§ 8. Mr. Gareth WardellTo ask the Secretary of State for Wales what is his estimate of the number of people in Wales currently waiting for a disabled facilities grant; and how many have waited for more than two years.
§ Mr. RedwoodThe figures are not held centrally because it is a local authority-administered scheme.
§ Mr. WardellWill the Secretary of State collect those figures and, when he does so, will he accept that it is not appropriate for elderly people to be discharged from hospital only to find that they must wait two or sometimes three years for a shower or a stairlift to be installed in their property? Will he review his policy, under which he transferred the only mandatory housing grant from the supplementary credit allowance to the basic credit allowance system? The sooner he does so, the better community care will be.
§ Mr. RedwoodWhat an indictment of Labour local government in Wales. I give it more discretion and more money, yet the hon. Gentleman says that it does not meet its targets. The targets are very clear. Someone who applies for such a grant should receive it within six months of a proper application being submitted. I shall give the hon. Gentleman some idea of the amount of money that is involved: in 1992–93, £26 million was made available to local authorities, but they spent less than £10 million under this heading, which is the only statutory requirement in the £26 million block. That is their expression of priorities. They are letting down disabled people in Wales and it is time that they did a better job. For next year, I am increasing the amount of money that I make available for disabled facilities and schemes by £6.6 million and I hope that local government will be with me and will put its money where the hon. Gentleman's mouth is.