a mere squeak--it was quite inadequate."--[Official Report, 17 November 1995; Vol. 267,c. 300.]
We have come to the heart of the Bill. The Government's attempt to limit eligibility has been the great flaw in their approach to direct payments--that was my view during the debate on the Queen's Speech, and it is my view today. It is a pity that that is the case, given the broad, all-party support for the principle of the Bill in the House and the enthusiastic support of disabled people and local councils. If Ministers had followed through the logic of local authority discretion and left the councils to decide who should receive direct payments instead of seeking to decide the matter by regulation, the Bill would have completed its passage through Parliament by now.
Ministers have had many opportunities to reconsider. The House of Lords considered amendments, supported by the Labour party and others, to remove the regulation-making powers which, at that stage, were extended so that they would exclude people with learning disabilities and those aged over 65--those about which we are concerned in this debate.
The Labour party tried again in Committee, and I acknowledge that the Minister came a little way in our direction. He abandoned his intention to exclude those with learning disabilities--there was nothing about phasing and nothing about waiting for a year. He thought that those with mental health problems and those with a disability arising from HIV-AIDS would be eligible, but he refused to consider providing direct payments to any disabled person over the age of 65 who was willing and able to secure his own care. The Minister refused to consider that again today.
That was not good enough for the Committee, and it should not be good enough for the House today. The Committee carried two Labour amendments, which had the effect of removing the Government's power to exclude whole categories of disabled people throughout the United Kingdom. The amendments attracted much approval, as the Minister knows. Even before the second of those defeats--on provision for Scotland, on 18 April--we had learnt just how reluctant Ministers were to concede the principle that direct payments should be widely available to disabled people receiving community care.
Hon. Members expected the Standing Committee to conclude its business on 2 April, when the Scottish provisions should have been dealt with. Instead, we were
treated to the rare and fascinating sight of Ministers filibustering on their own legislation--no doubt in the hope that they might reassemble a majority when the Committee resumed after the Easter recess. If that was their intention, they failed. When the Committee resumed, it duly passed Labour's amendment on Scotland in the same terms as the earlier decision for England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Since then, we have witnessed further indecision and delay, which was confirmed by the Minister's response this afternoon. Ministers were quite uncertain as to when the Bill should be considered in this place. Hon. Members will know that Ministers seemed ready to reach this stage some weeks ago, but then delayed Report until after the Whitsun recess. We established the reasons for that this afternoon. It is a great shame, to say the least, that the date that the Government finally chose is one when not all hon. Members are free to attend and to vote on the amendment.
What is happening today in Northern Ireland is of great importance to everyone there and to every hon. Member, wherever his constituency may be. I know that a number of hon. Members from Northern Ireland are bitterly disappointed about the timing of today's debate--the Government have made their participation difficult, if not impossible. The organisations of disabled people in Northern Ireland share the unhappiness of Northern Ireland Members. What is true in Northern Ireland is true also in England, Scotland and Wales. Disabled people are extremely disappointed at the Government's failure to accept the wishes of the majority of hon. Members not once, but twice, in Committee.
Other concessions have been made: in response to Labour pressure, Ministers in the Lords promised to review the workings of direct payments after three years. In Committee, the Minister confirmed that, at the end of the first year after the legislation had been enacted and implemented, he intended to review the experience and to return to the House with conclusions. He said almost exactly the same today; there has not been a fraction of progress.
The promise to review direct payment schemes after 12 months was originally made before the Government's first defeat in Committee. The offer today is nothing new and does nothing to reduce the concerns of elderly people who would and do qualify for indirect payments that are currently provided to those who are assessed as being in need, who agree to accept them.
This is not a response to the Government's defeat. Since the concessions on people with learning disabilities and the promise of a 12-month review were rejected by the Committee as inadequate, the Government have not come up with anything else. What mystifies many Opposition Members, many outside the House and, I suspect, many Conservative Members, is why Ministers are prepared to do no more than promise to think about things after the general election. If there was ever a promise from a dying Government, this is it. How much better it would have been if Ministers had been prepared to concede the point and to leave it to local authorities to make payments to any disabled people whom they assessed as willing and able to manage their own care.
Mr. Rowe:
Has it occurred to the hon. Gentleman that the reason for the promise is that my hon. Friend the Minister expects to return as Secretary of State after the election?
Mr. Clarke:
If the hon. Gentleman, of all people, believes that, he will be as disappointed as I suspect the six and a half million disabled people, particularly pensioners over the age of 65, are today.
The promise of a review after 12 months would carry a little more weight than, for example, the three years that was spoken of in another place, if it was accompanied by a guarantee that the bar on older disabled people would be removed at that time, but there is no need for a 12-month delay. In his consultations, the Minister must have been convinced of that point; all the evidence that we have received suggests that.
I do not often like to refer to my previous speeches as I assume that I have made the point sufficiently in the Chamber, but I should remind the Minister of a speech that I made in 1995, when I said:
"I hope that we are not about to consider a measure that will introduce a new form of discrimination between one group of disabled people and another."--[Official Report, 17 November 1995; Vol. 267, c. 304.]
That is precisely what the Minister is commending to us today.
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