ATTENDANCE ALLOWANCE (AMENDMENT) BELL (Hansard, 23 January 1974)

§ Mr. Greville Janner (Leicester, North-West)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the rules relating to attendance allowances and the procedure of the Attendance Allowance Board. I assure the House that I shall not trespass upon its time even for the customary maximum ten minutes, but the injustices which the Bill is designed to remove are grave and widespread and merit the compassionate consideration of the House.

The petition which I was privileged to introduce previously provided an outlet for the outraged indignation of vast numbers of people, but it provides no remedy and cannot do so. That is a matter for 1650 this House. Nevertheless, the unanimity of those who are concerned with the petition, and the compassionate concern of all in even one city—the city of Leicester, from the lord mayor to the head of the licensed victuallers to the head of the Salvation Army—should indicate to the Government the extent to which there is worry and indignation over this matter throughout the country. Indeed, 250,000 signatures is a great deal to be produced by an entirely volunteer team led by the Martins and staffed mainly by old-age pensioners, schoolchildren and a few kindly helpers.

The problem here is simple. It is that a well-intentioned Act of Parliament has gone wrong, that far too many people who are seriously disabled are not helped, because, through some quirk in the law or in its interpretation, it is held that they are not disabled enough. The Martin family happens to be particularly courageous and outspoken, with a little boy who, though he may have only one limb, has a very good head and is capable of withstanding the pressures of a campaign and enjoying it.

There are thousands of other families with children who are worse off, and since this campaign began we have received literally thousands of letters, many of them from people with mentally disabled children, with mongol children and, indeed, with adults whom they are looking after and whom somebody has said are not sufficiently disabled for the family to receive an attendance allowance.

When one asks why, one cannot get an answer because the Attendance Allowance Board which makes the decision sits in secret. There is no appeal against its decisions on points of fact. One cannot argue one's case before it, and yet the board has a decision to make which affects totally and seriously the lives of entire families.

When this matter came to my hands, I asked several hon. Members whether they would agree to sign the petition. I found almost total unanimity in the House, because nearly all of us have cases with which we are concerned in which injustices have been done.

The Bill is sponsored by hon. Members from both sides of the House who have this concern and want to do something 1651 about it. We are not saying that the members of the board are anything other than admirable, and in many cases distinguished and kindly people. But we are saying that they have no right to make these decisions in total privacy and without providing time to those who are charged with responsibility for these cases to appear before the board to hear the arguments. There are enough secret courts and tribunals. Let us open up this board so that we cease to have what amounts to a disablement Star Chamber, even one which is staffed by people so distinguished.

There are only two possible reasons why these matters could be wrong, why such injustice could be done. One is that the law is wrong, and the other is that it is administered without sufficient flexibility and compassion. Compassion and flexibility are important virtues. One can stretch a point in order to help. The trouble is that some do stretch points and some families get help while others do not. The whole system has gone wrong and needs attending to.

The solution does not lie in private benevolence. I gladly pay tribute to the Variety Club of Great Britain, which has helped the Martins. I gladly pay tribute to the Rowntree Trust, which is administering a Government fund which, by a marvellous stroke of good fortune, just two or three days before the petition was due to arrive in the House, produced a grant for Jimmy Martin towards his clothing.

The answer lies in the attendance allowance being available for those for whom it was intended, namely, families who are caring for disabled children and adults, and enabling these children and adults to live more or less normal lives at home, instead of being in hospitals or institutions and being cared for by the State at vast public expense. It is obviously a good Act, but it clearly needs amendment.

Unfortunately, there are limits on what any backbencher can do, however passionately he is involved and for however long. The limit is largely that we cannot introduce a Private Member's Bill which involves any kind of charge on the Exchequer. My Bill will not do so. It is a matter for the Government to do 1652 that. I hope that they will take note of the outrage of the public and take action accordingly. I shall shortly seek an interview with the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State for Social Services to see what he is prepared to do to meet the wishes of not only the vast bulk of people in this country but also those of the vast majority of hon. Members.

My Bill would, first, tidy up some of the anomalies. It would give definitions of what is night and what is day, for example. Only a few weeks ago we won a case for people on home dialysis, on kidney machines. They said that three nights was not enough for the allowance but that four nights would have been enough. What is a night? They go on the machine one day when it is light and come off it the next day when it is also light.

What about the "requirement" of attendance? Is it right, for example, that when a mother says, "I have a child with no legs and I escort him to a normal school and he is watched unobtrusively", the board should be able to reply that he does not "require" attendance allowance. That is what the board said in the Martin case.

The right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) drew my attention to a case in which the board gives people only a partial allowance, relying on a most peculiar quirk of the law. Is that right?

The first thing that my Private Member's Bill can do is to provide some useful tidying-up, and I hope that the Department will co-operate in this matter.

Second, the procedures of the board can be altered. Here we come to the terms of the petition, namely, that the board should be required to sit openly in appropriate cases and to hear representatives. I have asked the Government whether they will order it to do so. and the Government have replied that they cannot do that because the board regulates its own procedures. If it regulates them in that way, it must cease regulating them from now on in such a manner as to prevent justice manifestly being seen to be done. Even people who have been turned down are entitled to know that their cases have been properly considered and argued.

1653 I do not believe it possible for a board to consider a case on intricate points of law—never mind of fact—and on questions of danger, when a representative cannot cross-examine a doctor and arguments cannot be put before the board on points of law, which are so intricate that it may take the commissioner a whole day in order to consider them. The board was set up to do a job and it must be required to do it properly.

I pay tribute to the Martins, to all those who were concerned with the petition, to those who have helped, and, to my surprise, to the News of the World, which enabled the petition to gain such momentum, to the Leicester Mercury, and Radio Leicester. I pay tribute to all those who have helped with the petition. But they cannot achieve results without the help of this House.

This small Bill will go a modest way towards remedying an injustice. The time must go when a child who has only one limb is not sufficiently disabled for his parents to receive an allowance. Above all, those who fight against their disabilities and succeed must not be penalised as a result. A society which does that demands change. The Bill is a modest start. I trust that the House will be good enough to grant leave for it to be introduced.