Lords Sitting of 7 March 1991

Preamble
The House met at three of the clock: The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
Prayers—Read by the Lord Bishop of Ripon.

Royal Assent
The Lord Chancellor (Lord Mackay of Clashfern): My Lords, I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that the Queen has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Census (Confidentiality) Act,

Standard Life Assurance Company Act.

Westminster Hospital Closure
3.7 p.m.
Lord Ennals Lord Ennals asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether, in the light of the bombing of Downing Street and Victoria Station, it is still their intention to close Westminster Hospital.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Baroness Hooper): Yes, my Lords.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, I thank the Minister for her very brief Answer. Is she aware that in a series of central London emergencies —namely, the poll tax riot, the Carlton Club bombing, the Downing Street mortar attack and the Victoria Station bombing—the accident and emergency unit of the Westminster Hospital, which, as the noble Baroness knows, is due to close very shortly, was heavily involved? That hospital is absolutely essential. Does the Minister accept that the distance and the crowded streets from the heart of London to Fulham will make that new hospital unable to cope with the demands made on it not only by those who live in central London, but by the working population and the tourists? Will she consider with her right honourable friend cancellation of the closure of this crucially important and greatly respected Westminster Hospital?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am sure that many of your Lordships will join me in taking this opportunity to congratulate the staff at the Westminster, St. Thomas's and other hospitals which were involved in the incidents to which the noble Lord has referred. They responded splendidly to the emergencies. In those congratulations I include the London Ambulance Service. The Westminster Hospital will close in 1992 when the new Westminster and Chelsea Hospital opens. However, there are several hospitals within reasonable distance of the City of Westminster that are specially designated to deal with major incidents. They include St. Thomas's, which is just across Westminster Bridge.
Lord Colnbrook: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that a number of noble Lords, of whom I was
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one, two years ago wrote to the then Secretary of State and to the then Prime Minister urging that this decision should be reversed for precisely the reasons given by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals? Unfortunately, we wrote without effect. Is she further aware that the events of recent days described by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, have merely increased my anxiety? Will the Minister accept that it is foolish to close a hospital which is so near to the centre of government and political life and to increase the distance which people subject to terrorist attacks may have to travel before they can get succour?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I was not familiar with my noble friend's involvement in this matter. However, I am aware that all proper consultation and other procedures were gone through before the final decision was made about the opening of the new hospital and the closure of the existing Westminster Hospital. I reiterate that there are many excellent hospitals within reasonable distance of the City of Westminster, including Charing Cross Hospital, Guy's, St. Mary's, Hammersmith and the Middlesex Hospitals. The London Ambulance Service and the North West Thames and Riverside Health Authorities envisage no difficulties in responding to major incidents after the closure of the present Westminster Hospital.
Lord Strabolgi: My Lords, did the noble Baroness refer to Charing Cross Hospital? Does she think that it is still at Charing Cross? Is the Minister aware that that hospital is now out at Fulham? Is she further aware that patients are sent there, that it takes half an hour to get there by taxi and that the fare is £5?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am aware of the location not only of the present Charing Cross Hospital, but of others. I have a map which proves that. I reiterate that these hospitals are within reasonable distance of the City of Westminster. I did not reiterate then the hospital to which I referred previously; namely, St. Thomas's.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, is the Minister aware—
Lord Annan: My Lords, can the Minister say why she left out St. Thomas's Hospital? Is that hospital debarred from dealing with casualties from the centre of London?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me. I have just made up for the fact that I did not refer a second time to St. Thomas's Hospital because I had referred to it in response to the supplementary question asked by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals.
Baroness Strange: My Lords, is my noble friend the Minister aware that we in this House are very grateful that Westminster Hospital was still open at the time she was hit by flying masonry in Victoria Street and that she was able to get there very quickly? We hope that the hospital will continue in order to help all those who work in the Palace of Westminster.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am very much reminded of that particular incident. My noble friend

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Lady Strange was very kind in personal terms on that occasion. I remind your Lordships that, as part of the plan for the new facilities, as well as the new Westminster and Chelsea Hospital there will be a new health centre at Pimlico which will provide GP care, outpatients' clinics and a minor casualty service. Those facilities will take care of that problem, and they will also take care of the walking wounded from a major incident if it occurs close to the sites of the incidents to which reference has been made.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, is the Minister aware that many of us who have benefited very greatly from the attentions of the staff of the Westminster Hospital have been much dismayed by this decision? Can she say whether all connection between the Palace of Westminster and the surrounding area and that hospital is to cease? If that is the case, then it is a serious matter. Can she say how far the nearest casualty station will be after Westminster Hospital has been removed from all contact with Westminster?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I must repeat that St. Thomas's Hospital, with all its many excellent facilities, is just across the river —one minute further away from Victoria than the Westminster Hospital. The Pimlico health centre, which will be able to deal with minor casualties, is also very close.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, St. Thomas's Hospital is across the river. Few of us can swim that distance with ease. How much further is it by land than Westminster Hospital?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, it has always been recognised that few of us can swim. That is why there is a bridge.
Lord Bruce of Donington: My Lords, can the noble Baroness assist the House by giving one good reason why Westminster Hospital should be closed?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, there is room for a wide debate on the whole question of facilities which apply to London. One basic fact about London remains: it is extremely well provided for in terms of hospital services. In inner London there are still 50 per cent. more beds per resident than in outer London. Therefore a certain rationalisation was required. New facilities were required. The decision to centre those facilities at the new Westminster and Chelsea Hospital was taken with all proper consultation, planning and other consents.
The Earl of Onslow: My Lords, is it not for the benefit of the Houses of Parliament as a whole and London especially that we have a new and modern hospital rather than an old one? Is my noble friend not happy that the new arrangements will be an improvement rather than, as noble Lords opposite have been saying, a disimprovement?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend for bringing a note of reason to these questions. The new facilities will be much admired.
Baroness Masham of Ilton: My Lords, is it not good practice to have critical care teams coming out from
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casualty departments to save life? Is that not more important than anything else? What will happen if the bridges are blocked because of, say, riots?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, that argument could be raised in relation to access to any hospital. Our efforts are directed at dealing with casualties on the spot as much as possible. All the improvements being made to the London Ambulance Service are to that end.
Lord McColl of Dulwich: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is rather curious that it is the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, who is always attacking the Government for closing hospitals in London? Who was the villain of the piece who started the movement to shift resources in the NHS from London into the country? It was none other than the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, himself.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, my noble friend asks a rhetorical question.
Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe: My Lords, I was associated with the noble Lord, Lord Colnbrook, in the representations which he mentioned, together with other noble Lords who served as business managers in the other place. We did so on the basis of our experience of looking after the welfare and care of Members of both Houses and also of the problems posed by security. Even at this late stage I press the Minister to see whether some facilities cannot be kept on the present Westminster Hospital site.
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, my understanding is that all the possible alternatives were gone into at the time the decision was made in 1988. Nevertheless, I shall of course draw these representations to the attention of my right honourable friend.
Lord Jenkins of Putney: My Lords, according to the plan, as I understand it, the main relief hospital for Westminster Hospital is to be located in the Chelsea-Fulham area. If that is the case, is that not altogether too far to be called a reasonable distance away in the event of a major accident or something of that kind? Is it really too late to give the matter further consideration?
Baroness Hooper: No, my Lords. In my response to the first supplementary question of the noble Lord, Lord Ennals, I indicated that several hospitals other than the new Westminster and Chelsea Hospital will be within a reasonable distance of the City of Westminster.
Lord Ennals: My Lords, does the Minister—
Noble Lords: Next Question!
Lord Ennals: My Lords, it is my Question. I have been attacked and I am entitled to reply. Does the Minister understand my disappointment that she did not dissociate herself from the point made by her noble friend Lord McColl in that the decision to close the Westminster Hospital had nothing whatsoever to do with the RAWP report which I implemented 12 years ago? Does she accept that the consultation which she says was adequate led to almost total opposition to the proposal—from the Westminster City Council, from the health council and from the

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residents who submitted an enormous petition? Does she recognise that all those groups were totally opposed to the decision? In view of all the points of view presented in the House today, will she not at least discuss with her colleagues whether the decision makes sense?
Baroness Hooper: My Lords, as regards the remarks made by my noble friend, I believe that no specific allegation was made. He was referring to the wider policy which was initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Ennals. The decision in question was made in 1988 and, so far as I am aware, the discussions are now closed. However, as I said, I shall draw the attention of my right honourable friend to the views which have been expressed today.

Motor Cyclists: Provisional Licences
3.20 p.m.
Lord Nugent of Guildford Lord Nugent of Guildford asked Her Majesty's Government:
How many provisional driving licences for motor cyclists are now extant, and how long is the average period of the provisional licence.
The Minister of State, Department of Transport (Lord Brabazon of Tara): My Lords, at 2nd April 1990, the latest date for which figures are available, there wore over 550,000 provisional licences containing motor cycle entitlement. The entitlement lasts for two years. In addition, about 31 million full licence holders have provisional motor cycle entitlement.
Lord Nugent of Guildford: My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that very informative Answer. The 31 million figure which he mentioned is new to me. It indicates, I imagine, that all normal driving licences carry a motor cycle licence with them. However, to turn to the figure of 550,000, is my noble friend aware of the vulnerability of these young teenage motor cyclists? The figure for injuries and accidents in respect of them is six times higher than that which applies to older motor cyclists. Is he satisfied that the machinery available is adequate to call up provisional licences when the two-year provisional period expires in order to ensure that, if the person concerned has not taken a test and received a full licence, they start again and take a proper off-street test?
Lord Brabazon of Tara: Yes, my Lords, I and the department are especially aware of the vulnerability of young motor cyclists. That is why, as my noble friend is aware, we have recently introduced the compulsory basic training as the first part of the two-part test. If a new provisional licence holder fails to pass his test within the two-year period, he is then off the road for a year and has to start the process all over again.
The Viscount of Falkland: My Lords, is it not, nevertheless, important to bear in mind that motor cycle accidents overall have now been on the decline for 10 years? In fact, the Government's target for the year 2000 of cutting motor cycle accidents by 40 per cent. is well on the way to achievement whereas the aim to cut motor car accidents by a third is sadly way off target.
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, I believe it is generally recognised that young motor cyclists are especially vulnerable. Although the figures have shown some signs of improvement, it is also true to say that the number of motor cyclists has decreased. Therefore, I do not think that we should draw too much comfort from the decline. I am sure that the new compulsory basic training arrangements will assist.
Baroness Phillips: My Lords, I must be an exception to the rule just mentioned having been knocked down by a motor cyclist during the past two years. Will the Government consider introducing more careful training for dispatch riders who tempt fate at all times, not only in relation to themselves but also in relation to other drivers and pedestrians?
Lord Stoddart of Swindon: They are a menace!
Lord Brabazon of Tara: My Lords, the issue of dispatch riders arises every time we deal with motor cyclists in this House. I am not surprised; they are indeed a problem. However, I would not go so far as to say, as the noble Lord just said, that they are a menace. They are subject to the same rules which apply to every other motorist or motor cyclist. I hope that those rules are rigorously enforced.

Merger Referrals: Criteria
3.25 p.m.
Lord Ezra Lord Ezra asked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they have changed the criteria for referring proposed mergers to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission.
The Minister of State, Department of Trade and Industry (Lord Hesketh): My Lords, the Government's main criterion for referring proposed mergers to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission remains their effect on competition as it affects the UK consumer. In addition, my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry has made it clear that he will pay particular attention to the degree of state control, if any, of acquiring companies.
Lord Ezra: My Lords, despite what the noble Lord says, is there not now some degree of confusion about the criterion for reference of proposed mergers to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission? Further, is it not a fact that the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, against the advice of the OFT, recently referred to the MMC a case in which one of the parties was a French state-owned bank and that the commission subsequently found that there was no justification for blocking the proposed deal?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I do not believe that there is any confusion. The reality is that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State considered it relevant to include the criterion of a nationalised company which would not be subject to the same strictures as a private company. That has a direct relevance to the level of competition and the level of comparability.
Baroness Oppenheim-Barnes: My Lords, does my noble friend accept that the public interest criterion is confusing and out of date? Does he also accept that a

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pure competition criterion would benefit the application of competition policy if it was only the consumer interest and not the public interest which was concerned? I believe that that improvement would be welcomed by the commission.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I fear that my right honourable friend will not agree with the remarks of my noble friend. However, I shall certainly draw her remarks to his attention for consideration.
Lord Grimond: My Lords, does the Minister think that the interests of communities affected by mergers should be given more weight when these matters are considered?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, the requirements of the MMC refer to the consumer. Of course, there is other legislation. There are also other considerations in various areas which are no doubt covered by other departments. However, I suspect that it would be very difficult to have one piece of legislation which would cover all the aspects to which the noble Lord refers under one simple umbrella.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is it not the case that large mergers above a certain threshold are dealt with in Brussels under what is inelegantly known as Euro-merger control? Further, is not the criterion for that simply one of competition as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Oppenheim-Barnes? The criterion of whether there is any public control does not operate in Brussels. Therefore, is it not true that a small merger can be blocked because there is an element of public control; but that a large merger cannot be blocked because there is an element of public control? In other words, a nationalised company can take over ICI but no nationalised company can take over a division of ICI?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am not sure that I can answer the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Williams of Elvel, in his eloquent description of the European body. However, if he were to table a Question on comparability, I should be more than happy to answer it. I suggest to the noble Lord that there are cases where there could be such flagrant infusions of capital that would be relevant with regard to a nationalised company as against a private company within a takeover under European control.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, would that be possible as regards the competition criterion?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I suggest that it would be possible to have infusions of capital within a nationalised company which would so distort the market that it would come within the criterion described by the noble Lord.
Lord Boardman: My Lords, does my noble friend agree that it is very important that there should be the simplest possible criterion and opportunities for companies to have informal discussions so as to reduce the amount of wasted expenditure caused by long inquiries and thereby avoid all the problems involved in the process?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am sure that I am correct in saying that it is the duty of government to try to enforce simplicity at all times.
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that it was accepted by my noble friend Lord Cockfield many years ago that the relevant definition of "public interest" was then ripe for review? Is he aware that that fact was also expressly accepted some years later by my noble friend Lord Young?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I shall draw my noble friend's remarks to the attention of my right honourable friend the Secretary of State.

Northern Development Company
3.30 p.m.
Lord Dormand of Easington Lord Dormand of Easington asked Her Majesty's Government:
What proposals they have to assist the Northern Development Company in its business plan for 1991–92.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am pleased to be able to tell your Lordships that after careful consideration of their respective plans for 1991–92 my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Industry and Consumer Affairs has today announced the levels of grant in aid awarded to each of the five regional development organisations for their inward investment activities. Out of a total of £4.5 million available for all the RDOs, the Northern Development Company has been offered £1.33 million, which represents a generous uplift of 13 per cent. over 1990–91.
Lord Dormand of Easington: My Lords, that sounds promising, but it could have been better. Does the Minister agree that the Northern Development Company has an excellent record, and that one reason for its success is that when it was formed, and since, it had the full support of all the political parties, the private sector, the local authorities and the trade unions? It is a model of co-operation. Does he recall that the Northern region still has the highest unemployment rate outside Northern Ireland? Having regard to all those factors, does he accept that this is not a begging-bowl exercise? Every penny is needed to sustain and improve the Northern region and in so doing to improve things in the country as a whole.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am sure that the excellence to which the noble Lord, Lord Dormand, referred was one of the reasons my right honourable friend agreed to go way above the rate of inflation. On his second point with regard to unemployment in the North, I point out that nearly 97 per cent. of the working population in the North East is covered by assisted area status. That is the highest percentage of any region. Those are the areas which benefit from all DTI aid schemes.
Lord Gisborough: My Lords, is my noble friend aware that the great difference now compared to

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previously is that many new businesses are setting up their head offices in the region as opposed to their branch factories, and that therefore when there is a downturn matters do not go so badly as they did 10 years ago? All the help given is being used to the best advantage.
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am sure that all in your Lordships' House are well aware of all the shining examples of success. It is worth remembering that the United States is investing in the United Kingdom 60 per cent. of every dollar it spends in Europe in anticipation of 1992. Japan is spending some 40 per cent. of its inward investment in Europe. One has only to drive along the motorway past Washington New Town to see the material evidence of that investment.
Lord Williams of Elvel: My Lords, is the Minister aware that we welcome the contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Gisborough, to which he did not reply; that many firms are setting up in the North East with their own headquarters, and that the control is therefore in the North East rather than in Japan or the United States? Is it not further the case that as much effort as possible should be expended on the North East because of the high quality and skill of the workforce there and the excellent industrial relations that have prevailed?
Lord Hesketh: My Lords, I am well aware of that fact. I have to point out to the noble Lord, Lord Williams, that I referred to the Nissan plant at Washington in response to my noble friend's question. I am sure that noble Lords are also well aware of the Vickers' plant on Tyneside which made a notable contribution to the support of our forces in the recent Gulf endeavours.

Business
3.34 p.m.
Lord Denham: My Lords, it may be for the convenience of the House to know that the Committee stage of the Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Bill will be adjourned at about 7 p.m. for about one hour and that during this adjournment the Revised Code of Practice on Time Off for Trade Union Duties and Activities, the Redundancy Payments (Local Government) (Modification) (Amendment) Order 1991, and four Scottish Rateable Values Orders will be taken.
It may also be for the convenience of the House to know that, subject to the progress of business, the House will rise for the Easter Recess on Thursday 28th March and return on Monday 15th April. The House will sit at 11 a.m. on Thursday 28th March.

Sunday Entertainments (Video Supply) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Newall: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to permit the supply of video recordings on Sunday. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
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Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Newall.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to be printed.

Education (Swimming and Water Safety) Bill [H.L.]
Lord Norrie: My Lords, I beg to introduce a Bill to amend the Education Reform Act 1988 in order to make special provision for the teaching of swimming in maintained schools. I beg to move that this Bill be now read a first time.
Moved, That the Bill be now read a first time.—(Lord Norrie.)
On Question, Bill read a first time, and to he printed.

Child Support Bill [H.L.]
The Lord Chancellor: My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.
Moved, That it be an Instruction to the Committee of the whole House to whom the Child Support Bill has been committed that they consider the Bill in the following order—

Clauses 1 to 5,

Clause 22,

Clauses 6 to 9,

Schedule 1,

Clauses 10 to 12,

Schedule 2,

Clauses 13 to 21,

Clauses 23 to 43,

Schedule 3.—(The Lord Chancellor.)

On Question, Motion agreed to.

Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Bill
3.35 p.m.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Social Security (Lord Henley): My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now resolve itself into Committee on this Bill.
Moved, That the House do now resolve itself into Committee.—(Lord Henley.)
On Question, Motion agreed to.
House in Committee accordingly.
[The CHAIRMAN OF COMMITTEES in the Chair.]
Clause 1 [Introduction of disability living allowance:]:
Lord Henderson of Brompton Lord Henderson of Brompton moved Amendment No. 1:
Page 1, line 12, at end insert ("a community care supplement").
The noble Lord said: I shall speak also to manuscript Amendment No. 22A and Amendment No. 23. I apologise for the manuscript amendment which is necessary to understand Amendment No. 23 which refers back to it and which was inadvertently omitted. The manuscript amendment reads:

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", to any one of which may be added a community care supplement payable out of the National Insurance Fund".
The purpose of the amendment is to continue the independent living fund by statute in place of the Government's proposal to abolish it by 1993 and thereafter instead to rely upon local authorities. The amendments are concerned solely with severely disabled people who wish to avoid institutionalisation. I use that monstrous 20-letter word to describe the distaste which we all feel for putting back into institutions, or into institutions for the first time, people who would otherwise live viable lives in the community. It relates to about 7,000 badly disabled people only.
I should like to give as an example not those who are in the House today who are badly disabled—it is a significant indicator of the importance of the amendment that they are here—but our late, and beloved, friend Lady Lane-Fox, who wryly described herself as exhibit number one. She was content in her lifetime to be so described and I am sure that she would be happy if I were to so describe her today. Had that valuable person, Felicity Lane-Fox, been institutionalised what a cruel waste of a vital spark it would have been. She animated our debates and did so much for her disabled fellow people. If the Committee remembers her, it will understand what we have in mind.
The purpose of the amendment was originally the subject of an amendment tabled in the House in 1986 and moved into the Bill by a considerable majority. It was not accepted in the House of Commons, and a substitute amendment was put in its place.
Subsequently, in 1988 I believe, this fund was set up. It is generally agreed by those interested in the 1986 amendment and by all the disability organisations that Mr. Nicholas Scott did a marvellous job in priming the fund, obtaining Treasury approval for it. The fund has since worked extremely well; starting as quite a small fund of about £5 million and now flourishing at about £65 million. It is devoted to making viable the lives of disabled people as severely disabled as Lady Lane-Fox.
The fund is remarkable because it is largely administered by disabled people in conjunction with the Ministry. DIG—the Disablement Income Group—and its Scottish equivalent are closely associated with the disbursement of the moneys of the fund. It is tailored to fit the needs of 7,000 people and there is an average disbursement of £70 or £80 a week. The minimum can be as low as a few pounds and increase to as much as £400 per week. I doubt whether we could get a more intimate association between those who distribute the fund and those who are the beneficiaries than we have with the present organisers of the independent living fund.
Against that background, one needs to consider the Government's proposal to disband the fund in 1993 and instead to hand over the distribution of the money to local authorities. Very few people in this Chamber would have sufficient confidence in the local authorities to be able to handle the money as intimately as the present administrators of the fund.
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Indeed, it may well be that the money allocated to local authorities for this purpose could get lost in the wash and never reach the 7,000 people. I do not wish to tar local authorities across the board with that brush because I am absolutely convinced that a number would carry it out conscientiously and well, but I am not at all convinced that the majority of local authorities would have anything like the sensitivity to administer the fund as it is now administered. That is its history.
I find it difficult to understand why the Government propose to get rid of their creature—their brainchild dreamed up by Mr. Nicholas Scott—and disperse its activities across the board to local authorities. Of course, it would be tidier and fit in with the rest of the Government's proposals. But I do not believe that it is just a Treasury objection. If the Government mean what they say, they will spend just as much money after 1993 on the 7,000 severely disabled people as they do now. It cannot be a matter of greater expenditure. Thus, I am puzzled as to the real reasons and I wait to hear them from the noble Lord, Lord Henley.
Most people in this Chamber need few words more from me to persuade them of the merits of the amendment, but I conclude by quoting the words of Mr. Nicholas Scott, the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People when he spoke on Report in the House of Commons on 7th February:
"I take a personal interest, and some satisfaction in the way in which the [independent living fund] has developed and expanded … not least because it has identified a real need in the community and gives disabled people the chance to exercise control over the provision made for them. It ensures that they are not simply told that somebody can come at a particular time of day that suits the timetable of the social security department".
That is the nub.
"Instead, choice can be exercised about the nature and extent of the care that they are given".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/2/91; col. 440.]
The Minister responsible for disabled people himself puts the case for the amendments in a nutshell. I beg to move.
3.45 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: I am delighted to support the amendment so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson of Brompton. Amendment No. 1 is a paving amendment for Amendment No. 23. Members of the Committee will have noticed from the names on them that these are all-party amendments, on which I believe there is all-party agreement. The noble Lord has put the case admirably and I have no wish to prolong the discussion on a matter on which I believe we have already won the argument.
To go back over the history to which the noble Lord referred, many of us were absolutely delighted when the independent living fund came into existence. We heard its announcement and I well remember attending a meeting of the All-Party Disablement Group, at which the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, was present, as was Lady Lane-Fox. We all listened, fascinated and immensely encouraged, when we heard

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from those who would be responsible for the fund—Mr. Peter Large and others—on precisely what it would do.
We knew that the fund was there for five years; and at the time five years seemed a long time. Some of us thought that perhaps we might not still be here after five years and unhappily Lady Lane-Fox is not. However, at least we knew that many of the people dependent on the fund would still be here and their needs would have to be provided for. The noble Lord quoted from the remarks of the Minister responsible, Mr. Nicholas Scott, and perhaps I may do the same. On 11th December, Mr. Scott said:
"After 1993, the generality of [independent living fund] cases should go to local authorities".
As the noble Lord rightly said, were I one of the people dependent on the fund I would not have found that statement immensely reassuring, irrespective of the locality or the nature of the local authority in which I resided. It was not very reassuring. Mr. Scott continued:
"There will obviously be a need for some interim arrangement to deal with the existing load of the independent living fund … There will have to be some transitional provision and there may be some provision for new cases".—[Official Report, Commons, Standing Committee E, 11/12/90; col. 63.]
That is what we are trying to do and what the Minister seemed to want to do. When pressed later at Report stage on 7th February, he continued:
"we wish to look most closely at the proposed arrangements that will come into effect in 1993, the timetable for transfer of cases and any transitional arrangements necessary".—[Official Report, Commons, 7/2/91; col. 441.]
Transitional arrangements are bound to be necessary. We must make absolutely sure in this House that they are in place. Later, in a Written Answer, Mr. Scott said in reply to Mr. Allen:
"Our plans for the future of the independent living fund are still under consideration following the decision to phase the implementation of community care".—[Official Report, Commons, 11/2/91; col. 370.]
They arc still under consideration now, as the result of an all-party amendment ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. I hope that the Committee will support the amendment.
Lord Carter: I was pleased to add my name to the amendment because it deals with a crucially important aspect of the provision of financial help for severely disabled people. The history of the fund is well known so there is no need to repeat it. It fills a real gap in the social security provisions for disabled people and is an excellent example of flexible and ring-fenced community care.
As previous speakers have said, there is considerable concern about the possibility of responsibilities which are now borne by the fund being shifted to local authorities in 1993. I ask the Committee to reflect on the practicalities. Both major parties are considering new structures for local government. There will be a replacement for the poll tax and rumours continue about the possibility of shifting responsibility for community care to health authorities in order to reduce the cost of local government finance. Does anyone really expect that, with this raft of policies to be implemented by local authorities, they will be able
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to take on the present responsibilities of the independent living fund? We know that community care funding for local authorities is now inadequate. What will happen to the funds if they are not ring-fenced? I believe that they will disappear into other areas of local authority expenditure. As has been said, they will literally go down holes in the road.
We should also remember that even now local authorities have not fully carried out all their duties and powers under Section 2 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. They are even having to cut back on the parts of that Act that they have fulfilled in the light of the financial restrictions imposed by the poll tax. I ask again how we can be sure that local authorities will be willing and able to provide the essential domiciliary help which some people with disabilities need.
The Disablement Income Group has provided us with a number of examples of the inadequacy of local authority provision, with the temptation to move severely disabled people into residential care. The whole thrust of government policy is intended to avoid that situation. It has been said that in the whole country only six local authorities anywhere near provide the level of support and assistance which is now provided by the independent living fund. The ninth report of the Social Services Select Committee of another place entitled Community Care: Social Security for Disabled People states:
"We further believe that the Government should consider the establishment of the independent living fund as a statutory body".
The Government bear a heavy responsibility in this area. As the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, has said, the Government are to be congratulated on the setting up of the fund. It would be a tragedy if the work of the fund were effectively to disappear in 1993. This amendment gives the Committee the chance to protect the functions and the funding of the ILF. Unlike a number of amendments that were moved from this side of the Chamber on the social security legislation, this amendment will cost the Government not a penny more than they otherwise would have spent. The Government are already spending £62 million on the ILF. We are not asking the Government to spend any more, but we are attempting to protect that funding and, above all, to protect the 7,000 people who are benefiting from the operation of the fund at the moment.
Lord Swinfen: I am delighted that the amendment is also tabled in my name in support of the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. I am a firm believer in the independent living fund and the way in which it helps severely physically disabled people. The fund is an aspect of government funding that helps the Government's policy of moving severely disabled people out of long-stay wards in hospitals to allow other people to use those wards.
The organisation for which I work trains severely physically disabled people to live independently. I know of one individual who has now moved on with the help of the fund. She requires help nearly the whole time. If she were not helped by the fund, she

1501
would be in institutional care. What is more, that would mean that her husband would have to live with her in the institution because he is also disabled. He does not need as much help as his wife, but he is not able to help her.
Some years ago before the fund was even thought of, a disabled person was living in the Midlands who was paralysed from the neck down. He was determined not to go into institutional care. He was fortunate in that he had sufficient funds of his own to enable him to stay out of institutional care and to order his own life. The independent living fund helps severely physically disabled people to obtain the independence that the rest of us take for granted. We can pick up a book whenever we want. However, a number of disabled people cannot do so. If they need or wish to read an article, a magazine or a book, is it right that they should have to wait for someone to come along from the local authority at his convenience to do it for them? That person may tell the disabled person that he only has time to read a couple of paragraphs, rather than a whole chapter, on that occasion as he has other things to do. It is much better that local authorities should be able to fund someone to come along when disabled people need attention and to provide help in the way the disabled people wish.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I wish to express my wholehearted support for these amendments. I had a horrible feeling that I was watching a repeat performance of what happened from the end of the proceedings of the Social Security Act 1986 to the gestation and birth of the ILF when I heard the comments of the Minister responsible for the disabled on the subject of transitional funding and other matters. I should add that the birth of the ILF was almost an induced birth as it was an eleventh hour attempt to sort things out. The noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, said at that time that five years seemed a long period. Perhaps 1993 still seems some time away. However, time is particularly short for disabled people who are trying to plan to come out into the community. That process can easily take two years and I have heard of someone who took four years to plan her entrance into the community. This situation is worrying for such people as they cannot plan ahead. It is also extremely worrying for those who are living in the community now as their future is uncertain.
Why get rid of something that is working well? Does the Minister agree with the comments that my noble friend Lord Henderson made as regards how well the Minister responsible for social services considers the ILF is working? What is the Minister's response to the report of the Social Services Select Committee which the noble Lord, Lord Carter, has already mentioned? Is the Minister aware that all the disability organisations are wholly opposed to the transfer of the ILF to local authorities?
I totally support the amendments on the grounds that they will meet the general feeling that the fund should be put on a statutory basis; that we should put an end to uncertainty for disabled people; and that we
1502
should continue to help severely disabled people to have control of their own lives, in the ways the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, mentioned.
Lord Skelmersdale: I believe I occasioned some surprise by being in my seat—or at least, having rocketed round the Chamber recently in one of my seats—on Second Reading but not speaking although my name was mentioned. My name was sometimes taken in vain, and, just occasionally, in praise when noble Lords referred to my previous utterances during the four years that I was responsible for various social security matters in the Chamber. I did not speak on Second Reading for a concrete reason. I was a Minister in the Department of Social Security when the principles of this Bill were being discussed. Therefore I did not feel it was right for me to speak on Second Reading. Second Reading after all should be concerned with the principles of a Bill.
I listened to most of the proceedings on Second Reading and I have read them very carefully. It is interesting to note the extent to which speakers tend to produce shopping lists on Second Reading and continue that practice throughout the course of a Bill. That was my experience in replying to many amendments in the past. Now that we have got beyond the stage of principles, I have absolutely no hesitation in chipping in. My remarks are based partly on my own memories of the various experiences that I have been through, and partly on the experiences themselves.
I do not know how many Members of the Committee were present in the Chamber the other day when the noble Lord, Lord Peston, made an interesting remark. He said words to the effect that government money equals government interference. The whole history of social security is an example of that. The detailed rules and regulations with which the Government surround the real needs of claimants for various social security benefits are legion.
We are discussing whether the independent living fund should be a statutory body, or whether its benefits should be statutory benefits. I believe it would be folly to take such a step although I fully accept—I have always done so —that severely disabled people have exceptional needs which have to be catered for. I take the point that the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), made. It would be equally mistaken to pass the functions of the fund to the social services departments of local authorities. I believe it is generally agreed—after a slightly rocky start—that the independent living fund is an extremely good thing, to misquote 1066, And All That. When you have a good thing going for you, you do not change it. You leave it severely alone. That is what I recommend the Government do on this occasion.
4 p.m.
Lord Walton of Detchant: I should like to give very warm support to the amendment proposed by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson. I must at once declare an interest. I am chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Group of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I have just come from a meeting of the national council of

1503
that body, which I chaired, at which I learned that in the course of 1990 459 people who are severely disabled by different forms of neuro-muscular disease were given grants from the Joseph Patrick Memorial Trust—a branch of the organisation—to enable them to maintain their life in the community. Those grants were towards the cost of equipment, modifications to their homes and other items which under law should have been provided either by the health authority or the total authority. Their grants from that trust eventually totalled some £310,000 last year because neither the local authorities nor the health authorities in the areas where they lived felt able, from the funds available to them, to support their needs to enable them to continue to live in the community.
The independent living fund has made an enormous contribution to the care and welfare of disabled people in our community. It has enabled many of those who would otherwise inevitably have been committed to institutional care to live happy and fruitful lives in the community. In my view it is crucial that that provision should continue.
The fund has made outstanding contributions to the care of many individuals. At a time when the Government are quite rightly promoting care in the community that type of flexible support for severely disabled people who have high care costs should and must remain. If the Government transfer the funding to local authorities, as is proposed in the Bill, I regret to say that, in the present rocky and parlous state of local authority finances, I share the anxieties expressed by many other Members of the Committee that that money may well disappear into the maw of local government finance and may not be used to help those most in need. I therefore support the amendment most warmly.
Lord Henley: The amendment provides me with the opportunity, which I readily take, to put on record the great pride which the Government attach to the achievements of the independent living fund. In particular, as many Members of the Committee mentioned, my right honourable friend the Minister for Social Security and Disabled People has taken a close personal interest in the founding of the fund and in its development and expansion over the past three years. I should like to thank those noble Lords who praised my right honourable friend for setting up the fund and getting it going.
I should also like to repeat some of the history of the fund. The Committee will recall that the fund was originally set up in 1988 with a budget of £5 million to provide help to those people who previously received a weekly additional requirement for domestic assistance in their supplementary benefit. Since 1988 the scope of the fund has been progressively widened to provide help with the costs of personal care. That widening, of scope has been a major factor in the growth of the fund. Now the fund helps over 7,000 people within a budget for 1990–91 of some £32 million, with another large increase agreed for next year.
Many Members of the Committee may already know that the trustees of the fund have announced
1504
that they have lifted the previous upper age limit for eligibility for help from the fund. That means that from 1st March this year help can be awarded to people over the age of 74. I am sure that everyone will welcome that further substantial improvement in the fund.
I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), that the fund has been a success. We accept that, and my right honourable friend the Minister of State has accepted that. It has been a success not least because it has addressed a real need in the community in giving disabled people the opportunity to exercise control over their lives rather than having to submit to choices made on their behalf by experts. It allows individuals largely to choose the nature and extent of the care that they need in order to remain in their homes, following an in-depth discussion of their needs with trained social workers.
That move towards greater choice on the part of disabled people underlies all this Government's recent and proposed reforms in benefits for disabled people, including the two new benefits proposed in the Bill (which we shall discuss later) and the new administration and adjudication arrangements. However, for disabled people to make real choices in their lives they need information and advice about the options which are open to them and the costs and benefits of those choices. That information can come only from an individual assessment of the disabled person and his or her needs by a trained and experienced professional.
It is my understanding of the amendment that if there were no independent living fund, there would have to be a regulated scheme. All of those who have spoken in support of the amendment would agree that it is not a regulated scheme that is wanted. The amendment seeks a concession from the Government that the independent living fund will be retained. I recognise that. I also recognise that the amendment expresses the concern of many in this Chamber about the ability of local authorities to pick up cases from the independent living fund when the community care arrangements come into effect in 1993.
I can assure the Committee that we understand those anxieties and take very seriously the points that have been made today about the future position of people who are currently supported by the fund. I can only repeat the promise made by my right honourable friend the Minister of State that we shall be looking very carefully at the arrangements for the transfer of cases and at any transitional arrangements which may be necessary. The Government will want to be satisfied that the new arrangements meet the concerns that have been expressed. We shall want to make decisions as quickly as possible, in discussion with all those involved, to allay the fears which I know are felt by many people who receive help from the fund. The Committee can be assured that the Government's record on the independent living fund is our assurance that we shall wish to be satisfied about the practical effects of the arrangements.
Simply continuing the independent living fund at the same time as bringing in community care would

1505
not necessarily be the right way forward. We do not believe that the flexibility that will be available in the community care arrangements when they come into effect needs to be replicated in the independent living fund. Under our community care plans the 1993 arrangements rely on local authorities designing their own care packages for everyone in the community rather than looking to the ILF. It would be quite wrong to separate out that relatively small group of disabled people from the people being catered for by the local authorities.
We shall of course discuss with local authorities the transfer and funding arrangements. We shall want to satisfy ourselves that those arrangements safeguard that very vulnerable group of people. Although I understand the desire of some Members of the Committee to take the opportunity to amend the Bill today, we are still nowhere near the end of the fund's third year; we are barely beyond half way. I understand the desire to take the decisions now but, with all respect, it is not sensible for the Government to take those decisions when so much of the detail of the community care arrangements remain to be worked out.
With those assurances I hope that the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Carter: Before the noble Lord sits down, he will be aware that one of the proposals put forward by his own party for the reform of local government is the abolition of the county councils, which are presently responsible for social services departments and presumably for the devolution of those responsibilities to the district councils. Is there not a possibility that the responsibilities now borne by the ILF could fall between the two tiers if one was abolished?
Lord Henley: I am not aware at the moment that it is the Government's policy that the county councils should be abolished. No doubt that is something that one party or another might look at on another occasion. However, whatever happens, there will still be social services departments just as there are social services departments in districts in the old metropolitan counties.
Lord Winstanley: Before the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, replies, perhaps I may point out that the noble Lord did not adequately answer the point made somewhat briefly by his noble friend Lord Skelmersdale. The essence of what he said seemed to be that if something is working well it should be left alone; why mess about with it? The noble Lord gave us an assurance that the greatest possible care would be taken when making new arrangements, but he also said that the present arrangements were perfectly all right. So why do we need any new arrangements? Let us stick to the old ones.
Lord Henley: The ILF is working well. Noble Lords will remember that last year we debated at great length the National Health Service and Community Care Bill. The second part of that Bill will bring in community care in 1993. The introduction of community care changes the position on ILF. ILF
1506
would replicate the proposals under community care. For that reason we have to consider our position. We must ensure that there will be adequate transitional arrangements for those supported by the ILF when community care is included in 1993.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I thank the noble Lord for his reply. He will realise that every speech other than his own was in favour of the amendment. There was all-party support for it; and not merely all party support, since the amendment had the support of the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, who for many years represented the noble Lord's department.
Lord Skelmersdale: Perhaps I may correct the noble Lord. That certainly was not the tenor of my remarks. I think that it is a great mistake to put this matter on a statutory basis under government control. I thought I made it clear that it was a great mistake when I quoted the noble Lord, Lord Peston, in a previous debate when he said that government money equals government interference. Equally, I accept that I do not like local authority control for rather different reasons. What I requested, as the noble Lord, Lord Winstanley, just picked up, was that it should be left severely alone.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: That is what we are aiming to do; that is the whole purpose of the amendment. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord for reinforcing that point of view and, once again, I thank him for it. There is nothing more for me to say except that I believe that the Committee is absolutely at one in requesting the Government to save Mr. Nick Scott's baby. That is all. We do not want it to die an unnatural death in 1993 at the hands of the local authorities. I commend the amendment to the Committee.
Baroness Phillips: On a point of order, may we have the lights put on? The Government may wish to save on light and heat in your Lordships' House but this is a very important debate and is there any reason to turn the lights down?
4.13 p.m.
On Question, Whether the said amendment (No. 1) shall be agreed to?
Their Lordships divided: Contents, 125; Not-Contents, 103.

Division No. 1

CONTENTS

Acton, L.

Callaghan of Cardiff, L.

Addington, L.

Campbell of Eskan, L.

Adrian, L.

Carmichael of Kelvingrove, L.

Ailesbury, M.

Carter, L.

Airedale, L.

Clanwilliam, E.

Allen of Abbeydale, L.

Cledwyn of Penrhos, L.

Annan, L.

Cocks of Hartcliffe, L.

Ardwick, L.

Craigavon, V.

Attlee, E.

Cross, V.

Auckland, L.

Cullen of Ashbourne, L.

Aylestone, L.

Darcy (de Knayth), B.

Birk, B.

David, B.

Blackstone, B.

Dean of Beswick, L.

Bonham-Carter, L.

Derwent, L.

Bottomley, L.

Donaldson of Kingsbridge, L.

Brightman, L.

Dormand of Easington, L.

Broadbridge, L.

Ennals, L.

Bruce of Donington, L.

Ezra, L.

1507

Falkender, B.

Lovell-Davis, L.

Fisher of Rednal, B.

McIntosh of Haringey, L.

Gallacher, L.

Mackie of Benshie, L.

Galpern, L.

McNair, L.

Gladwyn, L.

Masham of Ilton, B.

Glenarthur, L.

Mayhew, L.

Graham of Edmonton, L.

Milner of Leeds, L.

Gregson, L.

Mishcon, L.

Grimond, L.

Morris of Castle Morris, L.

Hacking, L.

Moyne, L.

Hailsham of Saint Marylebone, L.

Nicol, B.

Ogmore, L.

Hampden, V.

Oram, L.

Hampton, L.

Peston, L.

Hanworth, V.

Phillips, B.

Hatch of Lusby, L.

Porritt, L.

Hayter, L.

Richard, L.

Henderson of Brompton, L. [Teller.]

Rippon of Hexham, L.

Rochester, L.

Holderness, L.

Russell, E.

Hollis of Heigham, B. [Teller.]

Sainsbury, L.

Holme of Cheltenham, L.

Saltoun of Abernethy, Ly.

Hooson, L.

Seear, B.

Houghton of Sowerby, L.

Serota, B.

Howe, E.

Stallard, L.

Hughes, L.

Stedman, B.

Hunt, L.

Stoddart of Swindon, L.

Hutchinson of Lullington, L.

Strabolgi, L.

Hylton, L.

Swinfen, L.

Hylton-Foster, B.

Taylor of Blackburn, L.

Ilchester, E.

Terrington, L.

Ingleby, V.

Tordoff, L.

Jacques, L.

Turner of Camden, B.

Jay, L.

Underhill, L.

Jenkins of Hillhead, L.

Varley, L.

Jenkins of Putney, L.

Wallace of Coslany, L.

John-Mackie, L.

Walpole, L.

Kagan, L.

Walton of Detchant, L.

Kearton, L.

Wharton, B.

Kilmarnock, L.

White, B.

Kinloss, Ly.

Williams of Elvel, L.

Lawrence, L.

Willis, L.

Listowel, E.

Wilson of Rievaulx, L.

Llewelyn-Davies of Hastoe, B.

Winstanley, L.

Lockwood, B.

Winterbottom, L.

Longford E.

NOT-CONTENTS

Aldington, L.

Eccles of Moulton, B.

Alexander of Tunis, E.

Elliot of Harwood, B.

Allenby of Megiddo, V.

Elton, L.

Alport, L.

Erne, E.

Astor, V.

Ferrers, E.

Bauer, L.

Flather, B.

Belhaven and Stenton, L.

Fortescue, E.

Beloff, L.

Fraser of Kilmorack, L.

Birdwood, L.

Geddes, L.

Blatch, B.

Gisborough, L.

Boardman, L.

Grimthorpe, L.

Boyd-Carpenter, L.

Haslam, L.

Brabazon of Tara, L.

Henley, L.

Brigstocke, B.

Hertford, M.

Brougham and Vaux, L.

Hesketh, L.

Buckinghamshire, E.

Hood, V.

Butterworth, L.

Hooper, B.

Caldecote, V.

Joseph, L.

Campbell of Alloway, L.

Killearn, L.

Carnegy of Lour, B.

Kinnaird, L.

Cavendish of Furness, L.

Knollys, V.

Clitheroe, L.

Lauderdale, E.

Cockfield, L.

Long, V.

Colnbrook, L.

Lyell, L.

Constantine of Stanmore, L.

Mackay of Clashfern, L.

Cottesloe, L.

Macleod of Borve, B.

Cox, B.

Mancroft, L.

Craigmyle, L.

Massereene and Ferrard, V.

Davidson, V. [Teller.]

Merrivale, L.

Denham, L. [Teller.]

Mersey, V.

Donegall, M.

Monteagle of Brandon, L.

Downshire, M.

Mountevans, L.

1508

Mowbray and Stourton, L.

Selkirk, E.

Murton of Lindisfarne, L.

Selsdon, L.

Nelson, E.

Shrewsbury, E.

Newall, L.

Skelmersdale, L.

Norfolk, D.

Stockton, E.

Norrie, L.

Stodart of Leaston, L.

Nugent of Guildford, L.

Strange, B.

Oppenheim-Barnes, B.

Strathcona and Mount Royal, L.

Orkney, E.

Oxfuird, V.

Strathmore and Kinghorne, E.

Pender, L.

Swinton, E.

Platt of Writtle, B.

Teviot, L.

Plummer of St. Marylebone, L.

Thomas of Gwydir, L.

Pym, L.

Thomas of Swynnerton, L.

Quinton, L.

Trumpington, B.

Reay, L.

Ullswater, V.

Renwick, L.

Waddington, L.

Rodney, L.

Wade of Chorlton, L.

Romney, E.

Westbury, L.

Selborne, E.

Wolfson, L.

Resolved in the affirmative, and amendment agreed to accordingly.
4.21 p.m.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale Lord Allen of Abbeydale moved Amendment No. 1A:
Page 1, line 13, after ("mobility") insert ("(physical and mental disablement)").
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment I should like to speak also to Amendment No. 27.
As the Bill stands only those suffering from physical disability are entitled to the higher rate of the mobility component of a disability living allowance whereas those suffering from physical or mental disability may, under certain criteria, become eligible for the lower rate. The purpose of the amendment is to bring the two provisions into line. The reasons why it is being proposed constitute a further instalment in a long-running campaign which I hope is nearing its end, seeking the full rate of mobility allowance for a comparatively small number of persons estimated at 8,000 or 9,000 with severe mental handicap and particularly severe behavioural problems.
I shall not burden the Committee with an account of the further exchanges and the various arithmetical calculations in which the Government have engaged over the past year or two. I shall rest on what the Minister said on Second Reading, and what was said in another place. In the Official Report at col. 904 on 26th February, the noble Lord, Lord Henley, said:
"If we can isolate the 8,000 or 9,000 people in the group whom MENCAP is convinced are markedly more disabled than the others who will, as I mentioned in opening the debate, come into the lower rate, then we will happily do so".
At col. 905, he said:
"If we could isolate the group identified by MENCAP—I stress that we must find a way of doing that—then we would be happy to do so".
I repeat the Minister's words:
"I stress that we must find a way of doing that".
In the Official Report of another place on 7th February at col. 474 Mr. Nicholas Scott said:
"I am on record as giving an undertaking to do my best to find a way of defining those 8,000 or 9,000 people … I am genuinely unhappy that it has not been possible so far to define such a test. The issue will not go away".
Indeed, it will not.
It is clear that the test for the lower rate of mobility allowance as set out in the proposed Section 37ZC(1) (b) falls far short of meeting the requirements of this group, which needs physical control, not just guidance and supervision, for most of the time when out of doors. As an example, the mother of one boy says, "He's a danger to himself and everyone else when out of doors unless in a car. He has no road sense whatsoever. He simply cannot be taken on to public transport". Both the mother and the father have to restrain him physically if he takes it into his head to dart across the road; and even two people may not be enough. I could give example after example, but I think that that suffices.
When at an earlier stage the Government changed their mind and decided to grant mobility allowance to the deaf-blind, they did so by regulation. However, the regulation-making power was then limited to the physically disabled. The higher rate is repeated in the proposed Section 37ZC(3) of the Bill but there is no known physical cause of the mental handicap of the group about whom I speak. If the amendments were accepted, the provisions too could be dealt with by regulation.
The test of severe mental handicap should not be too difficult to define. After all, there is a test of severe mental impairment laid down for exemption from the poll tax. While I do not deny that the wording about severe behavioural problems would not be easy if the gates were not to be opened too wide—although we would be quite willing to help—the drafting could perhaps be done at greater length in a regulation than would be appropriate in a statute. That indeed happened with regard to the deaf-blind. Since we are all agreed on the objective—and I cannot interpret the pronouncements of the Minister as meaning anything else—I cannot believe that it is beyond the wit of man to devise the words. Without the amendments the Government cannot even try. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: I am very pleased to support the amendment. As the noble Lord said, there is a long history of trying to enshrine in legislation the mobility allowance availability for severely mentally handicapped people. This Chamber accepted an amendment to that effect in 1989 which was overturned by the Government in another place.
There is no need to repeat the saga of the varying numbers produced by the Department of Social Security with regard to those who would benefit. First, it was 140,000, then 50,000. It then became 200,000 before decreasing to 50,000 again. There is confusion in understanding mental illness and mental handicap. At a late stage of the proceedings there was the mysterious case of the OPCS data tapes. Perhaps I may be allowed a wildly mixed metaphor. They appeared over the horizon like the US cavalry coming to the rescue, and ended up like the Sherlock Holmes' dog which did not bark.
Those of us who have supported the extension of the benefit to the severely mentally handicapped have never changed our view that the number would be less than 10,000. The figure is probably 8,000 to 9,000
1510
people. The figure appears at last to have been accepted by the Government. They say, not unfairly, that definition is the problem. The purpose of the amendment is to give the Government the chance through regulation to solve that problem. I am sure the Minister knows that we are all anxious to help in that task.
The amendment gives the Government a chance to find the right definition. However, if the Minister accepts the amendment will he consider that there is a firm commitment to find the definition through regulation and thereby help such people? I do not doubt the Minister's good intentions but we should not wish to find that the department had accepted the amendment with the understanding that it would enshrine the definition in regulation only to find that this was impossible.
The cost is low; it is less than £8 million. Such people will receive the new lower rate of mobility allowance; so the difference will be the increase in the rate. It is worth an additional £19.10p per week—that is almost £1,000 per year—to 8,000 or 9,000 people.
In recent times the Government have tried hard to deal with the problem. I hope that at last the Minister will accept the amendment so that we can protect these severely handicapped people.
4.30 p.m.
Lord Winstanley: I support the amendment. It is not necessary to prolong the discussion. On many occasions the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, has addressed the Chamber on the subject most movingly. He has given detailed examples of the people in this group about whom he is anxious.
We then get into the numbers game and ask how many such people there are. The nub of the problem is that we are discriminating against the mentally handicapped and the mentally ill. We constantly deny that, but in practice we do so, partly because their disability, profound though it may be, is not as visible as some physical disabilities.
I am informed by the Spastics Society that four years ago Mr. John Major, then the Minister responsible, approved the extension of the mobility allowance equivalent to the higher rate of mobility component to this group of people. That was subject to confirmation by a DHSS survey of the small number of people likely to benefit. Four years is plenty of time in which to ascertain the number of people concerned and I am sure that the Government know it. If it is that given by the noble Lord, Lord Allen, surely now is the time for them to agree to deal with the problem.
Lord Glenarthur: I too have a great deal of sympathy with the amendment. For about two years I was responsible for mental health and mental handicap. During that time I gained a certain knowledge of the subject and developed a good deal of sympathy for the people in this plight. Visiting a number of them and seeing the way in which they live left a deep impression on me.
The Government appear to have accepted the principle of the amendment but are stuck with the

1511
difficulty of finding a definition. Reference was made to the Office of Population Censuses and Surveys. I also had responsibility for that department and know that a finer body of people one could not find. I too cannot believe that it is beyond the wit of man nor beyond that of anyone in the OPCS to devise a system of defining more precisely where these people lie in society and how many there are.
We run the risk of missing a real, proper and sensible opportunity to make such an amendment. It is unlikely to present itself again for some time. For that reason I urge my noble friend to take firmly on board what has been said. One is providing a great stimulus to such people in giving them access to the outside world, whether by boat, vehicle or whatever. It helps them in their extremely difficult lives and it provides their carers with the opportunity to develop their limited abilities beyond the state that might otherwise be possible. I hope that the Government will be bold and go further than they have previously found possible. In doing so they will acknowledge their understanding of the plight of so many of these people.
Lord Renton: I must first declare a potential family financial interest. I have a severely disabled daughter with a mental age of two years and a natural age of 35. She is unable to walk unless held up and is unable to feed, dress and undress herself. She is completely dependent. Clause 1, which one must welcome as far as it goes, consists of six pages of complicated legislation. The proposition for helping them is relatively simple: I had hoped that it might be done more simply. However, the six pages of the clause are not the end of the story because the provisions will not come in to effect until at least three sets of regulations have been made.
For both personal and broader reasons I earnestly hope that the Government will show sympathy for the clear case that has been made, not for the first time, by the noble Lord, Lord Allen.
Lord Skelmersdale: I understand that if an acceptable definition of these particularly unfortunate people existed the amendment would be unexceptionable. The difficulty is finding a method of reaching a definition I believe that the Government are in broad agreement with MENCAP that there are between 8,000 and 9,000 such people. Naturally the Government wish to help them but do not wish to spread the net any wider.
The problem is that under the Bill the application for these benefits is based on self-assessment by the individual, by the carer or by a combination of both. That must make it more difficult to find a definition of these people whom we all agree need to be helped. I do not know a way out of the conundrum. I understand that acceptance of the amendment would put pressure on the Government to find such a definition.
After hearing what was said by my right honourable friend the Minister for Disabled People and my noble friend on the Front Bench I wonder whether any other pressure is needed. The Government have expressed a genuine desire to help
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these disadvantaged people. In the circumstances is it necessary to press the amendment at this stage? I should prefer to give the Government a little more time—say, until Report —to reach a sensible solution. They have already accepted existence of the problem and wish to deal with it. I should rather take that course than push them at this stage.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: Perhaps I may rub in the fact that on previous occasions we have tried to amend the statute to include this provision. I accept that our efforts have not done the trick. We are now proposing that that should be done by regulations in which there can be a wider spread; and it is perhaps more practicable to find a satisfactory definition which can be interpreted by those who must operate the scheme in the field. If we miss this opportunity, we should be driven to try to achieve our aim by statute which so far we have failed to do.
Lord Auckland: I live in Surrey where there are seven large mental hospitals. It is very rare that parliamentary draftsmen can be accused of drafting concise legislation. The usual accusation is that amendments and Bills are far too long. This clause is extremely vague and I believe that the amendment is right to spell out quite specifically "physical and mental disablement".
In the clause there is no specification as to who is covered. Those who have had experience of hospitals for the mentally handicapped—as I have—would surely agree that the least any government can do is to include the words of the amendment in the Bill.
Lord Carter: In response to the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, we need Amendment No. 27 to insert the words "or mental" in order to bring that into regulations. I believe that is so. Perhaps the Minister will confirm that.
4.45 p.m.
Lord Henley: Clearly I should like to reiterate the points made by my noble friends Lord Glenarthur and Lord Skelmersdale. We have taken that on board and have accepted that if the group of some 8,000 or 9,000 people spoken of by MENCAP can be defined then we should be prepared to come forward with an amendment to cover them.
However, as I said on Second Reading, there is a problem as regards definition. The problem has moved on somewhat since our debates of last year and the year before, as the noble Lord, Lord Allen, will remember. We are now debating the matter in a different and better context. One reason for introducing the new lower rate mobility component in DLA is that the OPCS evidence has pointed to substantial numbers of people with relatively low incomes who have mobility problems which are not severe enough to get them into mobility allowance but who nevertheless entail extra costs. I know we may differ about the extent of these extra costs, and about the coverage that the existing benefits give, but I think it is fair to say that the principle of having a disability benefit which gives better recognition of the fact that there are degrees of disability has been generally welcomed.

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This amendment really raises the question of whether, within that sizeable population—150,000 or so—who will certainly now be eligible for the lower rate, we can identify a much smaller group whose mobility needs and costs are so great as to justify giving them the higher rate—currently mobility allowance. I stress the phrase "we can identify" because I think in all fairness Members of the Committee should recognise that that, understandably, has to be the focus of the Government's attention.
It is not that we sit in our ivory towers disbelieving what MENCAP and the Spastics Society tell us about the numbers whom they have in mind. The problem is, and always has been, how to distinguish the group they have in mind from the much larger numbers of people, whom we all acknowledge exist, who have mental disabilities, whether mental illness or mental handicap, severe enough for them to require guidance or supervision for most of the time.
The bulk of the people whom we expect to qualify for the lower rate are people who suffer from mental disabilities. As my right honourable friend the Minister pointed out in another place, really very sizeable numbers of these people have what are, by anyone's standards, distressingly severe behavioural problems. For example, 50,000 adults were identified by OPCS as getting "so upset that they hit other people or themselves" and 25,000 children were "aggressive, violent-tempered or destructive and scream or shout most of the time every day". These figures may surprise the Committee; they somewhat surprised us when we looked at this when devising the DLA. But I must say I cannot see why the OPCS research should have come up with significant over-estimates of the numbers of people with behavioural problems of this severity.
Once one reaches these sorts of levels of behavioural problems, I hope the Committee will acknowledge that there are genuine difficulties in splitting off the much smaller group of people which MENCAP and others believe to be their target group. I recognise of course that they, and as I understand it, Members of the Committee are solely referring to those who are mentally handicapped and are not seeking to incorporate the sizeable numbers of mentally ill people whose problems can at least be less permanent.
Even so, we have to be clear on this. Very many people with mental handicaps who appear in the 75,000-strong groups I cited earlier—adults who injure themselves, and violent and aggressive children—are people who must be outside the group which MENCAP wants us to identify. The Committee will, I think, understand that to find a definition which excludes people in these situations is no easy matter.
The noble Lord, Lord Allen, quite rightly cited the example in the community charge provisions of severe mental impairment. However, I believe that the noble Lord has inadvertently made the point which I seek to make. About 100,000 people qualify for exemption
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from the community charge on those grounds. Clearly, that is far broader than the group which MENCAP wishes us to identify.
We have never said that it cannot be done. Our intuitive belief is that organisations like MENCAP and the Spastics Society will have the deepest knowledge of the needs of these people and will be best able to help us in trying to draw distinctions within the broader groups. But I have to say that we do not believe that previous amendments that have been tabled referring to the need for "physical control" have met the purpose.
I appreciate and welcome the fact that noble Lords opposite are recognising our genuine difficulties here and are therefore not at this stage trying to pin us down to a specific form of words on the face of the Bill. But in all honesty I do not think that this is an amendment we can or should accept. For one thing, I do not believe it actually works. As we understand the problem, it is not necessarily the case that a person with this degree of mental handicap is in fact unable or virtually unable to walk. So, if we amend the legislation in the way suggested we would not pick up the group which could walk but those who needed really very severe restraint or control in order to do so.

I do not believe that it would be responsible to accept the amendment, to say nothing of the costs which the noble Lord, Lord Carter, raised. He seemed to believe that that cost would be very small. We estimate that the cost could be substantially in excess of £100 million. We do not believe that it would be responsible to accept such an amendment.
Lord Carter: My estimate was based on figure of 8,000 to 9,000 people. The difference between the higher and lower rates is about £20 per week. Therefore, if my estimate is accepted, the cost would be under £8 million.
Lord Henley: As my right honourable friend and others have said, and I repeat, we accept the principle but there is a problem of definition. That is why it would not be responsible to accept an amendment which might cost far more. It would not be responsible to accept an amendment unless and until we feel we have found a satisfactory form of words to isolate the right group. I am happy to reiterate the commitment given by my right honourable friend the Minister in another place that if we can isolate the group to which Members of the Committee have referred, then we shall do so. I freely admit that we are unhappy because we have not yet managed to do that. However, I ask the Committee to trust me because the department has expanded considerable effort in trying to do that, and will continue to do so.
My noble friend Lord Skelmersdale pointed out that there are two weeks until we deal with the Report stage. Following the announcement by my noble friend the Chief Whip, we shall have an extra week's holiday at Easter and therefore I believe that Third Reading will be that much later after Easter. That will allow more time if Members of the Committee wish to meet either my right honourable friend or myself to see whether a solution can be found. However, I do

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not believe that that would necessarily be the right way forward at this time. I have given an assurance that if we can isolate that 8,000 to 9,000 we shall do so. However, this amendment would not be the right way forward. I hope that the noble Lord will accept what I have said and feel able to withdraw his amendment on this occasion.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: I am rather at a loss to understand what is being proposed. We have gone back to all these figures of 100,000 and so forth. I thought the Government had agreed that we were talking about a group of 8,000 to 9,000. Is the Minister now suggesting that we postpone a decision? Is he saying that when we have found the solution it is to be done by regulation, as was done for the deaf and the blind? If so, this would require an amendment somewhat along the lines that we are suggesting. Alternatively, is the noble Lord suggesting that something might be put on the face of the Bill? I just do not know.
Lord Henley: The noble Lord is quite right that we could not do it merely by regulation without an amendment. Something would need to be on the face of the Bill. That is why I was trying to stress that this Bill is not being rushed through in any way. My understanding is that there are something like two weeks before Report stage and, because of the length of the Easter Recess, there will have to be at least another two or three weeks after that before Third Reading. It is of course important to get some agreement on this. The noble Lord and I accept that we are trying to isolate the same group, but I do not think that it would be right to take a decision on this today. I have given the noble Lord an assurance that there is still time to talk and that we hope to come forward with an amendment, if it is possible to do so, at a later stage.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: Perhaps the Minister could answer my question. Is he talking about doing this by regulation in the end or is he talking about putting something on the face of the Bill?
Lord Henley: I have answered that particular point. I said that it could not be done simply by regulation unless we put something in the Bill. Thereafter, having agreed on that, this is something which I imagine could be on the face of the Bill or be done by regulation; but certainly something has to go into the Bill. I have accepted that point whatever happens.
Lord Renton: Perhaps my noble friend would clarify one matter, because it is the prevailing matter in this discussion. He has said that if a suitable formula could be found which would cover only the 8,000 of 9,000, the Government would be happy to have that written into the Bill. Is he expecting other people to work out that formula so that he can either accept it or, with the aid of his officials, knock it down; or will he, with all the expertise at his disposal, work out the formula and then assure us that all will be well?
Lord Henley: I said that over the months we had made considerable efforts in the department to try to come forward with a formula and I have apologized
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for the fact that we have failed to do so. That is why I invited others to come forward with their expertise and suggestions. I appreciate that my noble friend praises the expertise in the department, but we have not been able to resolve this. We shall continue to try, but we shall also listen to the advice of noble Lords and to those organisations for which they speak.
I cannot promise that the Government will come forward with an amendment but I have given an assurance that if we can isolate that group of 8,000 to 9,000, we shall meet that commitment. However, we must make sure—we have a responsibility to do this—that the group is properly identified. We are dealing with very large sums of taxpayers' money and I do not think it right that an amendment should be accepted which does not properly identify the group which is then allowed to expand and go out of control.
Lord Hailsham of Saint Marylebone: I have been trying to follow this Bill but I am not sure that I have quite reached the point where I understand it fully. I was present on an earlier occasion some months ago when this matter came up for decision by your Lordships and there was a discussion. I understood then that there was a disparity between what was proposed in what is now the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, and the Government as to the numbers of people involved in the question. The disparity at that stage was very great indeed. I could quite understand that one did not know at that stage whether one was talking about £100 million or £10 million, and at that time I was entirely on the side of the Government. But we have moved on from there. If I have got this rather complicated drafting right, there are two components to be considered in the first two sections: one is the care and the other is the mobility.
Both of them at one stage or another in the definitions on page 2 of the Bill contain a mental factor, which is on the face of the Bill. I understand, though I may be wrong, that when we look at the subsequent pages we realise that nothing much can be done until regulations are passed by the Secretary of State. If that is a correct view, I can quite see why my noble friend wants to postpone a decision at this Committee stage, when it is still open to discuss the matter on Report. However, I should have thought it was not beyond the wit of man to insert on the face of the Bill a phrase which would enable the last stage—namely, the regulatory stage—to be the effective trigger in respect of the concession.
I thought that was the only point which the noble Lord, Lord Allen of Abbeydale, was trying to make in moving the amendment. I may have misunderstood, but I should have thought that this was capable of agreement. I am not ever wholly familiar with the Companion to the Standing Orders and with what is precluded on Report after discussion at Committee, but I should have thought it was possible for both parties to come to an arrangement whereby there need not be a Division at this stage and that the matter could be proceeded with on Report, as my noble friend suggests. If I am wrong, of course I shall be the first to concede it.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: Perhaps I could try again. Under the Bill there are two rates of mobility allowance: one of £10 a week and one of £29.10, if I have got the figure right. Our argument is that some 8,000 people who suffer from the most appalling behavioural difficulties should get the higher rate instead of the lower rate. That cannot be done unless the relevant clause is amended so as to enable people who suffer from mental disablement as well as those who suffer from physical disablement to get the higher rate. There is a provision that the lower rate is available to those who suffer from physical or mental disablement. There is no provision that those who suffer from mental disablement can qualify for the higher rate. The Bill says that circumstances may be prescribed by the Secretary of State in which a person can be taken to satisfy either of those conditions. The sole purpose of the amendment I have moved, and which has had a good deal of support, is to enable the Secretary of State to prescribe circumstances applying to these 8,000 people.
The noble Lord, Lord Henley, said, if I heard him aright, that it can be done. My feeling is that it is a terrible thing for this Committee to say that 8,000 people who are suffering from the most appalling behavioural problems, with all that that involves for their families, and with severe mental handicap, should be precluded from getting the higher rate simply because we cannot find the words. I suggest that if it is done by regulation, as can be done if this amendment is accepted, you can spell it out and have quite a long definition and be quite sure that you are limiting it to the 8,000 and not opening the doors any wider. That is the simple issue we have been discussing.
5 p.m.
Lord Henley: I think I should come in. We are close to agreement but not close to agreement on this amendment as being the way forward. I have accepted that the Government could not make the necessary regulations without an amendment and that we need an amendment. What I am trying to say is two things. First, it would be wrong to bring in this amendment until we are sure that we can get the regulations right. I have given my commitment that we accept the figure of 8,000 or 9,000, but we must isolate it. No responsible government could bring forward an amendment that is going to produce a figure much greater than that.
The second point is that this amendment does not do the trick. Only the mentally disabled people who are unable, or virtually unable, to walk would qualify. As we understand it, it may mean that MENCAP's target group can walk but that they cannot reach any sort of destination, and the amendment does not achieve the purpose that the noble Lord is setting out. If we could talk further between now and Report stage, because I have given the commitment that we have accepted a figure of 8,000 or 9,000, I am sure we can come forward with something, but we must come forward with an amendment that will closely identify the proper target group and not go wider than that.
Lord Winstanley: I have listened most carefully, but perhaps I am a bit slow in following the noble Lord's arguments, although I am doing my best. Bearing in mind that we appear to agree on the objective and that we share the common aim to do this, and bearing in mind that the noble Lord has said that everything would depend in the end on the precise nature of the regulations—and regulations will have to be framed—can he tell me in simple terms what damage it would do if we passed this amendment?
Lord Henley: My understanding in simple terms is that this amendment would not allow us to make the regulations that the noble Lord is seeking. What I say is that we must come forward with a different amendment, and before we come forward with a different amendment we must be sure that we can identify the appropriate group.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: I am sorry to prolong this, but can the noble Lord help us a bit more about what might be the appropriate sort of amendment? Is he still talking about doing this on the face of the Bill, or is he following the precedent of the blind and deaf? I still do not understand this.
Lord Henley: We would be quite prepared to do it by means of regulations. If the noble Lord would find it more convenient to discuss it on the Floor of the House during the course of the Bill, he might prefer to come forward with an amendment at Report stage to put it on the face of the Bill.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): Before my noble friend decides what to do, may I ask a question because I, along with a great many other people, are confused by this? Was the noble Lord saying about two interventions back that the phrase "virtually unable to walk" was the sticking point?
Lord Henley: I would have to take further advice on this, but my understanding is that that is a problem at the moment with the way that this amendment has been drafted and the effect it would have on any regulations laid as a result of the amendment.
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: I think that is a view that we might wish to challenge, but I do not think there is much point in continuing the argument. I am quite prepared to withdraw the amendment and leave it for further consideration at Report. But I would like to put on record that, as I understand it, the Government now accept that what we are talking about is some 8,000 people; that there has been rather wild talk about cost to public funds, but the sums we are talking about are something less than £8 million; and that the Government would look sympathetically on an amendment enabling this to be done by regulation provided the powers are made clearly enough and provided there is some idea of what would be put in the regulation. Is that an accurate understanding?
Lord Henley: I can accept what the noble Lord has said. We have accepted a figure of 8,000 or 9,000. The problem is one of definition. If we can define that, as I and others have said, we would be quite prepared to accept an amendment.
Baroness Seear: It may be rather improper for me to come in at this stage as I was not here at the

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beginning of the debate on this clause. However, as I understand it, what we need is something on the face of the Bill which authorises the regulation, and that has to be in a form which makes an appropriate regulation possible. Am I right in that? I think I am.
If that is so, may I ask the noble Lord why new Section 37ZC(1) (b) is not adequate? Subsection (1) (a) refers to not being able to walk. Subsection (1) (b) refers to
"able to walk but is so severely disabled physically or mentally that to take advantage of the faculty out of doors he requires guidance or supervision".
Is that not enough to provide the basis for the regulation?
Lord Allen of Abbeydale: I do not know whether it is for me to answer that, but I touched on this in my opening speech. The test set out in paragraph (b) falls far short of what meets the requirements of these people with particular behavioural difficulties. They require much more than guidance and supervision from another person for most of the time. They have to be physically restrained and might have to be controlled by two people when they are out of doors because no one knows what they are going to do.
If one rested on paragraph (b) as it stood the doors would be opened much too wide. We are as anxious as the Government to limit this strictly so that it defines as clearly as possible the perhaps 8,000 candidates, if I can me that word, that we have been talking about. In the light of the discussion, I think that we are not going to get much further today, and I shall ask leave to withdraw the amendment but we shall certainly be coming back at a later stage.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 2:
Page 1, line 13, at end insert ("and a laundry component,").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 2 I shall also speak to Amendments Nos. 3 to 9, 11 and then 13 to 19.
Lord Henley: I told the noble Lord that I would intervene at this stage to make the point that I accept that we shall be speaking to all of these amendments as one group because they are all linked, but any decision by the Committee on each amendment would obviously have to be taken separately. A decision on one particular amendment would not necessarily bind the Committee in any way on any of the later amendments. I hope the noble Lord will accept that.
Lord Carter: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I should be extremely surprised if he said anything else in the circumstances of this rather large group of amendments. The best way to deal with it, as a number of noble Lords have their names to different amendments concerning the different components of extra cost, would be if I were to say a few words on the general argument about extra costs in toto, as it were, then speak briefly to the two amendments regarding laundry and heating to which I have attached my name, leaving other noble Lords then to deal with the amendments with the particular extra cost components with which they are concerned.
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We made a point at Second Reading that there is a need for a disability living allowance. In our view the DLA only covers the care and mobility costs. There are many other disability-related costs that we feel are not covered, and that is the reason for the successive amendments under the various extra cost components dealing with laundry, heating, communication, domestic help, diet and the rest.
It seems that the Government's attitude to this, as revealed in the other place, relies on the OPCS data regarding costs. I quote from a letter from the department to Mrs. Brown of the Norfolk Association for the Disabled—I have her permission to do so—which says:
"You make the point that the DLA does not include specific allowances for the extra costs of, for example, clothing, diet and heating. The overwhelming evidence from the OPCS surveys was that need for help with attendance or mobility often accompanied other disabilities. In that way, the care and the mobility components in DLA are well targeted on the more severely disabled people".
In effect the Government are saying that there is a need for help with attendance and mobility costs, so help will probably be needed with other disability costs. Therefore, help will be given with attendance and mobility costs. That is the logic of the Government's argument. It seems to me that that argument is completely circular. It is either a syllogism, tautology or perhaps both. I cannot see the logic of the Government's position: because there are people who need help with the costs of mobility and care and who also have other disabilities which are not caught by the Bill, helping them with care and mobility helps them with the other costs of disability. After all, the qualifying criteria are for the needs of care and mobility. How can the DLA be expected to cover these other extra costs?
The OPCS revealed that 87 per cent. of people with disabilities living in private households are not receiving a mobility allowance or an attendance allowance. One-third of the people in categories 8, 9 and 10 of the OPCS survey involving the most severely disabled did not receive a mobility or attendance allowance. I know that the Government rely on the OPCS figures. I am sure that the Minister will refer to them when he replies. Expenditure of £6.10p per week is the average extra expenditure for a disabled person. We feel that that provision is faulty in its methodology. The Social Security Advisory Committee made a report in 1988 which states:
"The UK system recognises … some of the extra costs of disability through payment of attendance allowance for care needs and mobility allowance for mobility needs. However there are many needs which go unmet".
The Family Expenditure Survey (Disability, Household Income and Expenditure) found that,
"fuel and services (especially domestic service) are important areas of extra spending for disabled people".
Other areas in order of magnitude include expenditure on housing costs, food, durables, bedding, gadgets, aids, appliances and the telephone. Disabled people are also poor people. We have evidence that the average income of disabled people is much less than the average for the community as a whole. The OPCS asked people who were poor how much they spent. We feel the question should have been how much extra

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cost would have been incurred if there was sufficient help to meet the extra cost of disability in order to allow the disabled person to live a decent life.
The family expenditure survey said that the,
"actual spending by disabled people is considerably lower than for other households because of their low incomes. Disabled people face extra costs, but on average, differences in spending are relatively small".
That is a situation which was picked up by the OPCS. If people who are poor are asked how much they actually spend on the extra cost of disability, the question arises that if the money is not available, it cannot be spent. The survey should have tried to discover what would be the extra cost of disability if the disabled were to be given a decent life.
I am sure that the Minister is familiar with the survey conducted by the Disabled Income Group (DIG) which revealed just how much extra cost severely disabled people incur. That survey provides valuable information. The OPCS survey covered a whole range of disabilities and then the figure was averaged out over the whole range. DIG dealt only with the most severely disabled. The DIG method was concerned with people who were more aware of the cost of their disability. If I ask noble Lords how much extra they spent on heating during the recent cold spell, I am sure that every one would have difficulty in replying without further research. That is almost what the OPCS survey discovered in the time for each interview, instead of looking at the documents and having the time to find out how much extra expenditure was required.
The average income of the DIG sample was much higher, at £182 per week in 1989 compared with £82 per week in the OPCS survey in 1985. As I said, what one does not have one cannot spend. When the Minister replies can he say what the Government's attitude is in this area of extra cost? Is the difficulty the cost of meeting these amendments, the complexity in attempting to define and deal with the extra costs, or both?
This morning I received a communication from the National Consumer Council which states:
"Our reasons for supporting all these amendments are essentially the same. They are, that failure to recognise the special needs of disabled people would lead to their being denied access to goods and services on an equal footing with other consumers. We are not asking for preferential treatment but for recognition of particular needs in order to uphold the principle of equity to which my Council attaches great importance".
Those were the general points about the extra cost as a whole. I shall be extremely brief because I know that the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), will speak about laundry and other noble Lords will speak about heating. I wish to say a few words about those two extra costs in order to save me having to intervene later in the debate. We know that laundry is a particular problem for certain disabilities, for example, incontinence, dribbling, vomiting, the spilling of things and falling over, with effects on clothes and so on. There is also the problem of perspiration and the effect on clothing, bed clothes and upholstery.
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I have already said that by definition the care components help with the cost of care but not the extra cost of such things as laundry. I have received valuable information from both the Spastics Society and MENCAP. There is one example from the Spastics Society, from the mother of Danny. She says:
"Danny's always had a problem with feeding and being sick. Constantly—his clothes being washed all the time. My clothes being washed all the time, because he's sick on them. His bedclothes being washed all the time. The sheets —you go through sheets like no-one's business because they're always in and out of the washing machine".
There is also evidence from MENCAP. It points out that the health service's research unit at the University of Kent made a study of families with children with a mental handicap. It found that 50 per cent. of families said that there was more expense than normal on laundry. I wish to refer to one example among many regarding a family which has mental handicap in it:
"Although we use 'modern day incontinence items', we still use far more water than a normal family would use. Daily washing of clothes and often daily washing of bedlinen due to incontinence, is necessary, as is almost constant bottom and hands washing. Hygiene has to become a way of life, therefore extra washing of towels, flannels, toilet and bathroom equipment is very necessary".
Those of us who have experience in our own families of dealing with severely handicapped people can recognise the strength of that quotation.
I turn equally briefly to the subject of heating. The need for the amendment that deals with heating was underlined by the Minister, Mr. Nicholas Scott, in Standing Committee E on 6th December 1990 in the other place. He said:
"People who have mobility needs will of course often need assistance with costs such as heating, because their immobility will make them more subject to fluctuations in temperature".
The mentally handicapped are perhaps less mobile and spend much more time indoors either sitting or lying down. They feel the cold more. The house has to be kept much warmer. Many of us are familiar with that situation. There is a fear of extra heating bills in the families that have these problems. It can result in considerable discomfort for the disabled because the family is frightened to turn up the heating in order to make the disabled person comfortable. We have heard about the likely increases in electricity charges. They will present a problem.
We have had experience of payments for the elderly and the disabled because of the recent severe weather. For many of the disabled that is a need all the year round. I ask the Minister to say where the disabled and their carers are supposed to find the money for these extra costs. I have referred to only two examples. I am sure that other noble Lords will give further examples of other extra costs included in this group. If the Government reject these amendments, will the Minister say whether the rejection is on the grounds that they would cost too much, their complexity, or both? I beg to move.
5.15 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): As I added my name to the amendment concerning the laundry component perhaps I may speak next. I wholeheartedly support this group of amendments which are essential if we are

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to move towards a realistic disablement costs allowance. The noble Lord has given a splendidly broad picture of the general argument. I shall certainly not add to it. I shall home in directly on Amendment No. 2. I was particularly keen to add my name to the amendment concerning the laundry component. As a paraplegic I know very well that the extra laundry engendered by incontinence is not something that can be skimped without the risk of pressure sore or skin problems.
As the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said, people with cerebral palsy also have particular problems. He enumerated the various reasons for needing extra laundry. It can mean washing or dry cleaning not only of the disabled person's clothes but the clothes of the carers, bed clothes, chair covers, carpets and so on. It also means buying, maintaining and frequently replacing laundry equipment. If one cannot wash and dry clothes quickly and efficiently extra costs arise through having to have a double or triple supply of sheets, towels and clothes. It is a real and unavoidable extra cost. The same applies to each of these components, but payment would only be made to the person who had the specific need. That is why I support the amendments.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: Before the Minister replies, I have my name down to one or two amendments on the cost of clothing—a slightly different issue from laundry but interrelated. If one is always laundering one's clothes they will wear out much quicker than if one is not doing so.
I should like to say a few words relating to a 1984 survey I by Judith Buckle about which the Government may or may not know. The survey was entitled Mental Handicap Costs More. I shall talk only about the mentally handicapped and their families. I shall be very brief on the subject of clothing but I can say without fear of being contradicted that more clothes are needed when a person feels cold. Often, coldness is a feature of disability, and a very important one. Shoes wear out more quickly with extra wear and tear. Some shoes cost more in the first place because they have to be specially made to fit. We have heard also about people with severe mental handicaps who tear their clothes. One cannot put anything on them because they tear their clothes straight off. Therefore more clothes have to be bought or the clothes that have been torn off have to be mended. It is a number of such factors which add up to a very considerable extra cost per year. Clothes wear out more quickly and more sets of clothes are needed because of incontinence and messiness.
Judith Buckle discovered that threequarters of the sample families in her survey required extra clothes. When the study was made in 1984 it was found that £80 a year was the cost of the expenditure on extra clothes. On the assumption that prices have risen 50 per cent. since 1984, the figure would now be £120. I instance the figures to show that it is certainly not a negligible sum of money, especially to those who are on income support. I would add my own penny's worth to the many pounds' worth adduced by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, and the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth).
Lord Swinfen: In this group of amendments there are two in my name which deal with the problems of communication. I am thinking not only of people who are deaf, deaf-blind, and blind but of those with dyslexia, a rather hidden form of disability which people tend to ignore, thinking that the individual is daft, when very often he is incredibly intelligent.
Deaf people often have to buy special equipment to overcome their lack of hearing. For example, they need specially adapted telephones, where messages can be typed and not spoken. They need door bells and smoke alarms that flash lights. I could continue at length but time is moving on. They often incur additional travel costs in order to be able to communicate directly with people. They cannot use an ordinary telephone and the person at the other end may not have the kind of telephone that communicates with their telephone. On occasions they need an interpreter to translate between sign language and English.
The deaf-blind are doubly impaired. When conducting important business they may need to take with them a companion to interpret. The blind face considerable difficulties in communicating with other people. One of the hidden disabilities is dyslexia. The dyslexic individual very often cannot complete the forms necessary to obtain the benefits to which he has a right. I have recently been told about a dyslexic individual who went to the Department of Social Security office and said that he could not fill in the form because he could not write. He was told in a very loud voice, "If you cannot write you need to fill in this other form or get someone to fill it in for you". That was not only thoroughly unhelpful but rather demeaning at the same time. In general I support this whole group of amendments.
5.30 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: I am not sure whether we are supposed to be speaking in strict batting order on this group of amendments. However, as they have been grouped, I shall speak principally to Amendments Nos.7 and 19 which stand in my name and in the names of the noble Lords, Lord Banks and Lord Carter.
At Second Reading the noble Lord, Lord Henley, reiterated the Government's intention to resist any idea of a reversion to the complexities, as he described them, of the previous system. He also said:
"Care and mobility needs represent the common denominator between the most frequently occurring and the most expensive of the disability related costs which people incur".
He then added rather mysteriously:
"the more expensive disabilities were the least common"—[Official Report, 26/2/91; col. 904.]
I believe that those words came from the report to which reference has been made.
That statement leaves out of account a whole raft of costs which are also expensive. They are not and cannot be covered in blanket fashion by either the care or the mobility component or a combination of both. By definition they are awarded for those purposes and they will be largely absorbed by those purposes. They

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are not presumably intended as jam to be spread more thinly over a larger loaf. Nor is it correct to say that the most expensive disabilities are the least common when, on the Government's own admission, in a Written Answer to Mr. Alf Morris on 28th February, Mr. Scott said:
"We anticipate that around 240,000 people will be eligible for the new lower rate of the care component of the disability living allowance and that around 60,000 of these will be people who need a special diet".—[Official Report, Commons, 28/2/91; col. 610.]
It is to stretch language to suggest that the requirement of 60,000 people for a special diet which is expensive as I shall show is an uncommon disability.
At Second Reading I gave some figures for the costs of a high protein high calorie diet which is required by 80 per cent. of HIV or AIDS patients when they reach what doctors call Category 4, which is the transition point from HIV positive to what is sometimes called full-blown AIDS. The life expectancy from that point is currently in the region of 10 to 20 months. Therefore, such people will not initially be covered by the new arrangements for the terminally ill, as Mr. Scott seemed to suppose, erroneously, on Report in another place.
As regards the costs involved, I do not like to repeat myself but some aspects need to be repeated. In 1991 a joint initiative by the Terrence Higgins Trust and the Bloomsbury Health Authority found that the mean weekly cost of a standardised high protein high calorie diet in London amounted to £42. That figure is very much in line with the costing by the Royal Victoria Infirmary in Newcastle upon Tyne of a diet suitable for someone with AIDS who is living alone—namely, £32.75 at 1988 prices. In that year, 1988, the self-help organisation, Front Liners, produced a figure of £34.20. It will be seen that all those estimates converge on a figure of around £40 at current prices.
At this stage of the proceedings I should like to instance a concrete case reported by the Citizens Advice Bureaux about a man suffering from AIDS. He was 43 years of age and had spent three months in hospital. He was only eligible for £36.70 income support and he did not, at the time, qualify for disability premium or attendance allowance. After discharge from hospital he was housed temporarily in a local authority homeless persons unit. A community care grant met only half of his essential needs for furniture and household equipment when he moved into permanent accommodation. He had no warm clothing and had to rely upon charitable donations. The fact that he suffered from diarrhoea and incontinence meant that he had to meet the additional cost of the washing of bedding and clothing to which reference has already been made. A high calorie and high protein diet was recommended but, together with the other costs we have mentioned, it was impossible for him to afford it. Indeed, he spent much of his time in bed trying to keep warm and frequently had no meal at all during the day.
That is a matter to which I hope the Government will address themselves, and I hope that the noble Lord will do so in his reply. What happens to such people when they can no longer cope? Clearly they will
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eventually go back into hospital. But surely it is an extremely inefficient use of hospital resources for a person who could live in the community with a little more help to block a hospital bed. Such a situation makes it less likely than ever that the Government will achieve their aim of reducing the number of people on the waiting lists. They have been remarkably unsuccessful in that respect.
Since the separation of the Department of Health and Social Security, which was no doubt desirable, a frontier has inevitably been traced between the two departments. One hopes that it will not be a closed frontier. If the noble and delightful Baroness, who is the Minister's opposite number in the other side of that divide, were present in the Chamber she would no doubt confirm the fact that waiting lists are a prime target of government policy. If the Department of Social Security will not address itself more urgently to the meaningful enablement of independent living her department's aims are doomed to disappointment. Such matters cannot be resolved if the left hand of the Government does not know what the right hand is doing. Those two hands must come together.
I spoke about AIDS sufferers because I have special knowledge of their plight. However, in terms of numbers, those people suffering from diabetes, liver or kidney disease and malabsorption syndrome are much more numerous. Indeed, we have heard the Government's own estimate of 60,000 sufferers who require special diets. Some of those diets are quite different from those required by HIV or AIDS sufferers; nevertheless, they are expensive. The Diabetics' Association calculates a figure in the region of £30 to £40 for a healthy diet. Moreover, some liver conditions require a very expensive low sodium diet which means that everything has to be fresh and nothing tinned can be eaten other than fruit. Kidney sufferers also require a restricted sodium low protein and low fat diet with similarly expensive implications.
The general picture for all special diets of whatever variety is that they do not come cheap—£30 to £40 a week is the average range. This afternoon I telephoned the dieticians in three London hospitals; namely, St. Thomas's Hospital, the Royal Free Hospital and the Bloomsbury community care team in the National Temperance Hospital. They all agree that it is crucial that the dietary needs of patients in the community should be supported financially. For many people their diet is an absolutely vital part of the treatment.
Finally, if the noble Lord accepts the figures I have put forward—I believe that he must do so in general orders of magnitude because in my speech on Second Reading I demolished the figures upon which the Government had been working—and refuses to go back to the old system (I believe that he may do so) then he is obliged to tell us how he supposes that independent living can be maintained for those concerned in the sort of cases which I have mentioned. Perhaps he will tell the Committee that the independent living fund, of which mention was made earlier and which, as I understand it, is at present restricted to those receiving the higher rate of attendance allowance, can be widened and adapted to take account of the miscellaneous claims which are the

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subject of these amendments. However, at some point he must bring forward a solution, otherwise we shall find it difficult to accept that the Government are seriously committed to the policy of independent living for disabled people.
Lord Skelmersdale: I am rather sorry that there is no former Secretary of State for Social Security, or of the DHNS as it was in the old days, present in the Committee. It has always been my belief, in the development of social security policy, that one must have cognisance, first, of the desirability of future actions, secondly, of the practical issues and, thirdly, of the expense involved. Moreover, since the 1986 Act, the Government have added to those considerations the complexity argument. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, and I have had many arguments in the past about complexity.
I believe that the 1986 Act was actually based upon the premise of KISS. I think that I should explain that concept now as it appears that I have confused the noble Baroness opposite. KISS stands for "keep it simple, stupid". I should stress at once that I am not addressing any Members of the Committee in that way, or any of those involved in the excellent organisations which represent the needs and objectives of disabled people.
Many of the subjects covered by the amendments before us were additions to supplementary benefit under an earlier regime. It has been a long-term aim of noble Lords opposite, and of the disability organisations, to get them returned in one form or another. There is no doubt that, judged against the criterion of desirability, many people would have need of certain of these extra benefits. They are desirable.
I was moderately encouraged by the remarks made by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on Second reading. At the beginning of his speech he said:
"I believe that it is correct that there will now be no fewer than 11 possible combinations of benefit under the DLA".—[Official Report, 26/2/91; col. 887.]
Later—I accept that it is the middle of a sentence but I hope that it is not out of context—he continued that,
"no fewer than 11 combinations of allowances … included in one overall benefit represents a positive merry-go-round of benefits".— [Col. 888.]
I took some comfort from those remarks, as no doubt did my noble friend on the Front Bench. I assumed that he had become an afficionado of the KISS principle.
Lord Carter: If the noble Lord reads on he will note that in his reply the Minister explained—though it was a bit of a tease—that the system will be similar in effect to that involving the one claim form, and so on. I accept that fact.
Lord Skelmersdale: In my view, that simplicity of operation must be carried forward into the rest of the social security system. There is no doubt in my mind that DLA is as simple as it is possible to make it. As I understand it, not only will it be simple but it will also be based, as we explored previously, on the basis of self-assessment. Moreover, it will benefit about 300,000 people, as my noble friend said on an earlier
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occasion, who currently receive no extra help with the cost of their disability. They will gain to the tune of £10 per week.
However desirable all these benefits are—I accept that they are—we have a basic complication. I say that because people will be assessing themselves as regards the need for these various additions. Clearly, any responsible organisation administering social security benefits will have to carry out a check from time to time in respect of such people on an on-the-spot basis. A complex, multi-component benefit would not be in the least compatible with self-assessment. It would inevitably require difficult subjective medical judgments about severity levels. How is the disability level measured? How do the local DSS office and the board measure it? How do we check up on it?
My noble friend has said on numerous occasions that personal care and mobility are two of the most expensive costs disabled people can incur and that it is therefore sensible to target help on those needs. The way to deal with those particular and peculiar needs is through the independent living fund mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock. I have already said that the matter should not be dealt with by the local authorities or a statutory agency run by a government organisation. It should be left severely alone. I am not trying to repeat the arguments we heard when discussing the first amendment but I believe that it would be far too difficult for a realistic and fair assessment to be made in each of the cases no matter how desirable they are, to say nothing of the cumulative expense which I cannot go into. I am sure that my noble friend on the Front Bench will do so.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I shall speak to Amendments Nos. 6 and 18. Amendment No: 18 relates to water. The extra costs, as we are all aware, and the lower income of the disabled intersect with their greater needs. As previous speakers have made clear, the disabled face extra costs because they have to spend more on the ordinary items of living such as housing. Other additional costs relate exclusively to disability; for example, medication, diet, as the noble Lord, Lord Kilmarnock, said, and medical aids. A third cluster of costs flow from the disability because people have to pay others to do what they would normally be able to do themselves. That includes cleaning, taxis and some of the communication items already referred to.
The amendment that I seek to persuade the Committee to accept differs from those three categories. It relates to water. Water bills were a relatively insignificant addition to rates. In the past they were often brigaded for council tenants with their rates and rent. After 1974, when water was removed from the local authorities, costs began to rise. In the 1980s, pressure from the environmental lobby and Europe rightly led to investment to improve water quality and better sewage treatment facilities.
As a result, water rates have been rising nationally by between 15 per cent. and 25 per cent. a year. Given that two-thirds of disabled adults live in households in which there are no earners—the household is

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dependent solely upon benefits—how well provided for are those on benefit, especially the disabled, in meeting rising water rates?
When supplementary benefit became income support, £1.65 was earmarked for water. That sum has now been absorbed into the basic benefit. Basic benefit will of course be uprated by the rate of inflation. There are three problems associated with that. The first is that even when, in 1988, that £1.65 was identified, it was an average snapshot. Many disabled were immediate losers because they were already paying water rates of between £3 and £4 a week. Secondly, the benefit has been uprated in line with inflation but, as the Committee will be aware, the inflation index excludes housing costs with which water rates are joined. Therefore, higher water rate costs—we are all aware of what they are —are not looped back into the assessment for inflation by which income support is uprated and in which the water element is embodied.
While water rates rise faster than inflation, there is no protection or addition for people receiving income support. That means that whereas water rates are now on average about 6 per cent. of income support, in a few years the NCC expects them to represent 13 per cent. In other words, water rates now are already double the 20 per cent. poll tax average levy and they will soon be three or four times that levy. One couple in their seventies in my area were without water for 18 months because they were disconnected for being unable to meet their bills, according to the local CAB.
Water is not a discretionary item. It is, as I have said, an increasingly onerous top slice off income support and disability benefit. Not only was the original snapshot an average which produced at least as many losers as gainers, with water costs rising faster than inflation there is no way for those costs to be looped back into the index by which income support and benefits are upgraded.
There is a third threat on the horizon—metering. It may or may not be rational to meter—a move which adds to the already high fixed costs of water and which can have only marginal effects on the discretionary costs of usage. We are already the second lowest per capita users of water in Europe. In more ways than one, we are the dirty people of Europe. To discourage consumption, especially for the disabled, when it reduces personal hygiene, is not wise. If consumption falls, the heavy fixed charges remain. Therefore, an increasing proportion of the costs and user charges will rise even faster than we already predict.
As the NCC's response to the OFWAT consultation paper made clear last month, the heaviest users of water are large families, the disabled and those with dirty jobs. Metering will fall heaviest upon those least able to afford it. As previous speakers have made clear, over 1 million disabled people have the heavy costs associated with incontinence—bed linen, clothes and twice daily baths. Others need a heavy water supply because of their use of kidney dialysis machines. Others have skin diseases and need baths two or three times a day. Still others suffer what we now call challenging behaviour and physically messy
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lifestyles. Metering involves not just heavy installation costs; it also involves higher standing charges. It will have a regressive effect on consumption patterns.
I urge the Minister to give an assurance that in the event of pilot schemes such as that in the Isle of Wight being extended across the country—it is expected that 96 per cent. of the country will be metered by 2000—the Government will fully protect the disabled from additional costs.
Water rates are high. They are growing higher. Existing disability benefits are being top sliced by water bills at the expense of heating, clothes and diet. Recognising that, Peter Barclay, chairman of the Social Security Advisory Committee, wrote to the Secretary of State in October 1990 calling for income support rates to rise,
"by an amount greater than would otherwise be the case to recognise the increasing burden caused by the exceptional rise in water charges"
on the grounds that water was so basic and the increases so exceptional.
OFWAT, the water regulatory body, recognises the severity of the problem but insists that not a matter for the water companies but for government. Appropriate government agencies should support necessitous customers. If the companies will not, the Government must. The right answer is to add water charges, where appropriate, to rents so that they are eligible for 100 per cent. housing benefit, or, if an applicant is not an income support claimant, to add them to the poll tax, or whatever replaces it, and then for them to be eligible for rebates along with the taper.
To meet ever increasing water rates—perhaps I may respond to the criteria for additional components set out by the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale—in that way is not complicated. It is not onerous, it does not engender problems of self-assessment and it seems to me that it pinpoints the needs that must be met. I hope that the Committee will be able to support the amendment.
Baroness Seear: Amendments Nos. 7 and 17 put the case for a component of domestic help. It seems to me self-evident that whatever else is necessary for the disabled person, it is essential to keep the house clean. Speaking as someone who is remarkably bad at doing so, I feel it is obvious that to have the floor and bath cleaned and the washing up done properly, especially if one is housebound as many disabled people are, is of the highest importance. I could do without a certain amount of care as defined in the Bill, provided the house was reasonably tidied up.
Amendments Nos. 7 and 17 propose a specific item for domestic help so that disabled people are able to pay for it if they cannot get the home help component that is difficult to obtain because there are not enough people. This is a down-to-earth addition which is of the greatest importance and I rate it highly. I hope that the Government will take it on board. I support the amendment.
Lord Henley: It may be necessary for me to speak for a short while in answering the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, asked whether we wished to reject the amendment because of its cost or complexity. I make three points. First, cost is obviously a factor that

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the Government must take into account. However, one should look at our record over the past 10 years. Our expenditure on the long-term sick and disabled has doubled in real terms to £10 billion a year. In addition, the Bill will bring in approximately a further £300 million and we can be very proud of our record as we have gradually built on our success over the years. Cost must be a factor that we take into account when Members of the Committee seek to extend the Bill in one way or another.
Complexity is the second point and we are obviously keen to minimise the complexity of DLA. As the Committee knows, we have been criticised on a number of occasions for the many combinations of rates and components of DLA. The noble Lord, Lord Carter, made this point at Second Reading. He said that it was a mere tease, but one of his honourable or right honourable friends in another place took it quite seriously.
The more complex the structure, the more difficult self-assessment will become, as my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale quite rightly pointed out. However, in the end our main point is that the amendments are unnecessary because the care and mobility components will target help on the most severely disabled people, whatever their precise needs.
There is an important area of principle between us here. The Government's intention in introducing the disability living allowance and the intentions of noble Lords in introducing their amendments are not dissimilar, but there are significant differences between the routes which we have chosen to achieve our respective ends. I am sure that all sides of the Committee would like to create a wide-reaching disability benefit which would cater for all the many possible kinds of additional expenditure which people with varying disabilities can face.
However, I wish to look briefly at just how the kind of scheme which these amendments propose would be put into practice and then compare this with the benefit which we are developing. Our benefit has been criticised because of the alleged complexity of its structure. The noble Lord teased me about this. I hope that I shall have an opportunity later in the debate to reassure the Committee that from the point of view of the claimant DLA will be a simple two-component benefit. This pales into insignificance if we consider the complexities of the scheme devised by the amendments. Were we to accept the various amendments put forward to widen the scope of the new benefit, as I understand it, there would be an extra cost benefit consisting of 10 possible components with literally hundreds —it would take a mathematician to work it out, which I am not—of possible combinations of benefit which people with disabilities could receive. Such a system would make it absolutely impossible for potential beneficiaries ever to work out what they might or might not be entitled to, or even to understand which component or combination of components of DLA they were receiving.
The groups of amendments which have been put forward recreate pretty faithfully the old supplementary benefit system with all the complexities that it
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engendered, as my noble friend Lord Skelmersdale quite rightly pointed out. However, the experience of the past has shown us that the old supplementary benefit additional requirements were not a successful way of getting cash into the hands of people with disabilities.
In order to administer the kind of benefit which the amendments propose, the claim form would be so long and complicated as to discourage all but the most determined possible beneficiary. That is something one ought to stress. Whatever other criticisms have been made of the Bill, the assessment and adjudication procedures have generally been welcomed. The Committee should bear in mind that, even with the assessment procedures proposed, probably a fairly long document will be required. If we went down the route proposed by the amendments the chances of anyone managing to provide the Department of Social Security with enough information at the first, second or even third attempt to enable adjudication officers successfully to decide upon that person's entitlement to each of the 10 different components of DLA would be slim.
I also find it difficult to imagine just how this new multi-component benefit could be adjudicated and what the conditions of entitlement would be. Just how would the extra costs incurred by people with disabilities in such widely disparate areas as laundry and diet be measured? There would, of course, have to be some kind of objective measure of comparison with the amount spent on these items by people without disabilities. Attempting to develop a benefit along these lines would do nothing to simplify the process of claiming benefit for people with disabilities. It would make it very difficult for these people to obtain the benefit to which they are entitled.
Perhaps I may touch on one or two areas of the individual amendments dealing with different components. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, raised the problem of water. I obviously cannot give her the commitment she requested. However, I ask her to look at our record. It is not true that income support for disabled people has been up-rated slowly by inflation or inflation less housing costs. One significant component of The Way Ahead package, of which this Bill is the culmination, was the increase in 1990 of more than double the rate of inflation for disability premiums within income related benefits. That takes account of the complaints made by the noble Baroness that the disabled were left out of the increases in income support.
Turning to the laundry component, were we to accept that there was a need for it we would again have to deal with the practical problems such as how we could measure the extent to which the costs incurred by people with disabilities were in excess of the expenditure incurred by people without disabilities. We should have to decide whether such extra costs were solely incurred as a result of the disability.
We should need to develop some kind of objective standard against which to measure the extra expenditure incurred by the people whom we are trying to help. This is where the old system with the

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supplementary benefit fell down. We should also have to subject people to the much more complicated procedures for adjudication and claims.
I turn to clothing and the survey by Judith Buckle, mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, Mental Handicap Costs More. No one would wish to deny that mentally handicapped people may incur extra expenditure on clothing. Again it is a question of whether a special clothing component—that attempts to isolate, first, the specific costs incurred and, secondly, the groups who should qualify for help—is the right way to proceed. The Government again believe that the extra complexity that such a provision would involve is not the right approach. I could say the same thing about heating. Added complexity would be introduced in comparing normal costs for heating with the extra costs for heating incurred by certain groups of disabled people.
I now turn to diets. We would like to be able to extend help to everyone who required a special diet. However, the important point here is that the Bill is concerned with disability. Many people who follow special diets are not disabled in any commonly accepted sense. Their diets do not, for example, prevent them from working. Many of those whose dietary disorder is linked to some other disability that, for example, prevents them from working, will qualify for one or other of the components of DLA, and the rate will depend on their disability.
6 p.m.
Lord Kilmarnock: Does the Minister agree that the Bill focuses almost entirely on care and mobility, and therefore its purpose is to help with the care of disabled people and to improve their mobility? One cannot spread the resources over all the other requirements. I gave the noble Lord some figures of up to £30 or £40 a week per person just to cover diet.
Lord Henley: I do not accept those remarks. We see the care and mobility needs as the simple gateway into benefits. I have been trying to stress the advantages of creating a simple way into benefits. We have never said that all the money available for attendance allowance and mobility allowance—the precursors of DLA—must be spent on care or mobility needs. The OPCS reports show that, if one wishes to direct resources to the most severely disabled people who incur heavy extra costs, the entitlement criteria for attendance allowance and mobility allowance provide an effective way of channelling those resources. That is the point we are making, and that is the general point of DLA. We would therefore resist including any extra components as they would add much greater complexity to the system that we have developed. We believe that the two-component system is the most sensible way forward and that it represents the best solution to the problem which besets all social security systems, which is how to construct a benefit which meets individual needs without making it so complicated that it is impossible for people to claim and it is impossible to administer.
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The OPCS (Office of Population, Censuses and Surveys) reports have provided us with an unprecedented volume of information about the circumstances of the kinds of people whom we are trying to help. Their findings have been supported by a follow-up study using the Family Expenditure Survey. The OPCS reports clearly showed that the existing extra costs benefits are well targeted on those members of the population who are most severely disabled.
In addition, the surveys made clear that personal care and locomotion are in fact two of the most expensive of the extra costs which people with disabilities can incur, and that they, (along with hearing difficulties which carry low associated extra costs), are actually the most frequently occurring of the 13 categories of disability that OPCS considered. We therefore believe it is right to concentrate the help we are giving to people who incur extra costs as a result of their disability, on these two areas which represent the common denominator between the most frequent and the most costly of the possible costs of disability.
Of course we would accept that various disability organisations have conducted their own surveys. I believe the noble Lord, Lord Carter, mentioned the survey carried out by the Disablement Income Group. However, that survey considered only some 80 or 90 severely disabled people. That cannot compare, as a basis for framing a general benefit, with the evidence that has been accumulated from the OPCS surveys, which considered some 10,000 different disabled people.
As I have said, we accept that various disability organisations have conducted their own surveys which indicated that some people incur higher disability-related costs than the OPCS reports would suggest. But it is important to remember that attendance allowance and mobility allowance were substantially in excess of the average costs incurred by even those in the highest OPCS severity category.
We would not deny that some people do incur higher costs. But a non means-tested benefit for getting on for 2 million people with disabilities cannot hope to cater for every individual nuance of need, and we have concentrated our attention upon those areas where help could be directed most easily and effectively.
The OPCS surveys demonstrated that there was an identifiable gap in the coverage which the existing extra costs benefits are providing for people with disabilities. A group of disabled people some way below the highest severity category appeared to be relatively disadvantaged in income terms. Part of their income disadvantage was that a much lower proportion of this group were in receipt of either of the extra costs benefits. Despite the substantial take-up increases since 1985, there were clearly some people at the middle severity levels who were never going to qualify for help under the current system. Those at the greatest income disadvantage tended to be people who were disabled earlier in life and who did not have other sources of income, or had not had the opportunity to

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build up financial resources. People in the lowest severity categories tended to have other sources of income, such as earnings, while those disabled later in life might well have built up savings or be entitled to some kind of pension. The surveys indicated that the incomes of disabled pensioners did not differ greatly from those of non-disabled pensioners. However, there was a much greater disparity between the incomes of disabled and non-disabled people under pension age. The introduction of DLA is intended to help this group of people whom the OPCS surveys identified as caught in the middle. They were too disabled to work but not likely to qualify for the existing extra costs benefits.
We have built these new lower rates of DLA on to the proven foundation of benefits based on care and mobility, because, as the evidence I outlined earlier shows, they are a successful way of delivering benefit to people who incur extra costs because of a disability. We are seeking to simplify the benefit system to ensure that the method of claiming the new benefit is easier both for claimants to understand and for the department to administer. We want to be certain that as many as possible of those who may actually be entitled to help with the extra costs of disability will be brought into benefit. The real test of a benefit system is not how good it sounds but how successful it is at getting cash to the people who need it.
Above all, we want to distinguish between the cause of a person's disability—the fact that he suffers from the impairment of particular faculties—and the effects of that disability. He may for example require extra heating or extra laundry because of that impairment.
We expect that the new lower rates of DLA will bring nearly 300,000 people into benefit. This has to be seen in its proper context. Since 1979, the number of recipients of attendance allowance has tripled from 265,000 to 795,000, while the number of recipients of mobility allowance has grown sixfold from 95,000 to 615,000. I am sure the Committee would agree that this is a substantial achievement. By 1993–94 we shall see 1.9 million people receiving either DLA or attendance allowance and expenditure will be over £5 billion more in real terms than in 1979. This is perhaps a tribute to the extent to which people increasingly understand the current benefits and how they work. That gives us an excellent basis on which to build.
After that rather lengthy explanation of why we believe our two-component system is the best provision, I hope noble Lords will not feel it necessary to press for the various extra components covering laundry, heating or other matters.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): Speaking as a recipient of the mobility allowance but not of the attendance allowance, before the noble Lord, Lord Carter, decides what to do about the amendment perhaps I may briefly explain the difficulty that I have with the constant emphasis on complexity, particularly in relation to self-assessment. That was a point which the Minister mentioned and which the noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, raised originally.
Surely it is fairly simple to determine that one has a certain level of heating costs and therefore one needs
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the heating component; or one has a certain level of special diet costs and therefore one needs the diet component. That must be simpler than saying, "I have heating costs and diet costs which are more than my care costs but luckily the latter are sufficient to qualify me for the care component. I shall receive that although it will not cover my care, heating and diet costs". It may be complicated but at least it is better than the person who may have significant heating and diet costs but no care and mobility costs receiving neither component. Will the Minister confirm that if one has no care or mobility needs one will receive no help?
Lord Henley: The noble Baroness is quite correct. That is why we have extended both the care and mobility categories so as to include a greater number of people. We believe that by that means we shall include virtually all of the people in the most severe categories as well as a great many others in the middle categories who were perceived as suffering income disadvantage.
I do not accept that the way in which the noble Baroness wishes to go forward will make life simpler. It would add enormous complexity. Colleagues of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, accused us of bringing in a complicated system because the two components would produce 11 variations. They cannot now argue that to increase the number of combinations would make it simpler.
Lord Carter: The noble Baroness, Lady Darcy (de Knayth), has put her finger on the problem. The Minister said that the way in which recipients spend the DLA benefit is not restricted to care and mobility. However, the qualifying criteria are restricted entirely to care and mobility. The noble Baroness is entirely correct to say that if one does not meet those criteria one will not receive the money.
Lord Henley: I also pointed out that we have extended both mobility and care provisions and it will therefore be easier for people to receive the allowances. That will extend to most of the people to whom the noble Baroness referred.
Lord Carter: That argument could obviously continue for a long time and I do not propose to extend it. On the measurement of extra costs, there are many examples of allowances of one kind or another which are uprated annually and have to be calculated. The attempt to measure might be a broad-brush approach but it would certainly help those who receive the money.
There is no doubt that extra costs exist under various headings. There has been evidence from noble Lords on all sides of the Chamber to support that. I am not entirely clear whether the Government are saying that the costs do not exist or that they exist and the Government cannot afford to meet the requirements, or even that they exist and are met by the DLA. The argument was rather muddled. The noble Lord, Lord Skelmersdale, said that it was desirable to assist with those costs but it was too complex, too expensive, or both.

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On the subject of complexity, most Members of the Committee will have had experience of dealing with personal and corporate taxation systems. We never hear about the complexity of successive Finance Acts when they result in tax cuts.
The Government are clearly not prepared to accept the argument. I would respect their case more if they said that we were right, those extra costs exist but it would be too expensive to meet them, instead of pretending that the DLA meets the costs that we have described.
I shall withdraw the amendment that I moved, but we shall wish to return to the whole matter of extra costs at Report. Perhaps the group of amendments may be more tightly drafted, but we shall have to come back to the point. We have not been able to convince the Government this afternoon but there is a problem concerning the extra costs and I believe that it is the duty of the Government to deal with it. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 3 to 9 not moved.]
6.15 p.m.
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 10:
Page 1, line 18, leave out from ("life") to end of line 20.
The noble Lord said: The amendment deals with the different fixed periods for claiming disability living allowance. As the Bill is presently drafted a person may be awarded either component for a fixed period or for life. However, if the award of a disability living allowance consists of both components he may not be awarded the components for different fixed periods.
During the Committee stage of the Bill in another place the Minister said that if the components were awarded for different fixed periods the alignment must be for the shorter period. This is a probing amendment to establish whether we have understood the matter correctly because there is a great deal of anxiety about it. As we understand it, the effect of the Bill as it stands is that if someone has care needs that are expected to last for a period of two years and mobility needs likely to last for at least four years he would be awarded the two components for two years only. Thus, despite qualifying for a four-year award for the mobility component, the claimant would be compelled to submit a fresh application and go through the whole procedure again after two years even though he had already established that he was entitled to the mobility component for four years. Will the Minister say whether that is a correct understanding of the Bill?
The amendment would enable each component to be awarded for different fixed periods. Thus, the duration of awards for different components would reflect the length of time that the claimant was expected to meet the qualifying conditions for the fixed component rather than being adapted for the purposes of administrative convenience, about which we heard a good deal in connection with the previous group of amendments.
It is not clear what would happen if a claimant was awarded one component for a fixed period and was subsequently awarded the other component for a shorter fixed period. Would the previous award have to be shortened so as to align it with the subsequent award? The Minister will understand the point that I am making.
I was given an example by the Multiple Sclerosis Society, which has pointed out that the Bill as drafted could cause particular problems for individuals with multiple sclerosis. MS is a fluctuating and unpredictable condition, characterised by relapses and remissions. At any point in time the care and mobility needs of the sufferer are not necessarily equal. The effects of MS are such that many individuals have severely impaired mobility permanently but their personal care needs may vary in their periods of relapse or remission. The duration and severity of the relapse cannot be predicted. MS is also considered to be exacerbated by stress. The MS Society says:
"We are deeply concerned that as the legislation currently stands, the individual may have to undergo repeated medical examinations to re-establish entitlement. This will cause further stress, to an already debilitating condition".
Another area of concern arising from this part of the Bill relates to the connection between the mobility award and the Motability scheme. Motability allows people to lease a car for three-year periods in return for which they surrender their mobility allowance. At present people who are awarded attendance allowance for two years and mobility allowance for three years or more can make use of the Motability scheme because the two allowances are entirely separate and are paid for different periods. Under the Bill's proposals the mobility component would be awarded only for two years in line with the care component. We are concerned that people in that situation would not be able to use their mobility component for that purpose. The Minister in another place said that the Government would discuss the problem with Motability to try to find a way round it. We are entitled to ask the Government how they propose to deal with that situation, which is potentially very serious for those who use the Motability scheme.
It has been pointed out by MENCAP that the attendance component and the mobility component are designed to cater for different needs and they should be needs led. In other words, if you need a care component for two or three years and a mobility allowance for longer, perhaps for life, there should be some way of adapting the system to allow for that. I should be interested to hear from the Minister whether the reason for adopting the same fixed periods is one of administrative convenience or simplicity or whether there is something further behind it. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: I can assure the noble Lord that there is no sinister motive behind what we are doing. Perhaps I may briefly explain. The noble Lord's understanding is broadly correct. A person with care and mobility needs, unless one of the awards is for life, will find the other award shortened to bring it into line. Let me give noble Lords the rationale. A person with care and mobility needs will have to complete

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only one claim form and, at most, have one medical examination in order for his entitlement to both components of DLA to be considered.
I appreciate that the noble Lord's amendment is a probing amendment but its effect would be to cut across the advantages which unification will bring. In providing for components to be awarded for different periods, the amendment would increase the number of times when entitlement would need to be reconsidered. It is conceivable that a person could be awarded the mobility component for, say, four years and the care component for five years. That would mean that that person's case would be reviewed twice in the space of a year. On both occasions the claimant would be asked to provide evidence in support of continuing entitlement. Despite our intention to reduce considerably the reliance on medical examinations, we could not rule out the possibility of his being required to have a medical examination on both occasions.
We do not believe that that is in the claimant's best interests; nor is it good administrative practice. We feel that it would be much better to align the award periods, either at the outset or when the second component is awarded. Where the disabled person continues to meet the qualifying conditions the award would be renewed for a further period.
The major exception to this approach—I touched on this point at the beginning is where one of the components is awarded for life, which, incidentally, is the position in which the great majority of beneficiaries receiving both components will find themselves. Here there are not the same considerations about repeated assessments of the claimant's circumstances. A life award should mean precisely that. Unless the claimant's condition changes, either for better or worse, there should be no need to review entitlement. The Bill recognises that fact and provides that an award of one component can be made to a person for life irrespective of the period of award of the other component.
The noble Lord rightly mentioned the Motability scheme. He pointed out the concerns that have been expressed in another place, which the Government recognise. We recognise the implications that the introduction of DLA might have for the scheme. My right honourable friend in another place said that he would be discussing the practical arrangements for the new benefit with representatives of Motability. I can now report that discussions have taken place and that an administrative solution has been identified which should ensure that no one misses out on the opportunity to enter into the Motability scheme simply because his award of the mobility component has been aligned with that of the shorter care component. The fine details of the arrangements have still to be sorted out. I cannot go into them at this moment. However, I am confident that they should be resolved well in advance of the introduction of the new benefit. I hope that that will satisfy the disquiet expressed by the noble Lord.
I return to the general advantages of simplification. I hope that the advantages, as I have set them out, of
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unifying the two components of the claim will be accepted by the noble Lord and that he will therefore be prepared to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Carter: I certainly intend to withdraw the amendment but before doing so perhaps the noble Lord will confirm that my understanding is correct. When I moved the amendment it seemed to me that there was a real problem for the person who has a care component for, say, four years and then receives a mobility component for two years. Presumably he has to drop two years off the first allocation of the care component. That is how I understand the position. Incidentally, the Motability situation reveals the problem extremely well. If the Government have been able to find an administrative solution—at the moment it sounds rather mysterious and I understand that the Minister cannot explain it in detail—why cannot they use the same administrative solution for the other problems which I mentioned?
Lord Henley: The noble Lord is quite correct. Someone who has the mobility award then gets the attendance for a shorter period which brings it down. Thereafter, when the two years are up, he will have to reapply. But he would have to reapply for his attendance allowance at that stage anyway. That would be the time to bring them into line. That would create a much simpler way of doing things and is better than telling him that there is no need to bother about the mobility component this year and he should come back in two years' time. I think that we could reduce the number of times that he would have to claim and reduce the potential number of times that he would have to see the doctor and so on.
Lord Carter: I am grateful to the noble Lord. I shall read with care what he said. In the meantime I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 11 not moved]
Lord Swinfen Lord Swinfen moved Amendment No. 12:
Page 2, line 2, leave out from ("he") to end of line 3 and insert ("is resident and present in Great Britain at the time of claim and at the time of payment except in such circumstances as shall be prescribed.").
The noble Lord said: At Second Reading I mentioned the difficulties that some people have with severe disablement allowance. As the regulations are currently drafted, quite rightly in order to avoid people flooding into this country to take advantage of our welfare state, those who have not been in the country for more than 10 out of the past 20 years are denied severe disablement allowance. Unfortunately, that catches the families of some Crown servants and in particular those of members of the Army in the armoured regiments. Following either husband or father, they may be out of the country supporting that Crown servant for more than 10 out of the past 20 years.
This measure affects only a handful of people. I wonder whether my noble friend will be able to take advantage of today's proceedings to give an undertaking that the Government will change those regulations so that families of Crown servants will be

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covered. If he is able to do so, can he tell me when the Government will do it? I am afraid that vague promises never get one anywhere.
The purpose of the amendment is not only to put forward that point but to make certain that a similar situation does not arise with disability living allowance. I wonder whether my noble friend, when he comes to reply, can also give an undertaking that the regulations will be so drafted as to take care of the families of the Crown servants whom we send abroad on our behalf. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: I should like to support the amendment. I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has brought back this issue. He has spoken on it before and made a compelling case. He has again made a compelling case. People who serve the Crown often at great inconvenience and with great effort should not be penalised for so doing.
6.30 p.m.
Lord Henderson of Brompton: I add my support for the amendment. Clearly one of the great disadvantages of serving the Crown overseas is that one might be caught by such a provision. I am sure that the noble Lord will relieve the Committee by stating that he will remedy the position straight away.
Will he inform us whether or not such provision goes against our social security regulations and the European Community regulations relating to nationals? If he cannot answer now perhaps he will reply by letter.
Lord Carter: I am pleased to have my name on the amendment. It is a matter that the noble Lord, Lord Swinfen, has brought to the House on a number of occasions. It is time that he received a satisfactory answer.
Lord Henley: I thought that I always gave satisfactory answers. Obviously that is not felt to be the case. I shall respond to the noble Lord, Lord Henderson, by letter, if he will permit me. Since some of the concerns expressed go somewhat wide of the amendment, perhaps I may speak to the amendment and then deal with points raised by my noble friend Lord Swinfen.
The Government intend that the residence and presence rules for disability living allowance should be the same as those which apply currently for attendance allowance and invalid care allowance. Those are that the claimant is ordinarily resident in Great Britain and has been present here for 26 weeks out of the past 12 months. This in fact improves the position for people claiming the mobility component of DLA because currently mobility allowance requires presence in 52 weeks out of the last 18 months. That easement I think shows that the Government are not intent on placing unduly harsh requirements on the payment of benefit to people who have been out of the country. Indeed, I suggest that a requirement of 26 weeks presence in the last 12 months is very reasonable. I should also emphasise that this requirement is deemed to be satisfied in certain cases, including the case where the absence from Great
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Britain is because the claimant is a member of the family of a serving member of Her Majesty's armed forces.
I realise that while the terms of the noble Lord's amendment relate to the disability living allowance, he has a particular concern with regard to severe disablement allowance and the residence and presence test. The noble Lord accepted that that concern goes slightly beyond the scope of the Bill. Nevertheless, with the permission of the Committee I should say a little on severe disablement allowance.
As my noble friend said, to qualify for severe disablement allowance, a claimant must be present in Great Britain and have been resident here for 10 out of the past 20 years. We recognise that this rule presents difficulties for the families of serving members of the forces. Such people may be unable to qualify for the allowance simply because they belong to the family of someone who is required to be abroad in the service of his country. I should perhaps point out that in practice this rules out only a very small number of people since the effect of a commissioner's recent decision has been to enable members of the forces to be treated as being resident in this country if they are continuing to maintain or purchase a home here.
This 10 in 20 year residence test for severe disablement allowance is a stricter one than applies for other non-contributory benefits for disabled people. We have been re-examining the test and are looking very carefully at the issues involved.
I have to admit that our deliberations are not yet complete on the general issue. But on the specific question of forces families I am pleased to say that I can today announce a change to meet the concern expressed by my noble friend. As noble Lords on all sides of the Committee will acknowledge, recent events in the Gulf must remind us that members of Her Majesty's armed forces have frequently to be overseas, and often in situations of great danger, in the service of this country. We think it only right that the structure of the social security benefits system should recognise their special position. Consequently, we propose to amend the residence condition as it applies to the severe disablement allowance, to allow periods spent abroad by serving members of Her Majesty's armed forces and their families to be treated as residence in Great Britain for the purposes of qualifying for SDA. My noble friend asked when the regulations will be made. The necessary regulations will be made at the first suitable opportunity later in the year.
I hope that with that one piece of good news my noble friend will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
Lord Swinfen: I thank my noble friend for what he describes as a piece of good news. It is extremely welcome. Perhaps I may suggest that he considers the question of Crown servants generally. There will still be a number of civil servants serving this country in the EC. If he takes account only of the armed forces one or two individuals will be involved as opposed to between five and 10, which is the current situation.
Lord Henley: I said that we are considering the general issue but our deliberations are not yet complete. That is why I wished in the meantime to announce the concession for the families of our armed forces.
Lord Swinfen: I am glad to hear that after some months of badgering my noble friend is gradually being moved. With those thanks, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 13 to 19 not moved.]
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 20:
Page 2, line 10 leave out from ("with") to end of line 14 and insert ("either his bodily functions or functions of daily living or both combined attention from another person for a prolonged period of the day; or").
The noble Lord said: The care component of the DLA simply reproduces the current attendance allowance rules and adds on an extra set of criteria for the new lower rate of payment. With the permission of the Committee, I speak also to Amendments Nos. 21 and 22.
Lord Henley: Perhaps I may confirm that the noble Lord is moving Amendment No. 20 and speaking to Amendments Nos. 21 and 22.
Lord Carter: I apologise. Yes. I should have stated that at the start. The aims of the amendments are to widen the attendance criteria to include what we describe as "functions of daily living", to amend the pattern of care required to obtain the allowance, and to amend the night time supervision test introduced in 1988. We know that just under 900,000 people claim attendance allowance. It is a small proportion of the 6.5 million disabled who are recognised by the OPCS. Roughly two-thirds of the claimants for attendance allowance are over pensionable age.
The legislation for attendance allowance, and its implementation, has caused some problems. Last year the greatest load of cases before the social security commissioners consisted of attendance allowance appeals. There were almost 1,000 cases, most of which were successful for the claimant. Nearly three-quarters—69 per cent.—of claimants who challenge an unfavourable decision are successful on review. Does the Minister feel that this high percentage of turnover of decisions on appeal and review is acceptable for any benefit?
I refer to attendance in connection with bodily functions required frequently throughout the day, or for prolonged or repeated periods at night. The trigger for claiming attendance allowance for most people comes when they feel unable to look after themselves independently or safely, or when they feel in danger in some way. Preparing food, personal hygiene and cleanliness are all basic activities which most non-disabled people take for granted. Yet one would be refused an attendance allowance if one claimed on the basis of those criteria alone regardless of how crucial they were to one's life.
In this group of amendments we approach the extra cost argument from a different angle. Only a small proportion of the 6.5 million disabled population
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receive the attendance allowance. One is entitled to ask: Why should a person who needs a special diet prepared, or assistance with laundering because of incontinence, be excluded through a narrow interpretation of the words?
If the amendment is accepted it will allow consideration of essential needs which arise as a result of disablement to be counted for all three rates of payment. The inclusion of the phrase "functions of daily living" will allow disabled people to claim on the basis of needing assistance when preparing or observing a special diet, for needs with laundering, for cleanliness, and for getting out and about, and so on. Those are normal daily needs and functions which are limited through disability. The intention of the wider form of words is to clarify what has been achieved effectively by case law in the appeals to which I have referred, and slightly to extend the law beyond the strictly intimate bodily functions.
According to a recent survey conducted by the Royal National Institute for the Blind, 91 per cent. of all blind and partially sighted people had difficulties with at least one of their daily living tasks. We know that only a small proportion of the blind qualify for attendance or mobility allowance.
The amendments deal with another problem of attendance allowance which the new DLA has failed to tackle: the excessive emphasis that is placed on a pattern of care requirements. The attendance allowance was designed to help disabled people who had extensive and personal needs. As the rule stands the criteria rely much too heavily on the pattern of those care needs. We propose that the day time attention condition for the middle and higher rates of DLA would be satisfied where a person meets a lighter time and pattern of care needs tests. That is far more equitable than forcing people on to the £10 rate who may have substantial needs which may occur at the wrong time of day.
Our third aim is to reinstate the night-time supervision test which was used until March 1988. It will therefore remove the watching-over test which was installed by the 1988 Act. While "attention" has always been taken to mean actual physical assistance, "supervision" is seen as being more hands off; that is, having someone available in case of need in order to prevent a substantial danger arising. If as we suspect no one is qualified under the current night-time and watching-over test it should be abolished and replaced with a simpler, fairer and continual supervision test. It would be better to remove the night-time and supervision test rather than operate a test which is so tight that nobody can satisfy it in practice.
In tabling the amendments we believe that there is a need for easing the current rules for attendance allowance rather than a mere perpetuation of their deficiencies through the care component of the DLA for people under 65 and the continuation of the attendance allowance for claimants over 65. Amending the care criteria now would be more reasonable and would also lend the criteria more easily to self-assessment.

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MIND has pointed out that the existing criteria for attendance allowance remain unchanged as a basis for receiving the middle and higher rates of the care component of DLA. But this formula, which concentrates on a physical need or danger, often fails people whose disability arises from mental health problems. When the mental health service users successfully claim attendance allowance it is on the grounds of need for supervision. Diet, medication, finances and support are areas where supervision may be needed to avoid harm to the person. However, there are situations in which a person can be very disabled and have substantial care needs but where neither bodily functions nor substantial danger are an issue.
The Minister will understand that in tabling the amendments we are trying to improve the present situation. I beg to move.
6.45 p.m.
Lord Henley: The amendments concern the qualifying conditions for the care component of the disability living allowance. I freely admit that the conditions for the middle and higher rates are exactly the same as the existing conditions for the attendance allowance. As regards the care and mobility components of DLA our deliberate aim was to target extra resources for people with less severe disabilities who do not currently qualify for help. We also wished to ensure that the people who do not receive help under the current schemes continue to be eligible for the extra resources on the basis of the same qualifying conditions under DLA.
Having heard the noble Lord's reasons for tabling Amendments Nos. 20 and 21, I wonder whether in our basic intentions we are as far apart as he might think. His fundamental point is that people's care needs may be broader than simply the need for attention in connection with bodily functions. That is a fair point and one that we had in mind when inventing the conditions for the new lower rate of the care component.
The OPCS identified two particular groups of people who have care needs but are not currently receiving attendance allowance. These were people whose needs in connection with bodily functions were more limited and predictable than those of current attendance allowance beneficiaries and people who had no needs directly related to their bodily functions but who nevertheless had considerable difficulty in dealing with the kind of mundane tasks of everyday life that pose little or no problem for the non-disabled population.
We have tried to pick up both these groups with the qualifying conditions for the lower rate. I am sure that the noble Lord would want us to go further and extend the middle rate of DLA care to people whose care needs were not related to bodily functions. I have to say that that is not the direction that either our experience of attendance allowance or the evidence of the OPCS reports would justify.
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We would all accept that disabled people's care needs range from the acute to the markedly less substantial. What we are inventing with DLA is a benefit that gives far greater recognition to this gradation of need. I do not think there is serious doubt that people whose needs relate to their bodily functions should command the greatest help from the benefit system.
We are concerned to bring into benefit people whose needs go broader than that. Our intention in drawing up the criteria for the lower rates, particularly in the area to which the noble Lord refers as "the functions of daily living", has been to find a single test which is amenable to self-assessment, which is a crucial feature of the new benefit. That is the reason for the appearance in the legislation of what might to Members of the Committee look like the odd formula of "He cannot prepare a main cooked daily meal for himself if he has the ingredients".
Lord Carter: I can assure the Minister that I cannot fulfil that criterion.
Lord Henley: The criterion is intended to be a subjective test. The mere fact that the noble Lord claims to be unable to fulfil it would not entitle him to the benefit.
Lord Carter: The Notes on Clauses state that it is an "abstract concept". I do not know what the abstract concept is in a cooked main meal.
Lord Henley: I am beginning to look forward to a more concrete concept of a cooked meal.
We looked at the OPCS evidence about the daily tasks which those disabled people who did not need attention in connection with their bodily functions nevertheless found difficulty in performing. We then created a deliberately difficult abstract test which on the basis of that evidence will be well beyond the capacity of the group we want to target. It will be an abstract test. No one will put to the test the cooking abilities of the claimant, of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, or of the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis. However, perhaps one day they might allow me to do so. No one will be ruled out of benefit merely because they do not in practice ever want to cook themselves a main daily meal. Let us be clear that the more difficult the test, the more people will be unable to perform the task and thus more people will receive benefit.
In essence, my argument would be that on the lower rate we have found a different and I think a better way of achieving what I believe the noble Lord wants. As the system beds down we shall look very closely at whether our abstract test is meeting these objectives. On that basis I hope that the noble Lord will not press his amendments.
Amendment No. 22 seeks to reverse the steps taken in the Social Security Act 1988 to put on a clear and coherent footing the night-time criteria for people who require care from another person in order to avoid substantial danger to themselves or to others. I hope to persuade Members of the Committee that it would not be sensible to do that. When the 1988 Act was passed my noble friend emphasised that the reason for

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changing the law was in no way to tighten up the conditions for entitlement to benefit; rather the Government's aim was to restore the law to what was generally believed to be the case before the decision of the Court of Appeal in the case of Mrs. Dorothy Moran.
A fundamental aim of the attendance allowance has always been to recognise the extra costs and disruption of normal family life that arise from the attendance needs of severely disabled people. At night, when the normal state of the members of any household is that of sleep and quiet, such disruption can be caused because the disabled person requires frequent attention with his bodily functions or because his condition requires that someone else is awake and watching over in order to avoid the disabled person putting himself or other people at risk of substantial danger. In that situation, as Members of the Committee have recognised, there is a clear need which should be met. On that basis, many hundreds of thousands of people have qualified for attendance allowance since 1971. As I said before, since that time numbers have increased considerably.
However, the Court of Appeal held that in some circumstances continual supervision might be exercised even by someone who is asleep, albeit ready to wake up if and when a danger occurs. Such danger need not be common provided that it is not,
"so remote a possibility that it can reasonably be disregarded".

Therefore, we were getting very close to the position where the household routine need scarcely be disturbed at all for benefits to be payable. We were getting away from the whole idea of need.
The night-time criteria introduced in 1988, which are being carried forward into disability living allowance, provide a clear and unequivocal test which identifies exactly the people for whom the benefit was always intended. There is no evidence that those criteria have been applied any differently from the way in which the original criteria were applied until the time of that judgment. I believe that Amendment No. 22 would be a retrograde step and unnecessary. Therefore, I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment.
Lord Carter: I propose to withdraw the amendment. As the moving of the amendment and the reply by the Minister indicate, this is a complicated area. However I do not believe that the Minister answered my question as to how many people qualify under the night-time supervision test. If, as we believe, it is a very small number, then perhaps it may be sensible to replace it. If the Minister does not have that information now, perhaps he will write to me. We believe that the continual supervision test would make more sense.
I shall read what the Minister said on this complicated matter. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 21 and 22 not moved.]
Lord Henderson of Brompton Lord Henderson of Brompton moved Amendment No. 22A:
Page 3, line 6, at end insert (", to any one of which may be added a community care supplement payable out of the National Insurance Fund.")
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henderson of Brompton Lord Henderson of Brompton moved Amendment No. 23:
Page 3, line 36, at end insert:

("(5A) The weekly rate of the community care supplement shall depend on the individual circumstances of a severely disabled person. In particular it shall depend on the extent to which he is severely restricted in his ability to perform normal personal care and domestic tasks because of his disablement, on the extent of his need for help, attention or supervision from another person, on the cost of securing the required help, attention or supervision, and on such other factors as the Secretary of State may prescribe.

(5B) For the purposes of subsection (3) above—

(i) a community care supplement shall not be payable in addition to a payment from the Independent Living Fund;

(ii) providing his circumstances qualify him for a payment from the Independent Living Fund, a community care supplement shall be payable to a severely disabled person in lieu of such a payment when the payment ceases on the expiry of the life of the Independent Living Fund Trust on or before 8 June 1993; and

(iii) payment of the community care supplement shall be disregarded for the purposes of assessing housing benefit and community charge benefit.").

On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 24:
Page 4, line 12, after ("person") insert (", except a child under the age of 16 who is accompanied or frequently visited by a parent or guardian who provides prolonged or repeated supervision or attention with bodily functions while in hospital for medical treatment",).
The noble Baroness said: This is a modest amendment and I shall not take up a great deal of the Committee's time. It refers to children in hospital. The amendment seeks to rectify what is currently perceived as an injustice which will be carried forward into the DLA.
At present, parents of severely disabled children receive attendance allowance which is withdrawn if the child goes to hospital and remains there for more than 28 days. One understands why that rule may make sense when an adult goes into hospital, even if it takes faint regard of the costs of hospital visiting for the family. It may make sense also when a child is in for respite long-stay care and, therefore, where the hospital is shouldering the entire nursing and caring burden.
However, this amendment deals with a much smaller group; namely, those children who are in hospital for long-stay medical treatment—for example, for cerebral palsy—which may require elaborate surgery and where they continue to receive care and nursing from their parents within the hospital ward. Such care reduces the load on the staff and the trauma on the child. As one senior paediatrician, Dr. Judith Kingston, pointed out in a radio interview:

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"It does seem unfair that parents should lose attendance allowance when their children are in hospital for a long time. We rely on parents looking after their children when they are in hospital, the mums contribute significantly to the nursing care of the child and there's a lot of expense —extra expense—involved when the child is in hospital".
The extra expense referred to is not merely travelling costs but the extra costs for the family at home when one parent is almost full-time at the hospital.
If the Committee were to accept the amendment, it would aid a small group of families which are already under considerable strain. At very modest expense this Bill could take the opportunity to remedy and not carry forward what is currently perceived as an injustice as regards the attendance allowance. I beg to move.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I support the amendment. I hope very much that the Minister will accept it or an amendment which achieves the same objective.
Earl Russell: I also support the amendment. It is very modest. It does not create an entitlement to new money but merely refrains from taking away from people money to which they have previously been entitled. Therefore, the effect of the amendment will be to ease considerably an administrative burden. The allowance is given when a child is out of hospital. It is taken away when the child is in hospital and returned when the child comes out of hospital. Therefore, it is necessary to go through two administrative processes and the saving of administrative costs which this amendment would involve may be an extra reason for the Government looking upon it with favour.
Lord Swinfen: I have some sympathy with the amendment, but only some sympathy. I appreciate that where disability living allowance is used to pay for extra staff to help to look after a child, it would be quite wrong to dismiss the staff while that child is in hospital. It would perhaps be impossible to find staff when the child came out. Therefore, that on-going expense needs to be paid and there will be other expenses which still need to be paid.
However, in moving the amendment the noble Baroness said that the parents of a child in hospital saved the National Health Service a certain amount of expense by helping to look after the child. Is it not the case that where that child would be looked after in hospital, so would an able-bodied child be looked after in hospital by that able-bodied child's parents?
I recall my own children being in hospital years ago. My wife helped on the ward. She had a possible advantage because she was already a state registered nurse. However, many other parents were looking after their children and they received no allowance for doing so. They may well have had to give up work and lose income in order to look after their child in hospital. Therefore, it is very much half a dozen of one and six of another.
Lord Skelmersdale: I agree with my noble friend. I have some sympathy for the amendment for the same reasons that he has given. However, the amendment worries me slightly because if a parent receives an
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attendance allowance for a child, by definition the parent is responsible for the child and the state accepts that the parent has that responsibility. The moment the child becomes hospitalised then somebody else is responsible for the child; namely, the nurses, doctors and other professionals involved. Therefore, I do not believe that this is the right way forward on this occasion.
7 p.m.
Lord Henley: The children whom the noble Baroness has in mind in particular are those for whom the parents or guardians continue to provide substantial care on a regular basis while the child is in hospital. I recognise well the anxiety of the noble Baroness for that group of children. However, the amendment raises serious questions of principle and administration.
I shall deal first with the principle. From the outset 20 years ago, attendance allowance was designed to help meet the cost of care and attention in the home. That must be its primary purpose. I believe there has been consistent bipartisan acceptance of that principle.
We have recognised that the financial commitments associated with a severe disability do not cease immediately on the person going into hospital. That is why, in 1983, we changed the rules to allow attendance allowance to continue to be paid for the first four weeks in hospital. Also payment is restored when the disabled child returns home and, provided a minimum of 29 days is spent at home, attendance allowance continues in payment if the claimant is obliged to spend another stint in hospital.
So we have gone to some lengths to be flexible. I recognise that the noble Baroness is trying to be precise in the exemption she is seeking from the general rule, but I think I should briefly restate that I would not favour any general relaxation of the rules on payment of AA/DLA to people staying in hospital for protracted periods. They are, after all, in the vast bulk of cases, receiving most of their care from the hospital staff and many or all of the expenses which are incurred in giving this type of care are being borne by the hospital. It would, I think, be wrong for attendance allowance to continue in the generality of cases, giving double provision for the same needs from the benefit system and the NHS.
To turn briefly to the administrative difficulties, the first is that pinpointing the group which concerns the noble Baroness without going far broader, as I suspect my noble kinsman Lord Russell wished to do—is genuinely difficult. I think we would want to assure ourselves, for example, that parents' presence and care was requested by the hospital—that is, that the hospital nurses were not in practice doing all the caring for which DLA is paid. But if we did seek that assurance from the paediatricians—and I take the noble Baroness's word that most paediatricians would be only too happy to supply the information to us—we should for this group be applying a very different test from that we are using for DLA in all other circumstances. The DLA criteria make no reference to whether the help is in practice given, simply to whether

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it is required. For this group, we should be asking for evidence of the parents' actual contribution to the caring.
I must say that I am wary of inventing new tests for our adjudication officers to have to apply even if—and perhaps especially if—they apply only to very small numbers. And I do wonder, if we did try to circumvent the many problems we see with this amendment, whether we should simply be creating new anomalies in the system. For example, what about the situation of children over the age of 16 or of mentally handicapped adults needing constant attention—and perhaps also getting it from a relative when in hospital? There are real dangers in trying to fine-tune a social security system so much to cover very worthwhile contingencies that you end up with a system that is inoperable and incomprehensible.
In the light of the flexibility that I have mentioned we brought it in some time ago in relation to the payment for the first four weeks and also the restoration of payment when the child goes home provided a minimum of 29 days is involved. I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Lady Hollis of Heigham: I thank the Minister for his reply but I have to say that I am not persuaded by it. The situation, when we are dealing with a small group of children such as are referred to in the amendment, has three characteristics. First, they are children; secondly, they enter hospital already disabled; and, thirdly, they are sick. Given that, they are likely—certainly all the evidence from the paediatricians suggests this—to have needs over and above those of an able-bodied child or indeed an adult. That need is normally met by the parent, usually the mother. It is very clear from the evidence we have had that the nursing and caring need, because of the triple effect of being a child, being disabled and being sick, is great and that the nursing staff count on the very active contribution made by the parent. As a result, the paediatricians themselves would welcome the allowance.
Therefore it is not only a matter of fairness to the mother —it is usually the mother—who is continuing the nursing care in hospital but of house and attendance allowance of either £25 or £35, compared to the average cost of an NHS bed which may well be £200 plus. In addition the family at home, left without the care offered usually by the parent, including cooking, cleaning, laundry and so on, because that parent is almost full-time in hospital, is itself incurring costs over and beyond those originally faced. The extra responsibilities involved in giving nursing care and so on in the hospital, the extra costs facing the family without that parent at home, and the costs of medication and of visiting that the parent incurs, would, it seems to me, justify targeting this sum at those parents.
Secondly, the Minister made much of the point about opening the floodgates to care. I find it very odd that he objects to fine-tuning, unless of course he manages to call it "targeting", whereupon he is in favour of it. I would suggest that what he regards as fine-tuning in this case is a matter of targeting those
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children who are already disabled and require extensive parental nursing in hospital: a group which the paediatricians say can be easily identified. If I may reinforce the point made by the noble Earl, Lord Russell, what we are talking about here is allowing an existing benefit to continue—not asking for new money—because the core of the activity which attracts that benefit, which is nursing care and attendance for the child, continues whether the child is in hospital or at home. On that basis, I would hope that perhaps the noble Lord might find himself able to redefine fine-tuning as targeting and come back to this matter at Report stage. In the meantime I would ask your Lordships' permission to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Viscount Astor: My Lords, I beg to move that the House be resumed and, in moving that, perhaps I may suggest that the Committee stage should begin again at five minutes past eight.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
House resumed.

Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Bill
Brought from the Commons; read a first time, and to be printed.

Revised Code of Practice on Time Off for Trade Union Duties and Activities
7.6 p.m
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Viscount Ullswater)The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Employment (Viscount Ullswater) rose to move that the draft code laid before the House on 31st January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, I beg to move that the House should approve the draft ACAS Code of Practice on Time Off for Trade Union Duties and Activities. The background briefly is that the Employment Act 1989 amended the provisions in the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978 on time off for trade union duties. I recognise that the noble Lord opposite argued against that amendment, but their views did not prevail in the parliamentary process. There was a full debate on this matter in 1989 and it would not be right now to go over the same ground in any detail. However, it would, I think, be helpful to your Lordships in considering this draft ACAS code if I gave a very brief explanation of why the amendment to the 1978 Act was made. It will help to set the present debate in context.
The amendment to the 1978 Act had its origins in the White Paper Building Businesses … not Barriers, which was published in 1986. Paragraph 7.9 of that White Paper said that the Government intended to limit the range of duties for which time off with pay must be allowed to the scope of union recognition by the employer. The reason for the White Paper proposal was to reduce unnecessary statutory burdens

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on employers. The law as it stood at that time could result in employers having to pay for lay trade union officials to take time off to deal with matters unrelated to those matters for which the employer recognised their union. That put a cost on employers and did not seem fair or right.
The Government implemented the White Paper proposal in Section 14 of the Employment Act 1989. That section restricted the time off for trade union duties in the manner I have indicated and was, in the Government's view, a modest, reasonable and necessary measure in the cause of good industrial relations. In our view the time-off provisions as amended strike a fair balance between the rights of trade union officials and the obligations which it is reasonable to impose on employers.
Turning now to the code, the Advisory, Conciliation and Arbitration Service is required by the Employment Protection Act 1975 to provide practical guidance in a code of practice on the time-off provisions. Such a code of practice has a status similar to that of the Highway Code. That is to say, failure to observe a provision of the code does not make anyone liable to tribunal proceedings but the code may be taken into account by the industrial tribunal in any proceedings before it. There is a specific reference to the code in the time-off provisions of the 1978 Act. It is a reasonably well-known and established procedure and has not, I think, caused any problems since the current code of practice came into force in 1978.
The amendment of the law on time off for trade union duties in the 1989 Act meant that the ACAS code, which has been in force since 1978, was out of date and had to be amended. If a code of practice is to provide practical guidance it must reflect the law accurately. If the law is changed, then so must the code be changed. Under the Employment Protection Act 1975 it was therefore necessary for ACAS to go through the procedure of drawing up a revised code to replace the existing one. In doing that it took the opportunity of improving the presentation of the code, as well as making sure that it reflected the change in the law.
As noble Lords will see, the code gives clear guidance on the legislative provisions themselves, the responsibilities of employers and trade unions, the advantages of establishing agreements or understandings on time off, the position where there is industrial action and the procedure for making a complaint to an industrial tribunal. In addition there is what I am sure noble Lords will agree is a very useful annex setting out the law in full.
As required by the 1975 Act, ACAS published a draft of the new code and circulated it to a wide range of organisations. Six thousand copies were sent out and comments were received from some 40 organisations. The great majority welcomed the draft as an improvement on the existing 1978 code. The new presentation was particularly well received, especially the typographical distinction between statutory provisions and practical guidance.
ACAS made some amendments to the draft in the light of the consultation. As required by the 1975 Act, it then presented the revised draft to the Secretary of State. Perhaps I could in parenthesis at this point remind noble Lords that both the TUC and CBI have members on the ACAS council.
The Secretary of State approved the draft code and has now laid it before this House for your Lordships' approval. With that explanation I commend the draft code of practice to your Lordships.
Moved, That the draft code laid before the House on 31st January be approved [9th Report from the Joint Committee].—(Viscount Ullswater.)
Lord Campbell of Alloway: My Lords, with the assent of the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, I follow my noble friend the Minister, as behind this debate there lies a fundamental question of recognition which affects the due and orderly conduct of industrial relations on which the party opposite may well wish to comment. Before coming to this I wish to say that surely the Government are much to be congratulated on this code, which is a document that meets all current essential requirements.
First of all, the legal status is made plain in paragraph 7 of the introduction. Secondly, it is in a form suitable for use as evidence in industrial tribunal proceedings relating to time off for trade union duties and activities, and indeed on appeal in the courts from the industrial tribunal. Thirdly, it is intelligible, concise and written in good, plain, ordinary English. Lastly, it recognises the need to maintain a good working relationship between employers and trade unions. It is designed to serve, and indeed shall serve, such an important purpose.
Time off with pay entitlement is to be available for employees who are trade union officials to carry out trade union duties (examples of which are given in paragraph 12) —the list is not exhaustive: this for the purpose of collective bargaining—and I shall return to that when I come to the fundamental question of recognition—and other related matters to such duties which the employer has agreed the trade union may perform: also to undergo training relevant to the carrying out of such duties as approved by the Trades Union Congress or the union, as stated in paragraphs 15 and 16.
But without some effective recognition procedures the code will remain of limited use and application and cannot fulfil, or ever fulfil, its potential. This we all appreciate—the noble Baroness opposite and no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Rochester—is a matter for primary legislation, and I referred to this in Hansard, Vol. 525, No. 31, at col. 272: there is no object in repetition.
My attention has since been directed to the findings of the Oxford Institute of Economics and Statistics, which concludes that recognition of manual unions reduces investment in an enterprise by some 23 per cent. This is worrying. But as predictability, so essential to productivity, cannot be achieved without collective bargaining, and as productivity and profits are on any economic analysis the magnet for investment, the hope must be that the findings of the

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Oxford Institute shall not be used as an argument against setting up some effective recognition machinery to complement this excellent code of practice.
Surely this question of recognition, long ripe for sane and sensible resolution, warrants the attention of the TUC, and is ripe for consideration by government. I thank my noble friend the Minister for his detailed and wholly comprehensible introduction, and I hope he will not take it amiss if I use this occasion, as I have used other occasions, to suggest that the primary law should be substantially amended.
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I rise to thank the Minister for his clear explanation of what this code is about and to say that there is very much to welcome in the code. I understand that the Trades Union Congress, which, as the noble Minister has said, has representatives on ACAS, believes that the code is as good as it is possible to be, bearing in mind the legislation on which it is based.
As the Minister has already indicated to the House, we on this side of the House did not like the restrictions imposed in the 1989 legislation. We hope there will come a time in the not-too-distant future when we shall have the opportunity of amending those restrictions, because surely it is to the benefit both of employers and employees that there should be a good and reasonable working relationship between representatives of recognised unions in a plant, factory or office and the management. Certainly time off with pay for a number of agreed activities is one of the elements in achieving a reasonable industrial relations environment.
There are aspects of the code to which I wish particularly to draw attention because they are important. I am sure that the Minister will agree that it is essential to do everything possible to encourage trade union democracy. That means providing facilities to lay members to take part in trade union activities—for example, to stand for election to national executive councils of unions and, when elected, to participate in the work of the executive and the union. It is the Government's repeatedly stated policy that unions should be returned to their members. I never thought that they belonged to anyone else. Nevertheless, that is the Government's philosophy. Therefore, I welcome those elements in the draft code which appear to encourage that development.
I have some doubts about the reference to associated employers. There are now very many large conglomerates which consist of a number of free-standing companies. Negotiations on pay bargaining and so on take place on a day-to-day basis in the free-standing companies. Therefore, I see no difficulty about time off for representatives handling those issues in the free-standing companies. However, there are often arrangements where, for example, pension schemes are negotiated on a group basis. I hope that the code as currently drafted will allow representatives to negotiate outside the free-standing companies with the main conglomerate in such circumstances.
As the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, said, the code shows a great improvement in the way
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in which it is drafted, the general presentation and appearance. I join with him in congratulating the Government upon that. I also thank him from this side of the House for raising sharply the issue of recognition, which we have repeatedly raised from this side of the House. We have raised it whenever an Employment Bill has been before the House. We have lost our amendments directed at achieving a statutory means of securing recognition. That is an area to which we shall have to return even though the context of a draft code of practice is not the appropriate vehicle. Nevertheless, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, for raising the issue. It is one to which we shall return in this House when the opportunity presents itself. I thank the Minister for the presentation of the code and offer no objection to it.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, I join in thanking the noble Viscount, Lord Ullswater, for the way in which he has presented the revised code. As he said, it is based on the proposition underlying Section 14 of the Employment Act 1989 that the right of officials of recognised trade unions to paid time off for trade union duties should be limited to duties concerned with matters for which the union is recognised and that, similarly, paid time off for training must be relevant to duties meeting the same conditions.
When we debated the clause before it became part of the 1989 Act, I opposed it on the ground that the 1978 code, as interpreted by various court cases which followed its publication, provided a reasonable legislative framework for determining when a union official should be entitled to time off. I took the view that in the great majority of cases the flexible arrangements relating to time off that were already in operation were working well enough and that there was no need to change them to rest on management-based recognition agreements.
However, as the noble Viscount has reminded us, for better or worse the Act took effect. Within the restrictions that have now been introduced, ACAS has predictably produced an excellent document. I particularly welcome the way in which the summary of statutory provisions relating to time off is distinguished from practical guidance by appearing in bold type. I suppose that the only way in which the present arrangements can now be radically altered would be to revert to conditions under which it would be easier for trade unions to obtain recognition from employers. The noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway, has canvassed such a course.
Like the noble Baroness, I have some sympathy for what he had to say, but I do not propose to follow him down that road now. Nevertheless, I shall be interested to hear whatever the noble Viscount may now have to say in response to the speech made by the noble Lord, Lord Campbell of Alloway. The only other comment I have to make is that under conditions in which so many companies, particularly small firms, are finding it hard enough even to survive, paragraph 31 of the revised code will often, unfortunately, be the operative one. I say that because I have been told that, with the best will in the world,

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in many cases employers are finding it impracticable to grant requests from trade unionists for time off and at the same time, in the words of that paragraph,
"ensure adequate cover for safety or to safeguard the production process".
That is a matter for regret, but it is no doubt unavoidable in the present circumstances. On behalf of my noble friends, I am happy to accept the code.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner of Camden, for welcoming this ACAS code. ACAS has obviously done a great deal of work on it by sending it out for consultation. This is the final product. The noble Lord, Lord Rochester, also welcomed the code, as did my noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway, who congratulated the Government on it. I was very pleased to accept that praise, but the congratulations are due to ACAS.
I stress to the noble Baroness, Lady Turner, and to the noble Lord, Lord Rochester, that the important point in all this will depend on the terms of the particular recognition agreement and the subject matter covered. I need not remind your Lordships that recognition agreements vary as to the subjects covered. For example, one recognition agreement may provide that pensions are to be the subject of negotiation between the employer and the trade union while another recognition agreement may cover pay only and exclude further matters such as pensions.
The application of the time off provision to which this code is drawing attention, crucially depends on the terms of the recognition agreement. Generally speaking, if the recognition agreement covers a particular matter and is concerned with negotiations, then the employer is under a statutory duty to allow time off in relation to that matter.
My noble friend Lord Campbell of Alloway referred to the importance of trade union recognition. He also drew attention to a study to be published shortly in the British Journal of Industrial Relations which apparently shows that corporate investment is significantly lower in companies that recognise trade unions for collective bargaining. Perhaps I may take that point first. I am grateful to my noble friend for drawing attention to the imminent publication of that study. I agree with him that the results of the study appear to be significant. I assure him that my department will examine them very carefully.
I turn briefly to the general subject of trade union recognition. My noble friend was quite right to stress its importance in the context of this debate. The statutory right to time off for trade union duties in the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978, as amended by the Employment Act 1989, is entirely dependent on having a recognition agreement between the employer and the trade union. If there is no such recognition agreement there is no statutory right to time off. That has been the case since the statutory provisions were first enacted by the Labour Government in 1975. However, since 1980, when this Government repealed the statutory recognition procedure enacted by the Labour Government, the
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decision whether to recognise a trade union has been entirely a matter for the employer to decide. I completely understand that that is the point at issue between my noble friend and myself.
I should state that in our view that is how it should be. Our view is that the decision to recognise a trade union is a matter which only the employer can decide in the light of his own particular circumstances. He has a freedom of decision in this matter which seems to us to be right, bearing in mind the general voluntary nature of industrial relations in this country. But if an employer decides that he will recognise a union, he is subject to certain statutory duties. I shall not enumerate them all but I give one or two examples. One is the statutory obligation to allow time off for trade union duties. That is the subject of the ACAS codes which we are discussing this evening. Another statutory right which follows from recognition is the right for trade unions to have information disclosed to them by the employer which they need for the purposes of collective bargaining. That is provided for in the Employment Protection Act 1975.
It is important that we strike a correct balance in these matters between the obligations on the employer and the rights of the trade union. I believe that we have the balance right. Union recognition is voluntary, but if the employer decides to recognise the union certain statutory obligations flow from that decision. I believe that those statutory obligations strike a fair and reasonable balance between the obligations of employers and the rights of the unions which I mentioned. The change which the Employment Act 1989 made in the right to time off for trade union activities, reflected in the draft ACAS code of practice, was another element ensuring that the balance is correct.
We have had a useful debate and we have explored one or two of the interesting aspects of the subject. In my view—I hope noble Lords will agree—the new ACAS code of practice is an improvement on the old code. I am glad that my noble friend indicated his approval of the new layout and presentation of that code. It brings the code into line with the law as embodied in the Employment Act 1989 and its new presentation and style makes it easier to use by its customers—employers and unions. I commend the draft code of practice to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Redundancy Payments (Local Government) (Modification) (Amendment) Order 1991
7.33 p.m.
Viscount Ullswater Viscount Ullswater rose to move that the draft order laid before the House on 19th February be approved [12th Report from the Joint Committee.]
The noble Viscount said: My Lords, this order, which is being made under powers in Section 149 of the Employment Protection (Consolidation) Act 1978, is concerned with the basis on which redundancy

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payments are calculated in the field of local government service. It amends the Redundancy Payments (Local Government) Modification Order which the House approved in July 1983. The 1983 order was previously amended in 1985 to take account of changes arising from the Local Government Act 1985 and has been amended again in each of the past three years, bringing in several bodies that were omitted in 1983 and 1985 or had since come into existence. We now have to undertake a further tidying up to bring in Scottish Enterprise and the General Teaching Council for Scotland and to replace the Local Government Training Board with the Local Government Management Board.
I should explain that under the provisions of Part VI of the 1978 Act an employee who is discharged as redundant after at least two years' service is entitled to be paid a redundancy payment calculated, among other things, according to his period of continuous service with his last employer. Local authorities and related institutions are legally distinct employers, so that on the strict basis of the statutory scheme on its own an employee would be entitled to a payment every time he became redundant even though he intended to move on to a post elsewhere in local government.
All this, however, would not properly reflect the realities of local government service, in which a normal career progression commonly involves moving from one authority to another, perhaps several times during an individual's working life. Local government collective agreements therefore provide for local authorities to base their redundancy payments on total aggregated service in local government, and the 1983 order secures a similar effect in the statutory redundancy scheme by replacing service with one employer with total "relevant local government service".
Unfortunately, there is no convenient and all-embracing definition of what constitutes local government employment. It is therefore necessary to list in the order all the employing authorities and bodies with whom service counts as local government service. Two lists are necessary. The first, in Schedule 1 to the 1983 order, lists those employers currently in being by whom anyone may be made redundant. The second, in the appendix to Schedule 2 in the same order, lists those bodies which may have ceased to exist, but with which service may still be reckoned for redundancy purposes.
This amending order is essentially a tidying up measure, it simply adds to the lists in Schedule 1 of the 1983 order bodies which have come into existence since the last amendment was made, or were previously omitted, and makes one deletion. The number of employees likely to be affected is very small.
I trust that I have said enough to satisfy your Lordships that these are necessary and innocuous amendments. I commend the order to your Lordships.
Moved, That the draft order laid before the House on 19th February be approved. [12th Report, from the Joint Committee]—(Viscount Ullswater.)
Baroness Turner of Camden: My Lords, I rise to thank the Minister for his very clear exposition of the order. As he says, it is a tidying up measure. It appears to me to be totally innocuous with very few people involved. In those circumstances, I offer no objection to the order.
Lord Rochester: My Lords, on these Benches we too are pleased to approve the order.
Viscount Ullswater: My Lords, I am most grateful for the words of the noble Baroness and the noble Lord.
On Question, Motion agreed to.

Electricity Generators (Rateable Values) (Scotland) Order 1991
7.38 p.m.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne rose to move that the draft orders laid before the House on 24th January be approved.
The noble Earl said: My Lords, the rateable values for the operational property of various utilities and undertakings are prescribed by the Secretary of State. These rateable values required to be re-assessed with effect from 1st April 1990, the date of the general revaluation of all non-domestic properties.
Your Lordships had the opportunity some time ago to debate the orders relating to most of the relevant industries. In the case of the electricity industry, however, the date of the revaluation coincided with that for the vesting of the property of the former Scottish electricity boards in their three successor companies—Scottish Power, Scottish Hydro Electric and Scottish Nuclear. This transfer of property required to be reflected in the rating assessments and resulted in an extended consultation with the companies.
We are also committed to bringing the valuation of independent generators of electricity into line with that for the supply companies in the interests of fair competition. Consultations have been conducted with representatives of the independent generators on the proposed method of assessment and the criteria for inclusion within the new arrangements. These consultations are required to await finalisation of our proposals in respect of the electricity companies.
In drafting these orders we have sought to arrive at levels of assessment consistent with those that might have been reached by conventional means and at the same time to harmonise our approach with that adopted south of the Border. Orders relating to the valuation of the corresponding undertakings in England and Wales have already been approved.
The assessments and provisions contained in these orders are the result of extensive discussions with representatives of the supply industry and of independent generators, with the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities and with the Scottish Assessors' Association. The orders have also been the subject of formal consultation. I believe that they represent fair and reasonable assessments for the industry.
Moved, That the draft orders laid before the House on 24th January be approved [8th Report from the Joint Committee. —(The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne.)
Lord Carmichael of Kelvingrove: My Lords, I should like to thank the noble Earl for his explanation of the orders. It has given me a better understanding of what is involved. I have taken advice upon the orders and I understand that there are no objections from CoSLA or any of the other bodies concerned. It is also important, as the noble Earl said, that the electricity generators are being brought into the same scheme of valuation in order, as he correctly pointed out, to ensure that there will be a level playing field for competition. As I said, no representations have been made to me as regards any objections. Accordingly, I am happy to accept the orders.
The Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne: My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Carmichael, for his remarks. I commend the four orders to the House.
On Question, Motion agreed to.
Viscount Long: My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn during pleasure until 8.5 p.m.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
[The sitting was suspended from 7.42 to 8.5 p.m.]

Disability Living Allowance and Disability Working Allowance Bill
House again in Committee on Clause 1.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)Baroness Darcy (de Knayth) moved Amendment No. 25:
Page 4, line 29, at end insert:
("( ) A payment to or in respect of any person which is attributable to his entitlement to the care component and the right to receive such a payment shall (except in prescribed circumstances and for prescribed purposes) be disregarded in applying any enactment or instrument under which regard is to be had to a person's means.").
The noble Baroness said: I hope that the Minister is in a good mood after the realisation of his culinary concept. I shall be as brief as possible, but I need to go into some detail. The amendment seeks to ensure that
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disabled people in receipt of the attendance allowance component are not expected to contribute it to services provided by a local authority or health authority.
I want to make it clear that we are not talking about this issue in relation to residential care or social security. They are both dealt with in other legislation. We are not talking about income assessment in the pure sense; that is, assessment of a person's overall income. Rather, we refer to AA being used as a criterion against which local authorities and health authorities impose charges on disabled people. There is a blanket policy that everyone in receipt of AA is expected to pay so much towards home care regardless of their overall income.
The Spinal Injuries Association claims that that is an increasing problem for many of its members. They are expected to contribute AA to personal and home help services and also, for example, to provide incontinence pads. AA is payable to severely disabled people only. They require frequent attendance during the day or night to help with bodily functions. Higher rate, as we all know by now, is £37.55. That currently buys about 10 hours' care in London and 8 outside the city. The irony is that if someone is disabled enough to qualify for that amount, the sum hardly gets the person out of bed and dressed every day. It certainly does not get him back into bed again.
AA is therefore a compensatory benefit. It was originally designed to help towards the general costs of a disabled person's daily living. The need for attendance was a measure of those most in need. Does the Minister accept that AA does not adequately meet the needs of people sufficiently severely disabled to qualify for it and that local authorities and health authorities should not be requiring AA in return for service provision?
The Department of Health has from time to time issued circulars aimed at preventing charges being made for the home help service but without a great deal of success. The amendment would ensure success while allowing the Government to introduce regulations to prescribe circumstances in which local authorities or health authorities can ask for AA. I understand that the Department of Health intends to issue to local authorities and health authorities guidance on income assessment for community care. The Spinal Injuries Association is concerned about the implication of that guidance. It believes that the consumers' viewpoint should be represented. Will the Minister consult the disability organisations on the broad issue of income assessment for personal social services; and, in direct relation to the amendment, will he say whether the guidance will contain advice on charging for personal assistance and domestic home help services? It would be helpful if he could answer that question when he replies because it may well help me to decide what to do about the amendment. I very much hope that he will agree to the provision or something like it because it would strengthen his hand if it were on the face of the Bill. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: The purpose of the amendment has been well described by the noble Baroness so there is

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no need for me to spend much time on it. I should like to press the Minister. We know that the mobility allowance is disregarded as a criterion against which an authority providing the service might impose a charge. The obvious question is, why not do the same with the care component? I cannot see the purpose of introducing one benefit, the DLA, if the two components are to be kept separate for the purpose of income assessment. It is an unnecessary complication and from what we heard earlier it seems to run entirely contrary to the wish to simplify the system.
There is the phrase already in the Bill under Section 37ZB(7) which states that the,
"circumstances may be prescribed in which a person is to be taken to satisfy or not to satisfy such of the conditions".
It seems to us that that allows the Government to state areas in which the care component should not be disregarded and therefore they could accept the amendment because it means that they could continue the present position if they wished. I ask the Minister whether he accepts that the attendance allowance is inadequate to meet the personal assistance needs of people sufficiently severely disabled, to qualify for it. As the noble Baroness said, local and health authorities should not be requiring attendance allowance in return for service provision.
I repeat: how does the Minister justify introducing one benefit but keeping the two components distinct for the purpose of income assessment? Does he accept that this will lead to unnecessary complications?
Lord Henley: As the noble Baroness quite rightly said, this amendment would not alter the position of income support payments in residential care and nursing homes and similar places. Where the amendment would be effective is in an area not currently covered by the regulations—that is, the local authority's ability to charge for certain services which it is statutorily obliged to supply. I fully understand the noble Baroness's concern to protect claimants' attendance allowance or the new care component. Allowances, including attendance allowance, DLA, are paid or will be paid from public funds for a wide variety of purposes. I hope that the Committee will agree that where a benefit is designed to pay for services which a local authority provides it is quite proper for that local authority to take the benefit into account in calculating charges for these services. The wide scope of the amendment would make it unable to do so unless very complicated legislation making specific exceptions were introduced. These exceptions would be further complicated with the implementation of community care.
I do not accept the point that the noble Baroness made that the attendance allowance does not necessarily meet all the needs that she suggests. However, we are prepared to consult various organisations in the disability field on the issue. I make no promise as to the outcome, nor am I in a position to make a promise about guidance that might be issued by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health. I repeat, there are no plans to change any of the ways in which either the care or the mobility
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component is treated. There is no advantage to be gained from this amendment and I therefore hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw it.
8.15 p.m.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I am slightly disappointed by that reply, which will not surprise the Minister. I do not quite see why it should be so complicated to include legislation to exempt—did the noble Lord, Lord Carter, wish to intervene?
Lord Carter: Before the noble Baroness decides what to do with the amendment, will the Minister answer my question? Why is the mobility component disregarded but not the care component?
Lord Henley: The mobility allowance always was disregarded and the noble Lord will accept that that has always been the case. I do not think it would be right therefore for us to decide not to disregard the mobility allowance or the mobility component in the new benefit, the DLA.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I return to what I was saying. I do not quite see why it is so complicated to prescribe the circumstances in which one could charge. I thought that the phrase in brackets in my amendment would have permitted that in regulations. However, perhaps the Minister will comment on that. I appreciate that he cannot say what will be in the guidance. When he says that he will consult disability organisations, do I take it that he will consult them with reference to carrying out the guidance?
Lord Henley: When I say that I shall consult the disability organisations, I mean that if disability organisations wish to come forward, as I have said on previous occasions with different Bills, my door will be open and I shall be prepared to listen to what they say. I make no promises beyond that.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I shall probably have to accept that. I wish to give the Minister one or two instances of things that are happening and perhaps he will comment on them and say whether he thinks that guidance is needed to sort out the problems. I appreciate, as he said, that many local authorities are moving away from merely providing home help towards providing home care services as well. I know his argument is that the attendance allowance can be taken for that but not for home help.
Many are moving towards providing care assistance, giving priority to those needing personal care and imposing charges on the people in receipt of attendance allowance, but the people who need basic home help are being given a low priority. In effect, they are being denied the service. Is it not the local authority's duty to provide assistance, under the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970, to those who are assessed as needing such domestic help? Can the Minister give his opinion on that? Is he aware that local authorities are asking for attendance allowances for services? Often they charge a flat rate, regardless of the number of hours provided. They may take quite a lot of the attendance allowance for very

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few hours and that can leave the recipient with little of the attendance allowance to spare to buy in services from elsewhere.
On 14th June 1990, at the Report stage of the National Health Service and Community Care Bill, replying to an amendment moved by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, on much the same question of charging for services, using the attendance allowance for services, the Minister said at col. 466 of Hansard:
"to avoid double provision, there should not be an automatic disregard of attendance allowance"—
this is the important point—
"though the local authority would be right not to take it into account if it was being spent on attendance needs not covered by the services the local authority was providing".
Does this mean that if the attendance allowance is being spent on extra care or other extra costs, the recipient will not be asked to contribute any attendance allowance to the provision by the local authority if he needs to buy in services elsewhere?
Lord Henley: The various comments which the noble Baroness made will be taken into account by my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health in issuing any guidance on the matter. I ought to stress what I said earlier. I hope that the noble Baroness will agree that where a benefit is designed to pay for services which a local authority provides, it is quite proper for that authority to take the benefit into account in calculating the charges for those services. The specific points which the noble Baroness made may be relevant for guidance from my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health and he will take her comments into account.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I still argue that the attendance allowance was not specifically designed to pay for care. It was a general cost allowance. The measure of the disability for which the attendance was needed was the reason for it originally being granted. However, I can see that there is no point in dividing the Committee at this hour of the night—or perhaps there is and we shall start again tomorrow. That might be a good idea.
I thank the Minister up to a point for what he said and for offering to meet the disability organisations. I am sure that they will take note of what he said and queue up at his door. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 26:
Page 4, line 33, leave out ("5") and insert ("2").
The noble Lord said: This amendment attempts to deal with a situation where it is hard to understand the logic of the Government's attitude as explained in another place. I, and many outside organisations, feel that the Government have been particularly hard-hearted as regards the lower age limit for the new mobility component. The present mobility allowance can only be claimed from the age of five. The new mobility component of the DLA will have the same restriction. That provision seems to be based on the idea that children under the age of five with handicaps
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have the same mobility needs as those without handicaps, and therefore no special allowance is necessary.
Those of us who have had experience of bringing up handicapped children will know the extra costs incurred from a very early age; for example, in travelling around with the child. One cannot always take a handicapped child on public transport and one has to use one's car much more often or take taxis. That not only applies to the physically handicapped but also to retarded children and children with multiple handicaps. It is only common sense to admit that such children have far greater needs than those of able bodied children. In MENCAP's survey of children with profound retardation and multiple handicaps, parents were asked about their problems with travel. Some 88 per cent. of parents said that the nature of the handicap made travel by bus or train very difficult—I made that point earlier when I was referring to physical handicap—and only 5 per cent. of the parents said they could use public transport. Some 79 per cent. said they had to use a private car, yet there is no help with those mobility costs.
Most children are able to walk by the age of two, though not every child will walk by that age. However, the mobility component is limited to children with a severe disability. If this amendment is accepted there is no danger of this entitlement being awarded to children who are simply slow in starting to walk. In another place the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, Miss Ann Widdecombe, seemed to argue that the mobility needs of a handicapped child were the same as those of a non-handicapped child until he went to school. That argument is inappropriate for children who, in educational terms, are described as having special needs. As we know, health authorities have a duty to inform local education authorities and parents of any children under five whom the health authorities have reason to believe may have special educational needs. Children aged over two can then be formally assessed under the provisions of the 1981 Act. The 1981 Education Act recognises the vital importance of early provision of education for children with special needs. The right to special education starts at the age of two and not at the age of five.
We know that children with severe handicaps require more than just supervision or guidance out of doors, as is the case with able-bodied children. Severely handicapped children have to be carried or held wherever they are. Caring for a very young child with multiple handicaps is not the same as keeping an eye on able-bodied children who are just running around. The same applies to children with cerebral palsy. The first few years can be very expensive. Again, parents have to use a car much more often. Alternatively, they have to hire taxis or pay for lifts as they cannot use public transport. Special wheelchairs and buggies are needed, as is other special equipment.
The National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux sent us some information about two heartrending cases. A citizens advice bureau in Cheshire reports the case of a child with spinal

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muscular atrophy who died just before her fifth birthday. If mobility allowance had been payable it would have enabled the family to buy a car to take the child out. A CAB in Pendle reports the case of a child aged three years and three months who is severely disabled. That child's mother spends an average of two days a week taking her son to see various specialists and for treatment. The journeys may involve her travelling up to 30 miles away from her home. Anyone who has experienced visiting hospitals on a regular basis with a handicapped child will have seen the sheer heroism that is displayed by many parents of handicapped children in the time they devote to plying backwards and forwards to hospitals with their children. The Government will perhaps produce the argument of cost, but if it is a matter of cost let us be clear about that. This problem should be recognised. As I said at the outset, I believe the Government are being rather hard-hearted in their attitude to this matter. I beg to move.
Baroness Elles: I hope I may interject at this stage to ask the Minister seriously to consider this matter. We have discussed on previous occasions the child support legislation. One of the aims of that piece of legislation is to encourage women who are single parents to go out to work. Clearly the same problems will arise whether the child concerned is aged two, three, four, five or six. I have carried out a great deal of social services work in Kennington over the years and I know how extremely difficult it is for a single mother to move her child from A to B, whether to a hospital, a nursery school or any other place, if that child has either a mental or physical handicap. I hope the Minister will consider this amendment sympathetically. I hope he will inform us whether the problem is one of cost. However, if there is some illogical reason for resisting the amendment I believe the Committee should also be informed of that.
Lord Swinfen: The amendment contains a great deal of merit. Frequently when a family has a two year-old child other children are being born into the family or there may be other children under the age of five. Sometimes there are more than two children under the age of five. My noble friend the Minister is not a mother, though I know he is a father. I suspect he has never had the occasion to do a large family shop on his own accompanied by more than one small child. I gather that he may now have the occasion to do so as he has recently increased his family from two to one. I offer him my congratulations on that fact.
Lord Carter: From one to two!
Lord Swinfen: I beg my noble friend's pardon. I never have been very good at mathematics. If one has two small children and a heavy load of shopping, and one of the children is unable to move around unaided or is disruptive because of a mental disability, the unfortunate mother faces a great deal of difficulty. My noble friend should consider the amendment sympathetically.
Lord Henley: I start by thanking the noble Lord, Lord Carter, for his intervention in restoring the size of my family to its appropriate level. Obviously I have noted the points made by all speakers, and
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particularly those made by my noble friends Lady Elles and Lord Swinfen. I take their comments on board. I should stress the costs that would be involved in this provision—an extra £30 million.
Some of the toughest decisions in social security revolve around where one draws any particular line, whether it concerns age or income. Inevitably a case can be made for including those who fall the wrong side of that line. That is the problem with drawing lines. Having considered this question with the greatest care I must say that we are not persuaded by the case for any change in the age limit. We remain convinced that the right age limit is five. As Members of the Committee will recall, this was the limit set by the Labour Government, which the noble Lord, Lord Carter, no doubt supported, on the introduction of the mobility allowance. That age limit was set on the ground that below the age of five we all have some mobility needs. It is equally true that below that age we need guidance and supervision while walking. Children under five who can walk need almost constant supervision and must be accompanied even on the shortest of journeys.
The age of five is also the age at which most children start school. In many cases they then begin to make journeys on their own. Therefore, that seems to us a sensible dividing line. The Committee will be aware, however, that one of the guiding principles of the Bill is the commitment to considering the effect of disablement and not the cause. That message was received strongly from disabled people and their representative organisations. We are in complete sympathy with that message. That means that we should look at the amount of extra care or supervision that is needed beyond what a child in normal health would need. In the Bill we are providing for both the care and the mobility components.
The Government were persuaded by strong evidence from paediatricians and others that it was sensible to abolish the lower age limit for attendance allowance because it is apparent that some babies require substantially more care than others. I must say that we are delighted by the number of children who are already gaining from that change in attendance allowance. I should mention to the Committee that on the evidence of the OPCS surveys the children we are talking about will almost certainly qualify for the care component. It is hard to imagine circumstances in which a child who is unable to walk would not qualify for the care component, at whatever level.
I do not believe that the same applies to the mobility component. No one denies that it may be clear before the age of five that a child is unlikely ever to be able to walk. The question has to be whether the disability causes extra costs over and above those incurred by parents looking after children of the same age in normal health. As I have said, I do not think that it is possible to speak of any children under the age of five as being independently mobile.
In any decisions as to where to draw the line we must always consider priorities. That is why I emphasised the question of cost. In this case it would be another £30 million on top of the amount that we

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are already committed to spending. I hope that Members of the Committee will agree that it would not be the best use of resources to provide help with mobility at an age earlier than that at which we can expect normal children to begin to be independently mobile. Having carefully considered the issues we believe that the age of five is the sensible limit. I hope that with that explanation the noble Lord will feel able to withdraw his amendment.
8.30 p.m.
Lord Carter: I am grateful to the Minister. However, he faces the difficulty with a number of the amendments that he has to admit that it is cost which is at the heart of his argument.
As he said, a child who is unable to walk will receive the care component from the age of two but will not receive the mobility component until the age of five.
Lord Henley: I stressed that the evidence that we had received from paediatricians suggested that in terms of the care component the needs of a child of the age of two were greater. We do not see that as being so in the case of the mobility component until children are at least five.
Lord Carter: Anyone who compares the mobility of a child between the ages of two and five who is unable to walk with the performance of the normal toddler running around the house has missed the point. That illustrates a weakness in the Government's argument. I shall not press the amendment tonight but I shall have to come back to the matter at Report stage.
Lord Henley: Perhaps I may make one further intervention to stress that we believe that the people about whom the noble Lord has spoken would be entitled to the care component. Therefore money would be coming in but it would not be in the form of the mobility component.
Lord Carter: What we have is supposedly a new benefit combining two old benefits with many of the criteria differing between the two components. Therefore we really have the same two benefits with different criteria even though they have now been brought under the one title of disability living allowance. However, I do not intend to press the amendment tonight. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 27 not moved.]
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Murton of Lindisfarne): Should Amendment No. 28 be agreed to I shall not be able to call Amendment No. 29 because it pre-empts it.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 28:
Page 4, line 38, leave out from ("that") to ("guidance") in line 39 and insert ("disregarding any ability he may have to use routes which are familiar to him on his own, he cannot take advantage of the faculty out of doors without").
The noble Lord said: In moving the amendment I shall also speak to Amendment No. 29 in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Carter. I hope that the noble Lord will accept my amendment so that there will be
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no need for him to move his amendment. I hope that I can, relatively briefly, satisfy the noble Lord that his amendment—which he may or may not move—referring to unfamiliar terrain is now unnecessary because we have achieved the same effect by a slightly different route.
My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Social Security and Disabled People gave a commitment in another place that we would look most closely at whether some such amendment as that of the noble Lord was necessary. My right honourable friend said on that occasion that we were in agreement with the point that lay behind the amendment, which is essentially to ensure that a blind or mentally disabled person was not ruled out for benefit because they were able to negotiate one or two local routes on their own without guidance. The fear was expressed that if in practice they spent, in the Bill's words, "most of the time" on those familiar routes they might, perversely, find themselves ruled out for benefit. Clearly that is not our intention. Looking afresh at the matter in recent weeks we have decided that the best and safest course would be to put the matter beyond doubt by covering the point in primary legislation.
We have not done so in quite the same terms as the noble Lord in his amendment. The noble Lord can be assured that that is not because we have any strong objection to his wording. It is simply that our legal advice cast doubt on whether adding the phrase:
"to walk to any intended or required destination on unfamiliar terrain",
solved the problem.
At this stage of the evening I would not wish to enter into a tortuous textual analysis, but it seemed to us quite probable that a person who spent the bulk of the time he spends out of doors going unaccompanied to the corner shop but was unable to go anywhere else without guidance might still miss out. I believe that the amendment that I have tabled tackles that problem successfully by making it clear that the fact that someone unaccompanied can find his way on a few familiar routes does not automatically rule him out for benefit.
We are also content that we have come up with a form of words which makes it clear that the test is abstract. The last thing we would want to have invented is a test which could only be adjudicated by transporting the claimant on to unfamiliar terrain in order to see how he manages.
Having now, I think, got the amendment right, with the help of the amendment of the noble Lord and suggestions made by Opposition Members in another place, to whom I and I am sure my right honourable friend in another place would want to pay tribute, the next step will be for us to prepare a claims pack. In that claims pack we frame the questions in such a way that claimants fully understand the questions that are being asked and give their own assessment of their mobility problems, backed up by an assessment from their carers or professionals who know them. I can assure the noble Lord that we shall be consulting a wide range of individuals and organisations on that subject. I hope that on the basis of those assurances

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the noble Lord will be prepared to accept my amendment and will not feel it necessary to move his own. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale: From these Benches perhaps I may be permitted to congratulate my noble friend and the Government on what is a considerable and long overdue easement of the criteria for mobility allowance. They deserve every congratulation and I am delighted that it has happened.
Lord Carter: I only wish that the same ingenuity could be applied to the definition of the severely mentally handicapped for the purposes of the mobility allowance.
Obviously at this time of the evening the Committee will accept Amendment No. 28 and I shall be pre-empted on Amendment No. 29. Concern has been expressed by the RNIB. The problem mainly concerns the eligibility of blind people for the mobility component. In a letter to Mr. Dafydd Wigley the Minister said that registered blind people would be eligible for the new lower rate mobility component of DLA. I know that the Government have tried to get it right. However, there is still doubt as to whether the wording is absolutely right in order to ensure that blind people receive the allowance.
I should like to withdraw the amendment, but perhaps I may have a word with the Minister outside the Chamber at some stage to see whether, through a drafting amendment, the anxieties that have been expressed can be addressed.
Lord Henley: I am very grateful for the congratulations of my noble friend. He will know from his experience as a social security Minister that one does not often receive much in the way of congratulations.
To take up the point of the noble Lord, Lord Carter, of course I shall be prepared to have a chat on this matter at some stage. If it turns out that we are still not there I am sure that we could make further moves. I believe that we are in total agreement about what we are trying to achieve. I suggest that we agree my amendment now, and I hope that I shall be able to reassure the noble Lord that my amendment does exactly what I said it does.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
[Amendment No. 29 not moved.]
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 30:
Page 6, line 33, leave out ("either") and insert ("the mobility").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is intended to remove the upper age limit of 65 for entitlement to the care component of the proposed disability living allowance. It would allow people who become disabled after the age of 65 to apply for all three rates of the care component of the DLA and would in effect mean that the attendance allowance could be abolished.
The cost of the amendment would relate only to the lowest £10 rate of the DLA as the two higher rates are already equivalent to the two levels of attendance allowance. Removing the upper age limit for
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entitlement to only the care component would be an important step forward to redress some of the discrimination which older people face with disability benefits.
The OPCS surveys—we seem to have to refer to them on almost every amendment with which we deal —show that 70 per cent. of adults with disabilities are over the age of 60. Age is also strongly associated with severity of disability. Almost half of the population with the most severe disabilities is aged over 75. People aged 65 or over are already excluded from the mobility allowance. We feel that the Bill will further discriminate against older people with disabilities by denying them the new lower rate of the DLA. The intention of this amendment is to deal with that problem.
The OPCS surveys showed that only a low proportion of people in severity categories 1 to 8 is in receipt of either attendance allowance or mobility allowance. Researchers noted that only among those in the two highest severity categories are more than half receiving any disability cost benefit. The surveys also showed that a total of 454,000 people with disabilities aged over 60 are in severity categories 9 and 10.
One of the arguments, which is either explicit or implicit in the Government's attitude, is that somehow disability is a natural part of the ageing process and therefore should not be compensated for in any way. That seems to be an argument used by the Government to defend the policy of denying help with the extra costs of mobility for people over the age of 65.
The OPCS report estimates that the prevalence of disability among people aged 60 or over is 35.5 per cent. Clearly the majority of pensioners are not disabled. In other words, it is not a natural part of the process of ageing. The disabilities faced by those who are disabled cannot therefore simply be dismissed as the natural consequences of old age. The OPCS points out that the limitations arising from ageing are properly considered as disabilities and are not a natural part of that process.
I know that the Minister will come back with cost as an argument. If it is cost he should let us know rather than produce a convoluted argument giving all the reasons that I do not find acceptable about the relationship between ageing and disability. We can understand should the Government accept the argument but say that it would cost too much to implement. It would certainly save the time of the Committee if the Minister were to say that rather than produce a long argument which would not be acceptable when the real reason is cost. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale: The noble Lord, Lord Carter, may or may not be amused to hear that when I first saw his amendment I wrote against it "the problems of ageing". He has argued both sides of his own amendment with great clarity. There is no doubt that as people age their mobility problems increase. The noble Lord will surely accept that. The great advantage of this Bill and the disability living allowance as currently proposed is that the care component will not only go on but will also be

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available, as is attendance allowance now, to people after 65. The mobility allowance on the other hand will essentially carry on as heretofore. In other words, if one does not apply and/or get the allowance before the age of 65, there is a cut-off point and one will not get it thereafter.
As the population gets healthier and therefore most people live unrestricted and mobile lives for longer, say to the age of 70 or 75, this amendment will become more and more important. I rather doubt—I shall be interested to hear what the Minister says—whether we have yet reached that point. We should however keep it in mind for the future.
Lord Carter: Here we have yet another example of the criteria differing for the two components of the so-called one new simplified allowance. In almost every amendment with which we have dealt, it is being revealed that attendance allowance and mobility allowance continue under the new title with different criteria. That is not awfully logical.
Lord Skelmersdale: Would the noble Lord like the cut-off for the first criterion?
8.45 p.m.
Lord Henley: The noble Lord raised the question of costs. Obviously they are relevant and I shall come to them later. Extending DLA to people over 65 has been a recurrent theme throughout the debate on the Bill here and in another place. I admit that up to now the debate has centred on the mobility component. I am grateful that the noble Lord has not tried to raise that provision again because he knows that to bring it in would mean a cost of somewhat less than £2 billion. This amendment represents a new approach.
The Committee will be familiar with the reasons for directing new help through the Bill toward younger disabled people—those of working age and under. In commissioning the OPCS surveys, the Government were seeking, among other things, to identify areas of need which the benefit system was not addressing. The OPCS findings were that younger disabled people experienced a much greater income gap relative to their non-disabled peers than did pensioners. Those shown to be in the greatest need of assistance were younger disabled people whose disabilities did not qualify them for any extra costs benefit under the present scheme, especially those disabled from birth or early in life who, as a result, have had very little or no opportunity to work and save. It was very much with those considerations in mind that we took the course we did, in targeting younger people—for example, with the age additions to severe disablement allowance which we introduced in December last year—and in creating the new lower rates of DLA.
This is not of course to minimise the need to help poorer pensioners, including those with disabilities, and we have done so. I do not feel that it is necessary this evening for me to repeat what we have seen in the way of increased average pensioners' income over the past 11 or 12 years.
I know that the Committee is mindful of the concern that increases in pensioners' average income
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should extend to all sections of the pensioner population including those who are dependent primarily or even solely on state benefits. That is why from 1989 an extra £200 million a year over and above inflation has gone into help for pensioners on income-related benefits, including extra money for elderly disabled people. There will be a further £80 million from April this year. That sort of targeted help is the only serious way in which substantial sums of money can be directed to improving the position of those who need it most.
I understand the Committee's desire to try and take the opportunity of the Bill to go further in helping people who are both disabled and pensioners and I recognise that in moving this amendment the noble Lord seeks a commitment to something more modest than the £2 billion that would be required to extend the mobility component to the over 65s. Nevertheless, even with this amendment, we are still talking about a sum of £165 million which is not insubstantial in anyone's language. It has to be the task of government to weigh up competing priorities and find ways of directing help most effectively to those who need it. Our judgment has been that our main priorities over the last couple of years should be poorer pensioners, who received, as I mentioned earlier, an extra £280 million in the last couple of years, younger disabled people, who will get an extra £300 million by 1993–94 through The Way Ahead package, and families with children, particularly lone parents. That is an issue which we shall come to later in the Child Support Bill.
To return to the text of the amendment, as the noble Lord will know, we have taken the opportunity of this Bill to remove the upper age limit which currently applies to receipt of mobility allowance. There are no age limits for receipt of DLA once awarded—including receipt of the lower rates—and AA will continue to be available to those whose disabilities start after age 65. In this context I should mention that some 543,000 pensioners receive attendance allowance—that is 64 per cent. of all attendance allowance recipients. Over 170,000 pensioners currently receive mobility allowance. They form about 28 per cent. of the total MobA population. So it is false to claim that these benefits are completely unavailable to pensioners.
As I have already said, we are cognizant of the needs of pensioners. We have already done and will continue to do a very great deal to meet them. However, this Bill is purposely aimed at younger disabled people. The amendment, though well intentioned, is not the vehicle to extend provision to pensioners at a cost of £165 million.
Earl Russell: I am sensitive to the argument about cost which the Minister advanced, and which I expected him to advance. I agree that these are significant sums. However, if the Government do not meet the costs they do not go away. On whom should they fall? Do they fall better on any of the alternatives than on the Government?
We need to consider the situation in the round and the effects of allowing the costs to fall in various alternative places. It is possible that the old person

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concerned may sell his house. That might produce a considerable sum of money. However, uprooting people in their old age is not always a good thing to do. Finding them somewhere else to live may generate other considerable costs which fall on their children. But very often it occurs at a time of maximum outgoings in the lives of those children; often at exactly the same time as the costs of their children's further education. Thanks to measures which we have discussed recently those have increased quite considerably.
Such costs falling at the same time may well be more than a household can meet. I do not know whether it is in the public interest to force people to make that choice, but whichever choice they make the public will suffer. We have therefore a distinct possibility that if nothing is done the person concerned may end up in residential care. That could cost the Government a great deal more than the £165 million about which we now speak. From the Treasury's point of view, is not the amendment the best bargain on offer?
Lord Henley: With monotonous regularity if I may say so, in all social security Bills the noble Earl seems to suggest that any amendment which I argue will cost a great deal of money will somehow save the Government a great deal of money. If I were to listen to every point made by the noble Earl the social security department would be in profit very quickly! Sadly, that is not the case. We live in the real world, as I believe I have said on earlier occasions.
The noble Earl asked on whom the costs will fall. The cost of the amendment will fall on the taxpayers. The taxpayers already pay considerable sums into the social security system. Taxpayers and national insurance contributors are paying £55 billion or more. That is £20 a week for every man, woman and child in the country. Those are not inconsiderable sums. The noble Earl asks: if taxpayers are not prepared to pay, who should pay?
In the end one has to decide on priorities. In some cases an individual may be able to pay. The OPCS surveys considered the levels of income of disabled and non-disabled pensioners, and disabled and non-disabled people below pension age. Above pension age there is not the disparity of income which exists below pension age. It therefore seems right that priority should be directed towards those below pension age. For those reasons one must take cost into account. The same problem does not exist for those above pension age.
The cost is another £165 million. I am sure that even the noble Lord will accept that that is not an inconsiderate sum.
Lord Carter: The Minister's answer was not unexpected but it was disappointing. It is not the time of night to enter into a debate on the philosophy of support for people with disabilities and whether one should have an income and cost allowance irrespective of means if one is disabled. It is a major divide between the two major parties in their attitude towards disability. In a curious way the amendment is a side wind of that.
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I do not propose to start that argument. I shall read what the Minister said. I shall certainly return to the subject at Report stage. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham Baroness Hollis of Heigham moved Amendment No. 31:
Page 7, line 10 at end insert:
("(2A) Where the claimant shows that there was good cause for a failure to claim a disability living allowance during a period throughout which he fulfilled the conditions for receipt of the allowance the first day of that period shall be treated as the date on which the claim was made.").
The noble Baroness said: The amendment, which deals with backdating when good cause is shown, seeks to remedy a situation which I suggest is not only unfair but downright perverse.
In attendance allowance and mobility allowance claims there can be no backdating. That failure to be permitted to backdate a claim is carried forward in this Bill to DLA and DWA. I argue that it is both perverse and unfair on two grounds. The first is on the ground of public policy and, secondly and more particularly, on grounds of public mobility.
On the policy of backdating, up to 12 months is permitted in almost all related and relevant benefits. I remind the Committee that backdating is permitted in housing benefit, family credit, social fund payments, unemployment benefit, poll tax rebates, industrial injuries, sickness benefit, invalidity benefit, invalid care allowance, and severe disablement allowance. To claim backdating on such benefits one usually has to show good cause. "Good cause" is held to be,
"some fact which, having regard to all the circumstances including the claimant's state of health and the information which he has received and that which he might have obtained, would probably have caused a reasonable person of his age and experience to act (or fail to act) as the claimant did".
Let me give some examples of such good cause. A claimant may have misunderstood the system; for example, according to the CAB, where a claimant has made inquiries about one benefit for which he was ineligible and had wrongly assumed that the same rules applied to another benefit for which he was eligible but for which he did not then apply. Equally, language difficulty, illiteracy, or extremely technical documentation can sometimes be held to be good cause. Where claimants have been given misleading or inaccurate advice they are clearly permitted to backdate their claims. Where there has been a bureaucratic error—perhaps where staff have mislaid letters—may be good cause. As chair of a housing committee for a number of years in a good housing department I found that a steady, though small, proportion of requests for repairs, or applications to be included on the waiting list or a renewal of the waiting lists, regularly went astray—and I refer to a good department.
However, I ask the Committee to bear this in mind. It is also recognised that ill health can be a good cause for backdating the start of a benefit. I take the example of a hospital patient. It is assumed that there was good cause not to have claimed sickness or

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invalidity benefit or disablement allowance either up to 13 weeks after hospital admission or three weeks after discharge, whichever was the earlier.
Does not the Committee consider it perverse and unfair that ill health is a good cause for backdating other benefits until it comes to those benefits which are designed to compensate for ill health? If one seeks housing benefit, and one suffers ill health, it can be backdated. But if one has ill health and seeks attendance allowance, ill health is no longer a good cause. In other words, ill health is a good cause when it is related to benefits for the able but not for the disabled. Is that fair?
Indeed, backdating on showing good cause is even permitted for some of the benefits that disabled people may claim, such as invalidity benefit and disablement allowance, but not for attendance allowance or mobility allowance. Is that consistent? Will the Minister inform the Committee why it is acceptable to backdate the claim for validity benefit or disablement allowance but not for attendance allowance or mobility allowance? I make it clear that although the wording refers to the period from which it started, we are happy to acquiesce if the Minister were to accept a subsequent amendment allowing backdating for up to 12 months to bring such a clause in line with other benefits.
One reason for arguing in favour of the amendment is that it is inconsistent with public policy across a whole range of benefits where ill health is regarded as good cause except when you already suffer from it. Secondly, I argue that the system is particularly unfair because when claiming benefit disabled people are more disadvantaged than almost any other group in society. Many of their professional workers are uninformed about the benefits available. For example, a close relative of mine lost two years' attendance allowance for nursing her husband because her GP's knowledge of benefits—a kindly, elderly man who has since retired—began and ended with orange badges. Often disabled people do not know or are not told about their entitlements by professional staff.
Disabled people are also less likely to have physical access to premises to where the information is available; for example, post offices, trade union welfare rights offices, advice centres, surgery notices, community centres and town halls. They are all places where the able bodied could expect to acquire information about rights, eligibility and forms. By definition, the disabled have less access to these things.
Therefore the issue becomes one of take-up. It is the problem with all targeted benefits but it is especially acute among the disabled. In its survey the OPCS registered surprise that in category 10, the most severe category of disability, a quarter of those who should receive attendance allowance were not doing so. That point was also made in the ninth report of the House of Commons Social Services Committee of October 1990. The implication was that they were unaware of their entitlement and when they did become aware they were unable to backdate their claims to these benefits.
In rejecting a similar amendment the Minister in another place made two points, although not persuasively. First, he rejected the principle of backdating on the grounds of self-assessment; that it would produce some difficulties that were not present in other forms of benefit where backdating was permitted. I suggest that, as after six months a professional review would take place, that argument would be irrelevant. In any event, self-assessment already applies to a whole range of benefit claims, but that is not held to rule out backdating for good cause.
Secondly, the Minister in another place indicated that he hoped to increase take-up through publicity campaigns, which are welcome. But he also admitted that the forms would be longer and more complex and that that would discourage applications. In any case, publicity would not help the mentally handicapped or those too ill to know about it. Furthermore, he had to acknowledge that the disabled would suffer the additional physical difficulties of acquiring forms, filling them in and posting them in order to lodge them in time. All those problems are greater for disabled people.
If in terms of public policy a wide range of benefits can be and are backdated for the able bodied, and if a number of benefits relating to the disabled are also backdated, why is the old attendance allowance and mobility allowance (now the new DLA and DWA) not permitted to be backdated for good cause? The present situation is perverse and unfair. I hope the Minister will indicate that in future policy will rectify the situation. I beg to move.
9 p.m.
Lord Henley: There appears to be a mistake on the Marshalled List. The Committee has agreed that Clause 1 shall stand part of the Bill. Amendment No. 31 relates to Clause 1 but has mistakenly been listed as being in Clause 2. I do not blame the noble Baroness for that error but I must put it on the record.
The noble Baroness said that according to the OPCS survey a large number of people in the severest categories are not in receipt of attendance allowances to which they are entitled. I must remind the noble Baroness that the surveys were conducted in 1985, since when take-up has increased dramatically. Earlier I stressed the increased take-up of both the attendance allowance and the mobility allowance since 1979. We on this side of the Chamber are proud of that and no doubt Members on the other side will wish to reflect on the increase since they were then in government.
The question of backdating claims for disability allowance was debated at length in another place. It will be impossible for me to avoid repeating what was said by my right honourable friend the Minister of State on that occasion in resisting the amendment. However, I have positive comments to make which I hope will go some way to reassure the noble Baroness about our plans for dealing with claims for disability living allowance.
Determining entitlement over a past period for any benefit is never easy. But in respect of most benefits that decision usually hinges on facts which can be

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ascertained readily; for example, the date of leaving work, date of birth and so forth. The disability living allowance is not like that and there is no point in pretending otherwise. The questions of whether a person has care or mobility needs, at what level, when the needs first arose and whether they have become more serious require more sophisticated judgments.
To attempt to make such retrospective judgments the adjudication officer would need much more evidence than we plan to collect under the new self-assessment procedures. In particular, the officer would need to know when the claimant's circumstances first reached the point where he satisfied the conditions of entitlement. That is no easy task where many claimants are suffering from progressive disorders. In addition, the officer would need to know what prevented the claimant from making his claim at that time so that he could decide whether there was good cause for the delay.
I should therefore prefer to tackle the problem of late claims by more positive methods. I have no doubt that the more sensible way forward is to reject the amendment, leave the Bill unamended and instead to ensure high levels of public awareness about the benefit I through a well-targeted and extensive publicity campaign.
We recognise that an effective campaign—and by that I mean one that encourages disabled people to claim benefits and to claim them on time—must go much wider than traditional methods of publicity. We shall therefore be looking to use more targeted methods such as the extremely good publications which many voluntary organisations produce. Indeed I regard the role that the disability organisations and disabled people have to play in the planning and execution of the publicity campaign as crucial. That is why my department has already set up groups involving some of the organisations and disabled people themselves to help us plan and test the materials.
I am concerned, however, that once a person has decided to claim DLA he or she should not risk losing benefit because it takes time to marshall the evidence in support of the claim. In another place my right honourable friend the Minister of State indicated that the Government wished to consider more carefully a suggestion made by the Disability Alliance to avoid this difficulty.
I am now glad to be able to report that it is our intention to introduce a scheme very much as the Disability Alliance suggested: we intend to make generally available a short leaflet with a tear-off slip. This slip would be sent in by the claimant in order to obtain a claim pack. Assuming the completed pack was then returned within a reasonable time—perhaps a month or six weeks—the date of claim would be taken as the date of receipt of the tear-off slip. So the claimant could take time in filling in the claim form and in obtaining supplementary evidence without the fear of losing benefit. The adoption of this system underlines again the Government's willingness to listen to what the disability organisations have to say and to respond accordingly.
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I hope that what I have said about the difficulties which a backdating provision would present for the new assessment arrangements, together with the commitments I have given about publicising the new benefits and dealing with claims, will lead the noble Baroness to reconsider the need for this amendment.
Lord Mancroft: Whether one accepts the very strong arguments of the noble Baroness or rejects, which I do not, the argument of my noble friend, which I believe is very sound, the amendment is open ended. Presumably that means that a claimant could claim back five, 10, 15 or even 20 years because the amendment makes no mention of 12 months. Even if we accept the argument of the noble Baroness, we could not possibly accept this amendment as presently drafted.
Lord Henley: I believe that that is correct. However, whatever the length of time, it creates a very difficult job for adjudication officers in terms of the retrospective judgments which they would have to make about the state of a claimant two months, six months, a year or 10 years ago. There would also be the problem of deciding whether there was good cause for delay. However, as my noble friend says, this is a very open-ended amendment.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham: I am grateful for the Minister's reply. However, I wish to query the two main clusters of reason—facts and publicity —which he gave in suggesting to the Committee that it should reject the amendment.
The Minister suggested that other benefits were based on facts. Therefore, it was easy to ascertain when those benefits should run from and that investigation would be relatively easy. However, he suggested that that does not apply to these two benefits and, therefore, that was where the dividing line fell.
I do not believe that the Minister has met the case which I tried to advance—namely, that some of the benefits associated with disability—for example, invalidity benefit and severe disablement allowance —have exactly the same problems as the DLA and DWA as regards backdating.
I accept the Minister's case that, when one is in receipt of housing benefit and one's income suddenly falls, that is clear, factual and objective. However, other benefits where backdating is permitted do not have such a core of easily and publicly ascertainable facts. They rely on a method of self-assessment. That is found to be acceptable in other areas of public and social policy. If it is acceptable in such areas and the political will exists, then it is acceptable here. The issue is political will.
Secondly, the Minister said that he preferred to go down the route of high levels of publicity and targeting. That is welcome if targeting is targeting and not fine-tuning. However, the problem is that there is only a comprehensive take-up of benefits if they are universal. Clearly it is inappropriate to speak of universality of benefits when considering the disabled. However, the only benefits which have high take-up without stigma and where there is widespread

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information tend to be old age pensions and child benefit. That is because they are universal. Where there is a desire to have a clawback through the tax system, that is another argument.
These benefits continue to have a less than adequate take-up not just because they are targeted benefits which depend on prior knowledge of their existence but because the group which they are designed to aid —the disabled—are by definition less in the public arena where they may acquire that information which will allow them to take up the benefit.
I take up the point about posting the slips. However, that is a minimal concession. That will overcome some of the literal and physical problems of posting a claim in a post box. However, it does not address the issue that if one is in good health, one can be expected to know about benefits. If one then puts in a late claim because of ill health, that will be backdated. But if one is in ill health and is entitled to a benefit or seeking to receive a benefit to meet ill health, one is not entitled to back-date. That remains perverse and the Minister, I regret to say, has not answered that point. I have been wondering whether to press this amendment but, considering the point about open-endedness, it may be best to come back on this at Report stage. In that context I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
9.15 p.m.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees (Lord Ampthill): In view of the error in the Marshalled List I think I should once again put the Question that Clause 1, as amended, shall stand part of the Bill.
Clause 1, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 2 to 4 agreed to.
Schedule 1 [Management of disability living allowance and attendance allowance]:
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 32:
Page 20, leave out lines 6 to 12 and insert:

("100B.—(1) Subsections (2) and (4) of section 100A above shall apply to a decision on a review under subsection (1) of that section as they apply to a decision of an adjudication officer under section 99 above but as if the words "made after the end of the prescribed period" were omitted from each subsection.

(2) Subsections (1),(2) and (4) of section 100A above shall apply—

(a) to a decision on a review under subsection (2) or (4) of that section; and

(b) to a refusal to review a decision under subsection (2) or (4) of that section,

as they apply to a decision of an adjudication officer under section 99 above.").

The noble Lord said: In speaking to Amendment No. 32, I wish to speak also to Amendment No. 34. These are purely drafting amendments. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 33:
Page 23, line 18, at end insert ("or
(d) the decision was that a person is or was at any time terminally ill for the purposes of section 35(2B),
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37ZB(5) or 37ZC(8) above and there has been a change of medical opinion with respect to his condition or his reasonable expectation of life,").
The noble Lord said: This amendment simply corrects an omission in the Bill. Similar powers already exist elsewhere in the Bill for an adjudication officer to review on these grounds the earlier decision of an adjudication officer. This amendment ensures that an adjudication officer may be able to review such a decision when made by a social security or disability appeal tribunal or a commissioner. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: I understand that this is a drafting amendment but it refers to cases of people who are terminally ill but whose medical condition may show signs of improvement, although they in fact remain terminally ill. If the medical opinion changes, the person may lose his or her benefit even though, as a result of the medical condition, the person may not even be aware that he or she is in receipt of benefit. One can also think of remissions in cases of terminal cancer, for example. Is there a chance that a doctor may be reluctant to diagnose a person as being terminally ill if he thinks that his diagnosis could subsequently be challenged by the adjudication officer if the patient does show some sign of improvement even though he may still be terminally ill and it may be uncertain how long he has to live? I think there might be difficulties here. Have we misunderstood the point?
Lord Henley: I must stress that this amendment merely corrects an omission in the Bill and it is no way new policy. I am glad of the opportunity to reassure the noble Lord of our intentions. We certainly do not intend to seek to review cases simply because someone who has been awarded DLA or AA under the special rules lives a day longer than six months. Anyone who qualifies under the terminally ill rules will be entitled to that highest rate for care for life, whether weeks or months are involved.
Lord Swinfen: May I make just one point? I am wondering whether a doctor would be unwilling to diagnose someone as being terminally ill because that might frighten the individual concerned and it could have a very serious effect on his or her health. I wonder whether the noble Lord can say what would be the position in such a case.
Lord Henley: This has been a difficult subject. The noble Lord, I am sure, will remember our debates on the Social Security Bill last year. We are well aware of the sensitivity surrounding terminal illness and the important factor involved when the patient does not know he is terminally ill. I hope that doctors will also be sensitive to that and certainly in our claim forms we have made provision for this eventuality. I hope that that satisfies the noble Lord.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 34:
Page 23, leave out lines 38 to 40 and insert:
("(6) Subsections (1), (2) and (4) of section 100A above shall apply—

(a) to a decision on a review under this section; and

(b) to a refusal to review a decision such as is mentioned in subsection (1) above,

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as they apply to a decision of an adjudication officer under section 99 above.").
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 35:
Page 24, line 2, after (""(1) (bb)"") insert:
("(aa) in subsection (3A), "(3)" were substituted for "(2)";").
The noble Lord said: In moving Amendment No. 35, I should like to speak to Amendment No. 76 as well. These are merely technical drafting amendments, intended to clarify the Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 36:
Page 24, line 38, after ("refer") insert ("for advice").
The noble Lord said: This is simply a drafting amendment to clarify the text of this part of Schedule 1. I beg to move.
Earl Russell: I am sorry to raise this point, but we have h d a whole succession of amendments which are merely drafting amendments. I should be grateful if my noble kinsman would explain in a little more detail exactly what are the implications of this amendment.
Lord Henley: I shall be delighted to explain to my noble kinsman. This amendment clarifies that where an adjudication officer refers a DLA or attendance allowance case to a departmental doctor, this reference shall be for advice only. This puts beyond doubt the thrust of the new adjudication and assessment arrangements, which is that adjudication officers will be responsible for decision making, calling on readily available support and advice from departmental doctors where necessary.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth)Baroness Darcy (de Knayth) moved Amendment No. 37:
Page 25, line 48, at end insert ("and paramedical staff including qualified physiotherapists and occupational therapists.").
The noble Baroness said: In moving Amendment No. 37 I should like to speak also to Amendments Nos.38 and 39. I am delighted to say that they have all-party support. They deal with the composition of disability appeals tribunals. I say at once that this is a welcome part of the Bill in principle. It is the detail that we seek to improve. It is important to make absolutely sure that the members of a disability appeals tribunal have experience of dealing with the needs a disabled people. I am sure that we are all agreed on that.
However, as the Bill stands it is actually possible for a disability appeals tribunal to consist of a medical practitioner with no working knowledge of a claimant's disability, and a chairman and another member who have no knowledge of the needs of disabled people. That could lead to mistakes which adversely affect the claimant. The three amendments seek to ensure that such mistakes are avoided.
Amendment No. 37 aims to include paramedical staff on the medical panel; for example, physiotherapists and occupational therapists. They are often more in touch than medical practitioners with the
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day-to-day effects of various disabilities. Amendment No. 38 would ensure that at least one member of the tribunal was disabled. We are not asking that the member should have the same disability as the claimant, merely practical experience of daily living with a disability.
Finally, Amendment No. 39 seeks to ensure that the medical practitioner has a working knowledge of the claimant's disability. This is important in view of the attention paid to the opinion of the medically-qualified person on a medical or semi-medical matter, even when that person knows nothing about the particular disability of the claimant. Moves towards self-assessment and to "demedicalise" the assessment and adjudication procedure have been widely welcomed by disability organisations. The Minister himself spoke on the subject at Second Reading on 26th February. He also said at col. 886:
"We have listened carefully to what individual disabled people, their carers and their representative organisations have had to tell us about how claimants perceive the whole business of claiming disability benefits".
It would be illogical and sad if the aims of these welcome changes to assessment and adjudication could be frustrated by appeals tribunals where it was still possible to have the majority of members without a working knowledge of disability. I very much hope that the Minister, when he comes to reply, will be able to say that he has listened yet again and can respond positively to these amendments. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: I was glad to support these amendments to which I have added my name. Amendment No. 38 seeks to,
"ensure the appointment of a disabled person on each such tribunal".
If the Government feel that it is a good idea to have a disabled person on the tribunals we cannot see why the Bill has to say "have regard to the desirability" instead of saying, as the amendment does, "ensure the appointment of".
There is another reason why I should like to say a few words about Amendment No. 38. When I first entered the House in 1987, for some time afterwards I ran a campaign, with the able assistance of the noble Baroness and others. There was a standard phrase in the parliamentary draftsman's manual to be used describing in schedules the reasons for appointing or not appointing people to tribunals. There was always the standard phrase to exclude "anybody with a disability, or for any other reason". We managed to get this excluded from a number of Bills and we have not seen it for a long time now. I think it has disappeared from the standard draftsman's manual.
However, I wonder if the idea is still around. Old habits die hard. I see that when the amendment was moved in Committee in another place Miss Ann Widdecombe, the Under-Secretary of State, replied:
"Ensuring there was a disabled person could lead to unreasonable delay".
Mr. Scott, the Minister for Disabled People, when he was discussing the issue with the all-party disablement group, said that it was more likely that disabled people would be sick and not turn up and it

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would therefore be more difficult for replacement disabled people to be found. I know Mr. Scott well and that he has considerable understanding and sympathy for disabled people. Why he should have allowed himself to make such a remark I do not know. It is important that we strengthen the point that the tribunal should have a disabled person on it. I cannot see why the Government is unable to accept these amendments, particularly Amendment No. 38.
Baroness Seear: I support these amendments. It is very important that on these tribunals there should be a variety of people with a variety of experience and training. By itself, being a medical practitioner does not carry the certainty that there is such a range of experience. Including physiotherapists and occupational therapists and people who deal with different aspects of the problems of the disabled is very important indeed. I strongly support the amendments.
Lord Swinfen: I support the amendments. As the noble Baroness said when speaking to them, physiotherapists and occupational therapists, as a general rule, have a much better knowledge of physical disability in particular than have medical practitioners. It is interesting that in both Norwich and Southend, where John Groom's Association for the Disabled has in recent years opened homes for severely disabled people, they have had difficulty in finding medical practitioners who are willing to take disabled people on to their lists for the simple reason that they believe that they will have to spend far more time looking after them and that that will be a burdensome cost to the practice. That means that many medical practitioners have little or no real experience of disability and its effects on the disabled person. Therefore we must try to make certain that the medical practitioner has some genuine experience and knowledge so that he is of proper use to the panel. That is fairer to the claimants. Today it should not be difficult to find physically disabled people whose education and experience will suit them to sit on the panel. The situation may have been different years ago but not today. I am delighted to support all three amendments.
Lord Mancroft: My Lords, I am not a great expert on tribunals and who sits on them. It is very easy for me to see what the supporters of these amendments are aiming at; namely, that it is not simply the old-fashioned established medical person who should be on the panel, but experts who deal more closely with the disabled and their problems on a day-to-day basis. That is very good and the right way to proceed. What worries me is that we may be slightly over-egging the pudding and making matters too complicated. I wish to be corrected if I am wrong. Amendment No. 37 adds to "medical practitioners",
"paramedical staff including qualified physiotherapists and occupational therapists"—
that is, four people who may not all be easily available at one time. I see that the noble Lord, Lord Carter, is disagreeing with me. The way I read the amendment is that all those people have to be present. It would be a pity if one were to make the provision so
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complicated that it would be difficult to get all these people, including a disabled person, together on the tribunal. It would be difficult to assemble the tribunal quickly enough to make a judgment. It would be a pity to make the matter over-complicated. That is my only concern.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): Perhaps I may reply to the noble Lord on that matter. The tribunal will consist of three people; one drawn from the medical panel, one from the lay panel and the chairman.
Lord Henley: I thank the noble Baroness for tabling these amendments because they give me the opportunity to explain the Government's intentions for the disability appeal tribunals. I cannot recommend that the Committee accepts these amendments. I honestly believe that there is very little between us on this matter. I assure the noble Baroness that we fully recognise the important role that professionals such as physiotherapists and occupational therapists will have to contribute in terms of membership of DATs. Their experience of the difficulties faced by disabled people will be invaluable. We sincerely hope that in his recruitment of members for the second panel the president will include members of these professions. Indeed, that is more than a hope. I know that it is the intention of the tribunal president to do so. I hope that that is of some reassurance. I know that the amendment was designed to add such people to the first panel. But that would then mean that there could be DATs without a medical practitioner as one of the members. That runs the risk of the tribunals not having available someone who can interpret and advise on the medical evidence which DATs are inevitably going to use. In turn, that could result in adjournments which would not be a good service for disabled people.
The second of the amendments would ensure that a disabled person was appointed to each tribunal. I understand completely the sentiments behind this. No one could have a better understanding of the needs of disabled people than disabled people themselves. The provisions of the proposed Schedule 10A make clear that the Government recognise how essential it is that as many disabled people as possible are included in the panels and on the individual tribunals. In no fewer than three places the schedule makes reference to the membership of disabled people. However, we need to recognise the practical difficulties which the president may face in setting up DATs. Early planning suggests that each panel may need to consist of something approaching 1,000 people. That is a considerable task that we have set the president, Judge Holden. These are largely uncharted waters. There are risks that if we are too prescriptive about the membership of DATs, as my noble friend Lord Mancroft said, we shall just end up with massive delays initially, which again is not the standard of service for which we are aiming.
9.30 p.m.
Lord Carter: The noble Lord has referred many times to the OPCS survey. Having revealed that there are 6.5 million disabled people, will it be that hard to find a disabled person to serve on a tribunal?
Lord Henley: What I was trying to say is that the amendments as drafted are too prescriptive. It depends on how the noble Lord would want to define disabled people and whether he would just define them by means of the 6.5 million in the OPCS survey. It is asking a good deal of Judge Holden to be absolutely sure that he has the requisite number. I was saying that these ate uncharted waters. The position may be different in other parts of the country.
As I was saying, there are risks that if we are too prescriptive serious delays might result. What the Bill does is to make quite clear the ideal that at least one disabled person should be on every DAT. It is for the president—it is far better for the president to do this than the Bill itself—to deliver that ideal to the best of his organisation's ability.
There are practical considerations to be taken into account with the third amendment also. I fear it would present the president with an impossible task in matching knowledge with disability. Perhaps I can allay concerns about the scope of knowledge of the medical practitioner by saying that it is our hope—it is a hope which is shared by Judge Holden—that the vast majority of medical practitioners on DATs will be general practitioners rather than the consultants who currently serve on medical appeal tribunals dealing with mobility allowance. This change in approach emerged from responses to last year's consultation exercise, where the point was made that what is needed is not specialist knowledge but rather a broad appreciation of the difficulties faced by disabled people, combined with an ability to understand what may sometimes be complex medical evidence.
Perhaps I may now say a few words on the role of medical practitioners on DATs. I appreciate that many of the qualms that people have about doctors on tribunals stem from the medical examinations and "walking tests" which are conducted routinely by medical appeal tribunals. That is not what we would want to happen for the new benefits. We have made clear that in future we do not want to place such a heavy reliance on what must inevitably be snap-shot examinations. Instead, the emphasis must be put on the evidence supplied by the claimant and those best placed to know the continuing effect that his condition has upon his life.
In view of the comments which I have made, I am willing to consider whether it would be possible to make an amendment to the Bill which prevents members of the DAT conducting such routine examinations and tests, while ensuring that the processes are in place which guard against undue delay because there is insufficient medical evidence available in the DAT. I shall consider the matter further with a view to returning on Report with proposals as regards the issue relating to medical practitioners being on the tribunals. In the light of the explanations and assurances which I have given, I hope that the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw her amendment.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I thank the Minister for what he said. I should also like to thank those who supported the amendment. I believe that over one-third of those present in the Chamber actually
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spoke in its favour, although that observation may perhaps be a reflection on the quantity of Members in the Committee at present. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, does not think that we are over egging the pudding. My intention was to put the OTs and the physiotherapists on the medical panel. I believe that what the Minister said in response to the first amendment—namely, that he was going to put the OTs and physiotherapists on the lay panel—shows how much importance is attached to the medical practitioner.
I am still unable to accept that one cannot have a disabled person on each panel. I am not quite sure about the Minister's argument as regards delays. I do not believe that he is arguing illness as was the case in another place.
Lord Henley: Perhaps I may clarify the matter. I was certainly not putting forward illness as an argument. Indeed, I was at great pains to stress during the passage of the Statutory Sick Pay Bill through this place that disabled people generally have much lower levels of sickness than other people. The argument concerns delays in the initial composition of the panel. We see it as an ideal and Judge Holden accepts that fact. However, we believe that what the noble Baroness is trying to achieve is too prescriptive.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): The Minister has almost taken the robust words he used during the passage of the Statutory Sick Pay Bill out of my mouth. They were certainly written down in my notes to quote back at him if his argument was based upon illness. I am delighted that he accepts that point. However, I wonder whether he would agree to meet with me and discuss the matter so that I know exactly what is in his mind as regards his proposed amendment. In other words, can we have a little talk between now and the next stage of the Bill's proceedings about his proposal?
Lord Henley: I can certainly give the noble Baroness that assurance. If she would like to meet me at Richmond House, she could then verify whether the accommodation and access for the disabled are suitable for her own wheelchair.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I would be delighted to do so. However, can he say whether the conditions have been improved since the occasion of my last visit?
Lord Henley: I cannot answer that question as I am not sure when the noble Baroness last visited Richmond House.
Baroness Darcy (de Knayth): I am most grateful to the Minster for what he has said. In the circumstances, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendments Nos. 38 and 39 not moved.]
Schedule 1, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 2 [Disability living allowance and attendance allowance: amendments]:
Lord Carter Lord Carter moved Amendment No. 40:
Page 26, line 38, leave out ("at the higher rate").
The noble Lord said: The purpose of this amendment is to exempt the people in receipt of the

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new lower rate of the mobility component from vehicle excise duty. Recipients of the full rate of mobility allowance are exempt from the duty. Vehicle excise duty is payable by able-bodied motorists in order to pay for the use of roads. Essentially, able-bodied motorists have a choice between the use of their car, upon which they pay the VED, or the use of public transport. However, because public transport is largely inaccessible to disabled people they do not have that choice. Therefore, the logical argument is that they should not have to pay the excise duty. The logic of the argument has been recognised by the exemption of those who receive the higher rate.
As I said, the purpose of the amendment is to extend the existing remission to those people who are in receipt of the lower rate. The cost to the Government of making such an extension would be small. In fact, I believe that the argument would appeal to the noble Earl, Lord Russell: it would not be direct expenditure, it would simply be money which was not recouped by taxation. Indeed, it could be said in terms of public expenditure, "Now you see it, now you don't".
Bearing in mind the fact that the rate of benefit for the lower component is just £10—in other words, hardly enough to pay for taxis or a car for someone who is not independently mobile—we feel that it is appropriate to extend the relief from excise duty to people who are receiving the lower rate. The fact that such people cannot qualify for the higher rate of mobility allowance does not mean that they will automatically be able to use public transport. Indeed, the need for a car can be just as great with challenging behaviour as for those with a physical disability.
While we are talking about excise duty, there was a leader in The Times which repeated the arguments that have been made many times for the abolition of excise duty and its replacement with an increase in the tax on petrol. It prompted a lady from Menai Bridge in Gwynedd who is in receipt of mobility allowance to point out that one aspect not mentioned in that approach to the abolition of excise duty is that,
"currently recipients of Mobility Allowance are not required to pay car tax, and would therefore be penalised to the tune of £100 which most of them can ill afford".
Perhaps the Minister will also respond to that point because it is linked with what we are discussing.
The purpose of the amendment is, as I said, to exempt people in receipt of the new and lower rate of mobility component from excise duty and the remission which already exists for those in receipt of the higher rate. I beg to move.
Lord Henley: The noble Lord will not expect me to comment on any claims made in leaders in The Times that vehicle excise duty might be abolished. He should remember that vehicle excise duty is not primarily a responsibility of social security Ministers. It is a matter for my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer. It would be wrong for me to comment at this stage of the year. Nevertheless the department takes a keen interest in ensuring that those people whose mobility is severely restricted are helped
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as much as possible with normally inescapable motoring charges. To that end the Government have been successful in establishing receipt of mobility allowance as a passport to exemption from vehicle excise duty.
It is a matter of some pleasure to note that, like mobility allowance, since 1979 there has been an enormous increase in the number benefiting from the exemption. I can well see the noble Lord's argument that mobility allowance as it currently stands is a convenient proxy to identifying those people who merit road tax exemption and that the introduction of the lower rate therefore provides the Government with an opportunity to extend that exemption. Obviously any arrangement must be open to change. Nonetheless, I can see a clear distinction between the case for exemption for those currently in receipt of mobility allowance and that for the people whom we anticipate will be helped by the new lower rate mobility component.
I hope that the noble Lord will agree that inability, or virtual inability, to walk often obliges mobility allowance recipients to use their own private and adapted transport on the roads, either as drivers or as disabled passengers. Such individuals often find the use of public transport impossible. It is because their freedom of choice for mobility is restricted that they are in practice not taxed. However, the new lower rate is aimed not at people who cannot walk or use public transport but at those who require guidance or supervision for most of the time. Consequently, those freedoms of choice in exercising mobility will not be so severely curtailed.
Of course the new lower rate will inevitably leave some people with severe disabilities on one side of the line. I do not want to go into again the philosophy behind the introduction of the lower rate, but I believe that that approach has some justification, which I hope the noble Lord will accept. I can assure him that I have taken careful note of the points he made, but I must ask him to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Carter: Some time before we finish with the Bill in this House we should add up all the differences in the criteria between the two components and the parts of those components in the new simplified benefit. I understand what the Minister said, and I shall read it with care. In the meantime, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Baroness Seear Baroness Seear moved Amendment No. 41:
Page 27, line 23, at beginning insert:
("(1) In section 37(1) of that Act (Invalid Care Allowance) after the words "severely disabled person" shall be added the words "or persons" and after the words "that person" shall be added the words "or persons". (2)").
The noble Baroness said: Amendment No. 41 is grouped with Amendment No. 42, so with the leave of the Committee I shall speak to both of them at the same time although they deal with different points, linked only by the fact that they are both concerned with invalid care allowance. As the Committee is aware, the invalid care allowance is the one allowance which goes to the person who does the caring. The

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other benefits which we have discussed have been quite properly in the interests of the people in need of care. The invalid care allowance is intended for the person who loses time and usually also work, and therefore pay or earnings and very often pensions prospects, by virtue of the caring they have to do.
I find one provision extraordinary. It must be an oversight. The Bill says quite understandably that the 35 hours a week must be devoted to caring. Some limit must be set and 35 hours is acceptable, although we could argue about it. However, that is not the purpose of the amendment. What I find extraordinary is the requirement that the 35 hours must be devoted to one person. If someone is caring, they lose time caring and it is quite irrelevant whether they are doing it for one person or two.
It is not at all uncommon that a woman—it could be a man but it is usually a woman, a daughter—finds herself with two increasingly doddery old parents. One may be rather blind, the other slightly paralysed. They are both able to do a certain amount for themselves but they need a great deal of time and attention. The person may be running around after both of them, helping them to dress, concerned with the important business of preparing meals and all the other tasks they have to carry out. This may add up—and there is no argument under the Bill that this may be so—to 35 or more hours a week.
Because the carer is devoting the time to both parents instead of one, why on earth she cannot have the invalid care allowance passes my understanding. If she spends 35 hours a week or more on caring, regardless of whether she is looking after a father and a mother, a couple of old aunts or whoever it is, logically the important point is that she is losing this time, giving it up and losing the opportunity to earn or do whatever she wishes with her time. The fact that it concerns two people and not one seems logically to make not the slightest difference. The point of the amendment is to remove the provision that she can only receive the allowance provided she shows that she spends 35 hours on one person. This must be an oversight. I cannot see the sense of it at all.
Perhaps it would save time if I dealt also with Amendment No. 41, although it is not the same. I should declare an interest here as president of the Carers National Association. Under this amendment, the carer is able to obtain the invalid care allowance—and it is more often a man than the Committee might expect—only if the person whom they are looking after comes into the two higher categories. It is not available for the lower category. The conditions for people in the lower category are pretty discouraging for the carer. They are concerned with bodily functions and attention from another person for a significant proportion of the day, whether during a single period or a number of periods. That can add up to quite a number of hours over the week by the time one has done it often every day.
Then we come back to the meal which invalids are unable to cook for themselves, which presumably means that the carer is expected to cook a meal every day. We argued about how much we knew about that
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earlier today. It is not cooked in a few moments, and if it has to be done every day for people in the lower category, and if the carer has to run round coping with all the disabled person's bodily needs, which, as the category states in the Bill, may be frequent, the time will reach nearly 35 hours.
Once again, there is confusion about the problems of the carer as distinct from the people being cared for. There is the loss of time in regard to the invalid care allowance. The time burden on the carer can be just as great and reach the 35 hours for the lower rate. The carer may not have to carry out quite such serious tasks. The burden may not be so great in the sense of severity, but it can be great in time. It is the time devoted by the carer, not the condition of the person being cared for, that should surely be relevant in determining whether an invalid care allowance should be awarded. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: I wish to support these amendments. In this morning's copy of The Times a word that was new to me appeared in a football report. The word is "incohension". I can only define that as a combination of a lack of cohesion and incomprehension. I have been looking for a chance to use it. The Government's attitude on this matter is a classic example of "incohension". As the noble Baroness has said, it makes no sense at all to restrict the invalid care allowance to a person who is caring for one person. We hope the Minister can explain why that is the case. Further, I understand that the ICA is not available if the person being cared for is on the lower rate of the care component.
In Standing Committee in another place the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Social Security, Miss Widdicombe, argued,
"there is no link between ICA and the new lower rate either in terms of the purpose for which the benefit is paid or in terms of objective need … ICA is intended only for those for whom being a carer is effectively a full-time occupation. To qualify they must spend at least 35 hours a week caring for a disabled person".
If one spends 35 hours a week caring for a disabled person on the lower rate, one apparently fits that description. I suspect that the real reason for this provision is cost. However, will the Minister explain, other than in terms of cost, why the ICA is not available for carers who are looking after people who qualify for the lower rate?
Lord Henley: I am glad the noble Lord had the opportunity to introduce that marvellous new word. "Incohension" no doubt describes admirably the policies of the noble Lord's party. I shall deal with the two amendments in the order in which they appear on the Marshalled List; that is, I shall deal with Amendment No. 41 first and then Amendment No. 42. However, I believe the noble Baroness spoke to the amendments the other way round.
These amendments seek to extend entitlement to ICA to a different group from the current client group. At present there is a very strong link between ICA and AA, which we have carried forward in this Bill by tying receipt of ICA to the higher two rates of the care component. This reflects what has always been the acknowledged purpose of ICA, which is to extend

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some help to those for whom caring is a full-time occupation. This amendment would bring people for whom caring is a more informal occupation into entitlement. Whether that is the right course raises important considerations of principle and equity. Just as importantly, we need to consider whether any such provision could be made to work.
The principle behind ICA is that of providing some help for those whose main occupation is caring for a severely disabled person; and it is linked to the disabled person's entitlement to AA—or in future to the equivalent rates of the care component in DLA. These are the carers who have to be our primary concern. I have no shame in saying that. It is a matter of priorities.
We should look too at the actual need for care. As the noble Baroness is well aware, we intend the lowest rate of the DLA care component to go to people whose care needs are not at all of the same magnitude as those of people who qualify for one of the higher rates. Perhaps I may turn the issue round. If we are looking at a disabled person who requires so much looking after that it is a full-time occupation for his carer, then that is not the sort of person who will be coming onto the new lower rate of the DLA care component. A person who is that severely disabled should be receiving one of the higher rates. Generally speaking, caring for people receiving the lowest rate, for however many hours a week, will be a much less onerous task than looking after a very severely disabled person. It is likely to involve lighter tasks, such as helping a person in or out of bed, helping with bathing or with a course of medicines, or, as the noble Baroness suggested, with the abstract test of preparing a meal.
To address the second amendment specifically, we appreciate that someone who has to care for two or more disabled members of their household, all of whom qualify for the lower rate, could be in a more difficult position. We recognise that there is a genuine point here, and we have undertaken to see whether anything could be done. This is not an easy nut to crack. It would be hard to distinguish between the types of care activities which would warrant the award of ICA and those which form the normal activities of a household. We would also be targeting a very small group, and that in itself could cause difficulties.
Nonetheless, we recognise the immense value of the work done by informal carers, who give their services in a wide variety of ways. I cannot at this stage guarantee any action but I assure the noble Baroness that we shall keep the matter in view as we strive to ensure that provision for carers meets the needs of people who undertake those important responsibilities.
I hope that with that assurance the noble Baroness will feel able to withdraw the amendment.
Lord Swinfen: Earlier, my noble friend gave an undertaking in respect of severe disablement allowance to cater for the needs of between five and 10 people. I believe that he will agree that figure. The amendment moved by the noble Baroness will cater for far more than five or 10 people. It may be a small
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number of people but if my noble friend can bring in regulations, as he has promised, which will help from five to 10 people, I am sure that he or his advisers can devise a method for helping the rather larger group of individuals who are looking after more than one person in the family.
Lord Henley: I do not accept my noble friend's point. In announcing that concession to my noble friend, I was referring to a group which is very easily defined, the wives of servicemen. That is a group which is much easier to define than the group to which the noble Baroness referred.
Earl Russell: I appreciate the problem of priorities but my noble kinsman has not explained to the Committee precisely what the priorities are which make him regard the amendment as a low priority. If one is dismissing something as a low priority one has to explain that it is because something else is a higher priority. We are entitled to hear what it is.
Although we need to consider priorities and costs it creates problems if one applies either of those criteria to an extent which destroys the logic of the benefit. The logic of the benefit here is that the invalid care allowance is given because of the consumption of the carer's time up to an amount of 35 hours a week. So far as I can see, my noble friend is quite right. That is equally true whether one is caring for one person or for two or whether one is caring for someone who is receiving the allowance at the higher rate or at the lower. It is just as much an occupation of time and therefore just as much within what I cannot describe as the meaning of the Act but might describe as the equity of the Act.
Lord Henley: I am grateful to my noble kinsman for suggesting something that does not involve increased expenditure of money but somehow saves us money. I have said that we will keep the matter under review. I have accepted that there could be problems here. It is a very difficult problem to get round. I do not think that I can take the matter further.
Baroness Seear: In view of what the noble Lord has said and the lateness of the hour, I shall not press the amendment. I shall wait to hear what the noble Lord says at Report stage. If what he says at Report stage is no better than what he has said today I shall certainly press a similar amendment at that stage. Meanwhile, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
[Amendment No. 42 not moved.]
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 43:
Page 29, line 8, leave out paragraph 14 and insert:
("14. The words "(other than attendance allowance and disability living allowance)" shall be inserted—

(a) in section 52(3) of the 1986 Act (adjudication as to income-related benefits) after the words "benefit under that Act"; and

(b) at the end of paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 7 to that Act (adjudication as to certain former benefits).").

The noble Lord said: This is a purely consequential amendment. I beg to move.
Lord Skelmersdale: Although this is a consequential amendment, perhaps I may take the opportunity

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to ask my noble friend to investigate —I do not ask him to give an answer now—why the 1986 Act, referred to in Schedule 2, on page 29 of this Bill, is the only Act not to have its chapter number.
Lord Henley: My noble friend will understand that I cannot answer immediately, but I shall certainly investigate the matter to which my noble friend has pointed and write to him.
Lord Skelmersdale: I thank my noble friend.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 44:
Page 29, leave out lines 25 to 28.
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendment No. 82. These are consequential amendments which result from the dissolution of the attendance allowance. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 45:
Page 30, line 10, at end insert:
("Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (c.41)
.In Schedule 11 to the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (judges etc barred from legal practice) the following entry shall be substituted for the entry beginning "President of Social Security Appeal Tribunals"—
"President of social security appeal tribunals, medical appeal tribunals and disability appeal tribunals or regional or other full-time chairman of such tribunals".").
The noble Lord said: This amendment is entirely consequential on the introduction of the Bill. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
Schedule 2, as amended, agreed to.
Clause 5 [Regulations supplementary to ss. 1 to 4]:
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 46:
Page 8, line 35, leave out ("a disability living allowance") and insert ("one or more disability living allowances;").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 47, 48, 49 and 50. This batch of rather complex amendments has a simple purpose; namely, to avoid problems with aligning award periods in existing cases in the first year after DLA comes into operation.
As I explained in the context of earlier amendments on Clause 1, the Government believe that the alignment of award periods is right in principle and offers real advantages to claimants in terms of reducing the number of times that their cases need to be reassessed. However, we have looked carefully at the situations which may arise in transferring existing attendance allowance and mobility allowance cases to disability living allowance and have concluded that some problems might arise if awkward periods are aligned at the outset. We think that the solution is to defer alignment in these cases until April 1993. There is no disadvantage to claimants in treating the two components separately for an initial period.
I hope that the Committee accepts my explanation. I beg to move.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: Does the noble Lord wish to move Amendments Nos. 47 to 50 en bloc?
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendments Nos. 47 to 50:
Page 8, line 36, leave out ("consisting") and insert:
("(bb) may direct that a disability living allowance so treated as having been awarded shall consist").
Page 8, line 41, leave out ("so treated as having been made").
Page 8, line 42, at end insert:
("(cc) may direct that in specified circumstances a person whose award of disability living allowance has been terminated by virtue of the regulations shall by virtue of the regulations be treated as having been granted a further award of a disability living allowance consisting of such component as the regulations may specify or, if the regulations so specify, of both components, and as having been awarded on the further award either component at such weekly rate and for such period as the regulations may specify;").
Page 8, line 43, leave out ("such awards") and insert ("awards made by virtue of paragraph (b) or (cc) above").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendment No. 51:
Page 9, line 15, after second ("made;") insert:
("(hh) may direct that in specified circumstances a claim for attendance allowance, mobility allowance or disability living allowance shall be treated as not having been made;").
The noble Lord said: In moving this amendment I shall speak also to Amendments Nos. 52 to 54. The aim of these amendments is to avoid the need to duplicate action on claims for disability living allowance, attendance allowance or mobility allowance. I beg to move.
Lord Carter: I have been asked to ask whether the Minister could either write to me or perhaps tell the Committee now what is meant in Amendment No. 51 by the words "specified circumstances". That seems a little mysterious.
Lord Henley: I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me but I think it would be best if I write to him.
On Question, amendment agreed to.
The Deputy Chairman of Committees: The noble Lord has spoken to Amendments Nos. 52 to 54. Is it his wish to move them en bloc?
Lord Henley Lord Henley moved Amendments Nos. 52 to 54:
Page 9, line 15, after second ("made;") insert:
("(hj) may direct that in specified circumstances where a person claims attendance allowance or mobility allowance or both, and also claims disability living allowance his claims may be treated as a single claim for such allowances for such periods as the regulations may specify;").
Page 9, line 15, leave out ("and").
Page 9, line 18, at end insert ("and
(k) may direct that, at a time before the Attendance Allowance Board is dissolved, in specified circumstances cases relating to attendance allowance shall be subject to adjudication under the system of adjudication for such cases introduced by this Act.").
On Question, amendments agreed to.
Clause 5, as amended, agreed to.
Viscount Astor: I beg to move that the House do now resume.
Moved accordingly, and, on Question, Motion agreed to.
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House resumed.
House adjourned at four minutes past ten o'clock.