House of Commons Hansard Debates for 5 Dec 1996 (pt 16)

Mr. Robert G. Hughes: Perhaps the difference between the hon. Gentleman and me is that I do just that. The hon. Gentleman simply makes promises without suggesting where the money will come from. That is dishonest.

Mr. McLeish: If Conservative Members read Hansard, they will see that no promises have been made. I have given a commitment to oppose the regulations today. In a short time from now we shall be voting against them--and rightly so.

5.56 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security (Mr. Andrew Mitchell): I shall set out for the House the reasons why we have taken the steps that we are debating today. This is undoubtedly a sensitive and difficult area and it is clear that some hon. Members have concerns. There are serious issues involved, and I shall deal with them by examining the detailed reasoning behind the decision. I hope to persuade the House that our decision, although difficult, is right and fair.

I shall pick up two points from the opening remarks of the hon. Member for Fife, Central (Mr. McLeish). First, he referred to the Government's cavalier treatment of the House of Commons. I must take him to task on that point. As he knows, the regulations are subject to the negative procedure: they do not need the approval of the House unless someone prays against them, as occurred today. They are law until they are annulled. [Interruption.] I assure the hon. Member for Edinburgh, South (Mr. Griffiths) that the timing of the debate was agreed through the usual channels. He should know that we intended to discuss the regulations before the end of the Session, in July. However, following agreement through the usual channels, the debate was deferred until today. I make it very clear that there is no question of any cavalier treatment of the House.

Mr. Alan Howarth (Stratford-on-Avon): The Minister observes correctly that it was originally expected to debate and decide the measure in the House at the end of July. Will he therefore explain why on 15 June the Department circulated leaflets--presumably to 1 million claimants of the mobility component--informing them

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that there would be changes in the law which might affect their disability living allowance? Why do the Government take Parliament's assent for granted?

Mr. Mitchell: As the hon. Gentleman knows, that matter was raised by the hon. Member for Tottenham (Mr. Grant). At this remove I cannot remember precisely what the point was, but I assure him that the matter was dealt with at the time. We had no intention of playing fast and loose with the law. I have explained that there is no question of any cavalier treatment of the House because the decision was made through the usual channels--which include the Labour party.

Dr. Godman: Why was the Mental Welfare Commission for Scotland excluded from the consultation process in 1995?

Mr. Mitchell: When we raised that matter with the Department of Health, we also raised it with the two territorial Departments, and it was discussed prior to the announcement made in 1995. If the hon. Gentleman will allow me to make some progress, I shall come to the points that he made about Scotland.

The hon. Member for Fife, Central made an allegation about cavalier treatment of the Social Security Advisory Committee. I can assure him that there is no question of that having taken place. We gave the SSAC's recommendations serious consideration. We responded in detail in Cm 3233, which was laid at the same time as the regulations. I recommend that the hon. Gentleman looks at that paper, because it sets out in great detail our comments about the views of the SSAC. It also, as he mentioned, accepted the recommendation to include linking periods for people afforded protection. I assure him that there was no question of any cavalier treatment of the SSAC.

The hon. Gentleman's third allegation--that this was an attack on a very vulnerable group--does not bear scrutiny. I will, if I may, take the House through the Government's thinking on the proposal.

In 1992, the Government introduced disability living allowance, which replaced and extended the help formerly available through attendance and mobility allowances. We carried forward existing entitlements and introduced two new lower rates of benefit, one for care and one for mobility. I am sure that the House will recognise and praise the fine record that we have on helping sick and disabled people. The figures make that clear.

Spending on benefits for sick and disabled people has quadrupled in real terms since 1979 from £5 billion to £22 billion. They form the second largest component in the entire social security budget, and spending is budgeted to continue rising. Planned spending on disability living allowance alone in 1995-96 is at £3.7 billion. Nearly 3 million people now get help with care and mobility needs, compared with just 420,000 in 1979. That is a sixfold increase in the number of people we are able to help and a record of which any Government can be justly proud.

Mr. Nigel Griffiths (Edinburgh, South): Organisations which represent people with disabilities such as the Action Group in Edinburgh, the patients council of the Royal Edinburgh hospital, and Enable, are saying--

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as Hugh Stewart, the depute director says in his letter, of which the Minister has a copy--that very vulnerable people who have been helped while in hospital to be supported by parents if they are mentally handicapped or to support themselves if they are mentally ill, have been helped by the mobility allowance component, allowing them to get out of hospital and to lead normal lives in an environment which in itself will be artificial. Had the Minister considered that, listened to those groups and made an exception, he would have had the agreement of the whole House, but the despicable decision to try to squeeze the budget and penalise those people means that he is alone with a few of his hon. Friends in pushing this measure through the House.

Mr. Mitchell: It is a pity that the hon. Gentleman did not acknowledge what I was saying when he intervened. There has been a colossal increase in support for sick and disabled people. That was the point that I was making. I will deal with the other points that he made in a moment.

The figures for DLA are remarkable, and I should like to set them out for the House. At the time of the last general election, in 1992, we spent £2 billion on DLA. In 1993-94, that figure rose to £2.8 billion--an increase of just under £1 billion in that year alone. Last year, it increased again to £3.1 billion--up a further £350 million. This year the estimated outturn is £3.7 billion--a further rise of just over £550 million. Next year, planned spending is £4.4 billion--an increase of nearly £700 million. By 1998-99, DLA is expected to cost £5.5 billion. By any yardstick, the extra money that we are spending on DLA each year is immense.

No one should be in any doubt. This is not principally about saving money. We are prepared to spend money to assist disabled people where justified.

Expenditure is rising and on such a scale that it should be crystal clear to every hon. Member that without effective targeting we shall not as a country be able to continue affording DLA. My first point, therefore, is that this is about targeting DLA mobility and not about cutting disability benefits. But targeting effective support where it is most needed means taking a long, hard look at our priorities, across all benefits, and sometimes making difficult decisions. It is clearly unfair to exclude disability benefit from sensible scrutiny. We need to examine all aspects of current provision to be certain that decisions made about benefit entitlement and payability are still sustainable in the current financial climate.

As the House will appreciate, DLA is intended to help with the extra costs associated with disability. A re-examination of the arrangements by which payment of the DLA mobility component was unaffected by periods in hospital persuaded us that the extra costs associated with a disabling condition do change while a person is in national health service accommodation. I should like to say a little about our conclusions on that.

DLA forms an integral part of a disabled person's income. They are free to spend it as they choose. That seems to me to be a perfectly proper and reasonable state of affairs when someone is living in the community. We can all think of the extra costs that might be associated with limited mobility--for example, higher heating bills, higher laundry bills, paying someone else to do the

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shopping--but the same considerations do not apply while someone is in national health service accommodation. Patients in national health service accommodation have most of their needs met free of charge. Only a small proportion of patients receive DLA mobility component, but hospitals make no distinction between those who do and those who do not when identifying basic mobility needs and seeking to meet them.

As hon. Members know, it is a fundamental duty of the national health service that it meets the basic mobility needs of people in its care. In addition, I can tell the House that NHS trusts will take account of these changes and set their priorities accordingly.

I find it very hard to accept that mobility needs continue unchanged on admission to hospital, and it is certainly not clear what additional costs disabled patients have to bear. Admission to hospital already affects most social security benefits, and the DLA care component has always been withdrawn after four weeks in hospital. This change has brought payment of the DLA mobility component into line with that.

I wish to reassure the House that these changes do not affect a person's underlying entitlement to the DLA mobility component. When we are advised that a person has been discharged, DLA payments will automatically resume at the full rate of entitlement. The changes affect the payment arrangements of DLA that suspend benefit after four weeks in hospital, or after 12 weeks in the case of children receiving DLA. They reinstate the benefit once the person has been discharged and they provide special arrangements where a patient is temporarily discharged from hospital anticipating a return within 28 days, when payments will be calculated at the daily rate of a person's full entitlement for each full day out of hospital.

Mencap and others have criticised the proposals as confusing. I shall try to clear up that confusion. Simply put, those affected by the changes are people who, for benefit purposes, are treated as hospital in-patients. The key consideration is whether the national health service is responsible for maintaining the benefit recipient free of charge wherever they are accommodated. I make it clear to the House that that is nothing new. Exactly the same factors apply to other social security benefits.

In making the changes, however, we have sought to be sensitive to the needs of existing long-term hospital patients and people who choose to take part in the Motability scheme, by incorporating certain protections from the change. The protection acknowledges that existing long-term patients have reasonable expectations that benefit payments will continue, and that long-term patients have certain costs associated with restricted mobility, although basic needs are fully met by the national health service, but that they spend only a part of their benefit on those costs.