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6.30 pm
Ms Liz Lynne (Rochdale): These regulations came into force on 1 August 1996--four months ago. We were denied the chance then to debate them or to vote on them, although they are significant changes for a vast number of disabled people. Tonight we have the opportunity to vote against them, and I hope that hon. Members on both sides the House will consider doing so. The manner in which the regulations were introduced was disgraceful, and it was an absolute insult to disabled people.
It has been suggested that the regulations will affect those only with limited mobility, and that some people will be saving their allowances or spending them on other things. I can assure the House that organisations of and for disabled people say categorically that that is not the case. Even the Department of Social Security no longer feels that hospitals accumulating funds is a serious problem. In response to a parliamentary question from me, the Minister said:
Over the months, the Minister has argued that NHS trusts and general practitioner fundholders are providing necessary recuperation and rehabilitation, so the need should not be met by the DSS. If the regulations are expected to result in savings of £40 million--which is the figure that I heard at one time from the Government, although, today, the Minister said that it is not a matter of cost cutting--where will those savings come from,
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If the Government say that the mobility component is being misused, where is the evidence of it? I have seen no evidence for that claim, and disabled people's organisations have seen none.
The other flaw in the regulations is that the mobility component was a right, whereas NHS services are not. Perhaps trusts will spend the money that they receive on other things. Another problem that I can foresee concerns mental health patients. If they will no longer receive the component after four weeks, will not they be encouraged to leave hospital before the end of that period, to ensure that they continue to receive it? Will that not be dangerous for some of those patients?
Mr. Robert G. Hughes (Harrow, West):
This debate on the disability living allowance is possible only because of its success. It would be wrong for the debate to end without paying an enormous tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea (Sir N. Scott), who introduced it. He has, regrettably, been mentioned in the news this week, but his record shows that he has been the most successful Minister for disabled people ever.
My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelsea persuaded the Treasury and his Government colleagues to devote enormous amounts of extra taxpayers' money to fund the allowance. I was his parliamentary private secretary during that time, and I think that I can accurately express his views by saying that, if one is to be successful--not only on that occasion, but on others--in persuading the Treasury and Government colleagues to spend extra money, it is essential to ensure that the money is carefully targeted. This measure, which my hon. Friend the Minister is struggling to introduce, is a difficult one, but it is designed simply to ensure that we target that money. Any Government who really care about people with disabilities and who are really determined to make concrete and measured progress will always take such action.
One difference between the Government and Labour Members--although I have no doubt that they care about disabled people as much as I do--is on their claim that they can be so proud of their record in government. It took them four years to phase in a mobility allowance scheme, from which only 5,000 people gained benefit. I do not think that they can hold up their heads today and say that the measure is callous. It is necessary, and it has been thought through. Obviously it is a difficult measure, and no one would like to take it if it were not essential for good government.
Mr. John Heppell (Nottingham, East):
I will be brief, since every other hon. Member has tried to be.
The Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Gedling (Mr. Mitchell), should hang his head in shame for supporting the regulations. Later in my speech, I will give him some examples of how people--probably from his constituency--are suffering as a result of changes to the regulations.
Effectively, the regulations represent a cost-cutting exercise, and everything that the Under-Secretary says in trying to defend them is just not logical. They are based on false premises and supported by false information. The idea that people were spending the mobility component of their disability allowance on sweets and cigarettes is, quite honestly, insulting to disabled people, and as the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley) has said, to suggest that is disgraceful.
The idea that there is no need to enhance the mobility of people who go into hospital is an illusion. Section 73 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 allows benefits to be withdrawn where people cannot benefit from enhanced mobility, but the majority of people who are in hospital still need that mobility component. That was made quite clear at the beginning of the year.
As a member of the all-party disablement group, I received letters from the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation, Mencap, the National Association for Mental Health--MIND--the disablement information and advice line, the Royal National Institute for the Blind, the Disabled Drivers Association, the Association of Disabled Professionals, the Disability Alliance Educational and Research Association, the Spinal Injuries Association, Age Concern, Arthritis Care and just about every group that represents people with disabilities. They all said that the Government were working on a false premise. Not only did they object, but the Social Security Advisory Committee received almost 200 responses on the issue and told the Government that the proposals were based on false information and should not be implemented.
How is the change affecting people? The Government make it sound like some administrative change, but it actually means that 40,000 people have had their mobility component stopped or reduced. That is the Department's figure, not mine.
Mr. Andrew Mitchell
indicated dissent.
Mr. Heppell:
The Under-Secretary shakes his head. Let me tell him about somewhere much closer to home: Highbury hospital. As the Minister who has special responsibility for Nottingham, I am sure that he has visited it. There are 90 patients at that hospital, 76 per cent. of whom have had their benefits reduced due to the
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"Departmental Officials had discussions with a number of NHS trusts throughout Great Britain last summer. These suggest that this was a considerable problem in the past but is now rare."--[Official Report, 19 March 1996; Vol. 274, c. 182.]
Existing legislation could be used. Why are the Government not making use of it? The reason is that the Government are not enforcing the legislation as they thought that they would do. They are also ignoring the Social Security Advisory Committee, which stated in its report:
"Our primary recommendation is that these proposals should not proceed in their present form. We regard the care component of disability living allowance as serving a totally different purpose from the mobility component. Whereas care needs are taken care of in hospital and costs do not continue, mobility needs, in general, do continue and the cost of personal transport remains."
The mobility component is essential for disabled people in long-term NHS accommodation--which is funded by the NHS--for their physical and mental well-being. The component helps individuals, particularly in community homes, to retain their independence, and it affects thousands of disabled people. It was a non-means-tested benefit, and it could be claimed during periods of work or periods of care.
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