§ 3.37 p.m.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, with the leave of the House, I will now 1479 repeat a Statement, made in another place by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Social Services, about mobility for the disabled. The Statement is as follows:
"The House will be aware that the mobility allowance for the disabled went up substantially last month, from £5 to £7 a week—an increase of 40 per cent.
"The Government are convinced that a cash benefit is generally the most appropriate way of helping severely disabled people with their mobility. First, cash provides flexibility: it allows disabled people to make their own decisions in ways that fit their individual needs. And, second, a cash allowance does not discriminate unfairly against those who are too severely disabled to drive. The mobility allowance is paid to drivers and non-drivers alike. It has already brought mobility help to about 60,000 people who would have received no assistance whatever under the old scheme.
"I am pleased to be able to inform the House today that, with effect from July 1978, the rate will be £10 per week and will thus have doubled in less than a year. I know that this major boost in help for the disabled will be warmly welcomed, not only on both sides of the House, but also by the 100,000 people expected to receive the allowance when fully phased in.
"The Government have also decided that the new and higher level of mobility allowance should, in future, be protected against inflation. There will, therefore, be an annual uprating starting in November 1979. The allowance will, of course, continue to be taxable, which ensures that it gives the most help to those in greatest need.
"No Government can be expected to meet all the mobility needs of the disabled. It is reasonable for the disabled, like other people, to contribute to the cost of their own mobility. Any help which can be given to assist disabled people to make the best use of their resources is clearly very much to be welcomed.
"The House will recall that with this in mind I and my honourable friend the Minister for the Disabled have been 1480 engaged in discussions with a number of organisations and invididuals over recent months. I am pleased to say that these discussions have now borne fruit.
"At our suggestion, a group of prominent people drawn from the professions, from finance and industry, from voluntary bodies and from the trade unions, and chaired by Lord Goodman, has now set up a voluntary organisation for the United Kingdom, working in collaboration with the Government, to ensure that disabled people, both drivers and passengers, who want to use their mobility allowance to obtain a vehicle will get maximum value for their money in doing so.
"This new charitable body, to be known as Motability, is announcing today its composition and aims, and a copy of Lord Goodman's statement is being placed in the Library of the House.
"Motability will be an independent organisation. Under a council, the organisation will have an executive committee headed by Mr. Jeffrey Sterling, who will be Motability's vice-chairman.
"The organisation will work in conjunction with the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation and the corresponding organisations in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. It will decide itself how to fulfil its aims, and what its priorities should be, with the advice of the disabled and their spokesmen.
"Motability will have a number of objectives. It will give guidance and advice to disabled people on vehicles and adaptations and will negotiate discounts and other special arrangements for disabled people.
"Motability also aims to enable disabled people to have the personal use of a car by means of a leasing scheme. Detailed discussions about such a scheme are well advanced. It is expected that the clearing banks will make substantial loan funds available, and that the scheme will get under way by next summer.
"In addition, Motability plans to raise funds. These could be used, for example, to assist in certain cases with the cost of adaptations or, exceptionally, the running costs of a vehicle.
1481 "While Motability has already opened an office, the organisation is not yet ready to receive detailed inquiries or applications for help, and disabled people should therefore await a further announcement.
"The large increases in mobility allowance last month and next July, together with the formation of the new Motability organisation, mark a major advance in the provision of mobility for the disabled, drivers and non-drivers alike. This is a field in which both the voluntary sector and the Government have a rôle. The Government will continue to fulfil their responsibility; and I am sure the House will wish to join me in welcoming the initiative of Lord Goodman and his colleagues and in wishing their venture well."
My Lords, that is the end of the Statement.
§ 3.43 p.m.
§ Lord SANDYSMy Lords, the House will be very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for giving your Lordships this excellent piece of news. Once again we are much indebted to the noble Lord. Lord Goodman, who, alas! is not in his place this afternoon, for the part which he has played. It is clear that the Government's decision in June 1976 to phase out the trike was a grievous error because it did not include the arrangements which have been announced this afternoon. We on these Benches warmly welcome the proposal which has been made, most especially because it forms a very happy association between the private sector and the Government. The increase in the mobility allowance to £10 from July of next year will be instrumental in making this scheme possible.
I should like to ask the Government three questions which will help further to elucidate the scheme. Is the noble Lord able to confirm that there will be 100 per cent. participation in this scheme by both drivers and non-drivers? That is to say, will a disabled person who is a non-driver and wishes to participate in the scheme but who has no means of mobility at present in the family be able now, through the involvement of the husband or wife, to participate? Secondly, the 1482 announcement of the withdrawal of the three-wheelers, the trikes, in June 1976 suggested that the Government intended to continue the maintenance scheme. I wonder whether the noble Lord can confirm that the Government will abide by that decision, taken for the time being, so that there will be no underlap in the arrangements made? Thirdly, will the Government confirm that their intention is that participation in the scheme will assume that those who wish to take part will have to assign their mobility allowance?
§ Lord BANKSMy Lords, I should like to join the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Wells-Pestell, for repeating the Statement which has been made in another place. We very much welcome the fact that from July 1978, the mobility allowance is to go up to £10 per week, although I am bound to say that it is rather a long time to wait for that to happen. It is true that the mobility allowance has recently gone up from £5 to £7 a week, but at that level it is widely held to be inadequate for its purpose. I am glad that there is to be an annual uprating, commencing in November 1979; it is something which we should like to see for all benefits.
We welcome the establishment of the new voluntary organisation, Motability, and fully support its aims. I take it that there is no existing voluntary agency which, suitably augmented, might have been asked to undertake this work. I am just a little concerned about a proliferation of organisations dealing with the disabled. However, we wish the new organisation every success and are most grateful to those people who have been prepared to serve as its officers and on its council.
With regard to the leasing scheme which it is proposed that Motability should promote, I should like to ask the noble Lord whether it is envisaged that payments will take all of the mobility allowance. Under the old tri-car scheme, vehicles were supplied, insured and maintained without charge to the applicant. All of the proposals which I have seen for a leasing arrangement take the whole of the mobility allowance, leaving nothing for maintenance, which would make such a scheme useless from the point of view of assisting the poorest. I hope that the 1483 noble Lord will be able to give us an assurance that this will not be the case under the new scheme.
§ 3.48 p.m.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Sandys, raised the question of the trike. I can only repeat what I said on a previous occasion, when I gave an assurance in your Lordships' House that we should be able to go on maintaining trikes until 1981. In fact, it now looks as though we shall be able to keep them going until about 1982 or 1983. Apart from that, I believe I said in July of this year that nobody who has a trike issued under the old scheme will be made immobile by the phasing out of trikes. The pledge that was given then still stands.
With regard to the mobility allowance, a matter which was raised by both noble Lords, I understand that a leasing scheme could be arranged, giving a car for about £10 a week. One realises that this will take the whole of the mobility allowance, and obviously it would not cover the running costs; but when I repeated the Statement I said that disabled people, in common with people who are not disabled, are expected—and I think it is reasonable—to make some contribution towards their own transport costs. I do not think I can take the matter further than to say that if there are any real financial difficulties this is a matter that we anticipate the Motability organisation will be able to do something about.
The noble Lord, Lord Sandys, asked whether the leasing scheme applies to both drivers and non-drivers. My understanding of the situation is that so far as non-drivers are concerned this is a criterion which the Motability organisation will be considering. With regard to the proliferation of voluntary organisations, this is always a fear on the part of many of us who know the voluntary social work field very well, but as the noble Lord will know only too well, in Scotland there is the Scottish Council for the Disabled, which is a co-ordinating body. There is a similar co-ordinating body in Wales, but I have to confess that I cannot say what the situation is, officially, in Northern Ireland, other than that when I was interested in Northern Ireland from the professional social work point of view they 1484 certainly had a very good co-ordinating committee which dealt with almost all aspects of social work and disability.
§ Lord BOYD-CARPENTERMy Lords, can the noble Lord say whether, as part of this review, consideration has been given to the definition of "disability" for the purpose of entitlement to this allowance? He will be aware that in the past this definition has been criticised for its undue rigidity, and now that the provision is to be basically financial and possibly, as the noble Lord has indicated, dealing with non-drivers, has consideration been given to that very difficult class of case where the disability is mental rather than physical?
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, I cannot answer the second part of that question, but with regard to the first part, as the noble Lord will probably know better than anybody in your Lordships' House, there were three distinct categories, 1, 2 and 3, and the acid test is the ability of a person to walk. In the old category 1 it was decided upon whether or not the person could walk a few yards; in category 2 it was whether the person could walk a longer distance. With category 3 we were in some difficulty because it was hard to draw an exact line. What has actually happened is that these have now been merged, and I think I am right in saying that the three categories have disappeared and the real yardstick is whether a person is able, on his or her own initiative, to walk a reasonable distance. Those who cannot—and, as I have said, that goes for quite a large number of people—are then entitled to the mobility allowance.
I will be quite frank in saying that we did have some difficulty with regard to category 3, and that has been done away with. I think I can say that the majority of those in category 3 have in fact qualified for the mobility allowance. I know of no one who has not so qualified. If the noble Lord—or anybody else for that matter—knows of anybody who was hitherto in category 3 and who is not getting the mobility allowance, I shall be glad to know about the case.
§ Lord MAYBRAY-KINGMy Lords, I intervene briefly as a vice-president in my own area of the Disabled Drivers' Association and of BLESMA—the British 1485 Limbless Ex-Servicemen's Association—with both of which I have been associated all my parliamentary life. I want sincerely to congratulate the Minister and his Minister in the other place and the Government on this crowning piece of work that they are beginning to put into operation for the disabled, and particularly because in this they are doing what we hope will happen in all social spheres—a linking together of State decisions in the work of voluntary bodies and the consultation that I understand has taken place between all the disabled voluntary bodies and the Government in coming to these conclusions. I want particularly to express my delight that the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, that eminent public servant, has played such an active part in the work on which I now congratulate the Government.
Lord JANNERMy Lords, I should like to add my congratulations to the Minister on the excellent piece of information we have received this afternoon, which I am sure will meet with the approval of the whole House. Those of us who have been interested for years in this particular problem I am sure will join with me in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Goodman, and the Government for the concern that they have had in this matter and for what they have done.
I should like to ask one or two questions relating to the organisation. Can my noble friend tell us what help the new organisation will be given by the Government themselves; how much capital the banks have provided, and how many people are likely to make use of the opportunity of these new cars?
§ 3.56 p.m.
§ Lord WELLS-PESTELLMy Lords, first, I should like to thank your Lordships for the way in which you have received this Statement. I said that there would be a copy of Lord Goodman's Statement in the Library, and I hope your Lordships will look at it because there are no fewer than eight Members of your Lordships' House on the Motability Committee. Your Lordships will see that it is a strong, influential, powerful committee drawn from various walks of life and it should be able to make a unique contribution.
I have been asked three questions by my noble friend Lord Janner; a grant for 1486 the administration costs of the Motability organisation is being provided under Section 64 of the Health Services and Public Health Act 1968. In addition, my Department is also seconding at least one officer to help Motability to get started. With regard to the capital which the banks are providing, I believe I am right in saying that the four major banks are putting up something like £25 million each, making a total of £100 million, and this should be adequate, certainly to meet whatever demands are likely to be made. I cannot say anything about the rates of interest because I just do not know and that must of necessity be a matter to be decided when the money is going to be used. With regard to the number of people who are likely to want to lease a car, it is difficult at this stage to give a figure, but if I am asked to guess I can only say that we in the Department think it may be something like 40,000 people.