REGULATIONS (Hansard, 7 February 1991)

§ Mr. Scott
I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.
I do not want to make a lengthy speech. We did well in Committee, with the right hon. Member for Manchester, Wythenshawe (Mr. Morris), in examining the Bill in considerable detail, and today we have had a good and constructive Report stage.
The Bill will introduce two important new benefits. The disability living allowance will combine and extend the impact of attendance and mobility allowances in an effective way. The disability working allowance will, for the first time, offer a real incentive for disabled people who wish to work and can work to move, as it were, step by step into employment and contribute effectively to the enterprise that they support.
I said on Second Reading that the pattern of benefits that we have introduced is but part of what all hon. Members concerned about the subject want—a series of measures that improve the lives of disabled people. Accessibility to employment is an immensely important part of that, but so too is accessibility to leisure facilities and to the other matters that the rest of us are able, for the time being at least, to take for granted.
Technology will make it increasingly possible for disabled people to acquire independence and to earn their own living. I spend every Friday that I can away from Whitehall, visiting the people who work for disabled people and who try their best, through medical or technological progress, to help them to improve the quality of their life. The Bill is an important part of that overall package, and I commend it to the House.

§ Mr. Alfred Morris
I pay tribute to my colleagues on the Standing Committee who, over a period of many weeks, tried hard to improve the Bill in many important respects.
The Minister is aware that we regard the disability living allowance mainly as the bundling together of two existing allowances. As the right hon. Gentleman is fully aware, the outcome is strongly criticised by all the organisations of and for disabled people. He represents DLA and disability working allowance as the most generous offer since the miracle of the loaves and fishes. That is not how potential recipients of the new benefits see the provision he is making.
We have sought to give voice to the views of those who spend their lives on case work with disabled people of all kinds. I have the impression that the Minister tried to convince his Treasury colleagues that improvements to the Bill should be made. That has not happened and in Committee, as again today, he was unable to respond as positively as we wished even to some of the most compelling claims on behalf of people who are disabled physically, mentally and sensorily.
I hope very much that, in another place, it will be possible to improve the Bill in the ways we seek. We shall certainly, at any further opportunity, come back to the case that we have argued for much better provision for Britain's 6.5 million disabled people, their families and carers.
All of us know that there is a vast agenda of unmet need. Over the past 20 years, there has been much progress. This is still, however, a very neglected area of social policy. We must all hope that, before the Bill 494 receives Royal Assent, it will go much further towards what disabled people and their organisations have been asking for. I believe their claims are reasonable. We shall go on doing our best to reflect them here in the House of Commons.

§ Mr. Ashley
The Bill is a tragically missed opportunity to make a great advance for disabled people. I welcome the few crumbs, but I believe that it is a missed opportunity for a thousand reasons, including three main reasons.
First, the Bill fails to deal with the problem of the cost of disablement. We have explained that ad infinitum. The costs of disability are fundamental to the enjoyment of life. People who cannot have the costs met by the Government are living in a style that is, to say the least, unfortunate —or, to put it more realistically, degrading. I am sorry that the Government have missed this opportunity.
Secondly, a group of disabled people are being shunted in the wrong direction—into care of the local authority. We used to use the phrase that the problem was "being swept under the carpet". In this case, disabled people are being dropped on to the local authority. I regret that, because local authorities simply cannot deal with the problems of disabled people.
Thirdly, the Bill fails inasmuch as, in all the problems of disabled people that have been addressed by the Government, no coherent structure has been put forward by the various Ministers who have spoken. That is a failure of neglect. The Government are neglecting to cope with the fundamental problems of physically and mentally disabled people. I regret to say that, but those are my real feelings about the Bill.

§ Mrs. Heal
For people who are unemployed today, finding work in the present climate can be difficult. They might be teenagers with some GCSEs or with some practical ability, but they will still meet problems in seeking work. They might be young mothers who are trying either to return to work or to obtain work to supplement the family income and so help with the ever-increasing costs of maintaining a home and a family. They might be single and trying to live independently, either by buying or renting their own home. They might be older people who have been employed and then made redundant.
I will add one further description to those categories of people which will make things even more difficult for them. They may also be coping with a disability. Their chances of finding work are then made even more difficult. They and the many organisations that represent people with disabilities looked forward to the Government's proposals.
Last year, the Minister spoke of new horizons for people with disabilities. Sadly, many who had hoped to see some opportunity of work or of increasing their income will be disappointed. The introduction of the disability living allowance and of the disability working allowance fails to meet their needs. The horizon is somewhat cloudy.
If the Government mean what they say about providing horizons, about providing new opportunities and about enabling people to progress through to employment and away from dependency, they would have accepted the amendments that the Opposition tabled.